{"id":41086,"date":"2019-10-23T15:50:26","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T13:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grapheine.com\/?p=41086"},"modified":"2019-10-27T20:38:05","modified_gmt":"2019-10-27T18:38:05","slug":"wally-olins-father-of-territoty-branding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grapheine.com\/en\/history-of-graphic-design\/wally-olins-father-of-territoty-branding","title":{"rendered":"Wally Olins, father of territory branding"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Born in 1930, Wally Olins<\/strong> is a British designer who created the concept of territory branding<\/strong>. Through his branding consulting work, he brought to Britain and the world the idea that brand identity is of paramount importance, and that it shapes everything that organizations do and say about themselves. He worked with Renault, Orange, Tate Modern, Volkswagen, 3i, Tata, Q8 and many other companies<\/a>. Since his death in 2014, his agency Wolff Olins has produced, among other things, the new uber<\/a> and Met Museum logos in New York.
\nIn 2011, we had the opportunity to interview him and ask him questions about territorial branding. This exclusive post-mortem interview<\/strong> is revealed at the end of the article.<\/p>\n

The birth of territorial identities<\/h2>\n

Wallace -Wally- Olins, English by birth, grew up in the capital before studying history at St Peter's College of Oxford. He none the less began his career at the Ogilvy and Mather advertising agency in Mumbai, India, as a director, where he spent 5 years. He quickly became interested in brand image even before the term existed and developed a taste for this advertising branch, consisting in building a lasting reputation for a brand or a company<\/strong>. Wally Olins soon made a name in this field and interested more and more companies and NGOs, for which he worked hand in hand with the directors.<\/p>\n

Olins was convinced that companies must be involved in this search for identity, and not just relayed to the level of observer. A keen traveller, he worked in Northern Ireland, Mauritius, Poland, Lithuania and Bengal. He thereby helped regions, communities and states to find their image<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A pioneer genius in territorial identity and brand image<\/strong>, he co-founded Wolff Olins<\/a> with Michael Wolff in 1965 on his return to London, and Saffron Brand Consultants<\/a> in 2001. He could thus make his mark in territory design. He worked for instance on the Polish identity campaign<\/strong> or the visual identity of \u00d8resund, the bridge and tunnel linking Denmark to Sweden. But his job as a business consultant mainly involved working for increasingly large companies, with many subsidiaries no longer linked to their parent company. By creating meaning and connection between these subsidiaries and their headquarters, Wolff Olins created what would later be called \"brand architecture<\/strong>\". No matter if you call it brand design, brand identity or reputation, Olins points out that it all comes down to the same thing, that \"it's the way companies present themselves. \u00bb<\/p>\n

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Inspiration<\/h3>\n

He is said to have found a great source of inspiration in the New York school's abstract expressionist art movements of the 1940s and 1950s, especially the Colour Field<\/strong> (worn by Rothko) with its large canvases covered in full-colour tints. In these paintings, colour brings out its pure qualities in the canvas as a flat field of view, with no subject or central point. The absence of relief and the central importance given to colour contrast with the figurative movements of the beginning of the century.<\/p>\n