Review: Branding: In Five and a Half Steps

Branding: In Five and a Half Steps by Michael Johnson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book’s greatest strength and weakness is the same thing. It is a well-designed, easy-to-read book that covers branding with a balanced mix of practical tips, theoretical ideas and examples that illustrate the points. In that, it covers everything it needs to cover in a beautiful package (oh my god, the book is so well-designed, from the fonts and the cover to the images and the layout).

On the other hand, that also means that the book falls just short if you’re looking for complexity and depth in any one of these areas. You will not find hands-on exercises that help you understand technique better or plethoras of practical tips. You will not find detailed theoretical explanations for how branding works. You will not find in-depth case-studies that explore successes and failures of specific projects.

But then, that is kind of the point. If you’re looking for any of those things, find a book that does that. This is more of an broad, well-rounded, beautifully designed exploration of the process of branding. The lack of depth can easily be solved through some self-paced supplementation. If you find an example you like, study it deeply. That’s just something you have to do to get the most out of this.

Overall, it’s focus is on the generalisations. On the ideas that apply across branding projects for all organisations, large and small, profit-based and governmental. In that, the book succeeds.

So, it’s a very specific type of book. If you wanna get a ground-floor understanding of branding, it’s definitely for you. It’s very general, it covers its bases but only just. It’s beautiful.

P.S. The steps themselves are really wide. And it’s not really 5 (and a half) steps. It’s more, 2 broad steps (strategy and design), with there being 2 distinct steps for strategy and...well, the 3 design steps are not as distinct, much more merged together. Still, it’s a good layout and it helps understand the process he’s talking about.

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