The Dutch design and brand­ing firm Total Design was founded in 1963 by Wim Crouwel, Benno Wiss­ing en Friso Kramer. Total design focuses their busi­ness on total brand­ing of an orga­ni­za­tion, ser­vice or a prod­uct, mean­ing every level of visual com­mu­ni­ca­tion should be accord­ing to what Total Design had thought out in a con­cise and con­sis­tent out­put. Since the startup Total Design man­aged to cre­ate many dif­fer­ent new iden­ti­ties for dif­fer­ent cor­po­ra­tions and became ‘famous’ when they designed the Dutch Yel­low pages. In 2000 Total Design changed their name to Total Iden­tity because that is what they stand for. Now they have pub­lished a book named ‘iden­tity 2.0′ as follow-up title of the (sold out) book Total design.

Iden­tity 2.0

The book has a bright red cover with high con­trast let­ter­ing IDENTITY 2.0, with this very pow­er­ful cover the tone is set for the rest of the book. This is not only a book about show­cas­ing work Total Iden­tity made, it is a book about iden­tity in its broad per­spec­tive.
In the intro­duc­tion of iden­tity 2.0 the man­ag­ing direc­tor Hans Brandt talks about the influ­ence of inter­ac­tion in work­ing and con­sumer sides of life, where the indi­vid­ual roles within cor­po­ra­tions and envi­ron­ment will become more as one and how do com­pa­nies play a role in cre­at­ing an (human) expe­ri­ence to make their ambi­tion. Iden­tity 2.0 is a col­lec­tions of thoughts from per­sons within the net­work of Total Iden­tity, how does the future look like and do we have the power to change this in our own define ways of think­ing. A new and fresh per­spec­tive for brand­ing and visual com­mu­ni­ca­tion for organizations.

Com­mu­ni­cate through Identity

The book con­nects iden­tity to social life and eco­nomic top­ics. Many of the writ­ten arti­cles are empow­ered with illus­tra­tions and dia­grams to explain how iden­tity reflects the inner orga­ni­za­tion by antic­i­pa­tion. Iden­tity 2.0 looks at the cur­rent and future issues that influ­ence orga­ni­za­tions. The psy­cho­log­i­cal fac­tor behind iden­tity is pub­lished in short arti­cles and will give you insight in brand­ing, human behav­ior and visual com­mu­ni­ca­tion. I found read­ing these parts of the book very inter­est­ing and a great learn­ing pro­ces. This is not about design­ing a folder, web­site or sig­nage, instead this is about set­ting a stan­dard for the brand and visual com­mu­ni­ca­tion of a orga­ni­za­tion, ser­vice or a product.

Essays and cases

Iden­tity 2.0 con­sists of a hard cover, con­tain­ing 229 pages all with full color pho­tos, bright col­ors and strong mes­sages. Although it looks heavy it actu­ally has a nice feel and pages flip very eas­ily. The used type­face is One­liner, a cus­tom cre­ated sans type­face for Total Iden­tity by Aad van Dom­me­len. The book addresses var­i­ous top­ics including:

• The Expres­sive Organization
• Inno­va­tion
• Labour Mar­ket Communication
• Cor­po­rate Social Responsibility
• Entre­pre­neur­ship in Service-Oriented Organizations
• Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Patient
• Sce­nario Communication
• Fusion of Brand and Corporation

Design & Branding

Iden­tity 2.0 has sev­eral top­ics on the visual aspect of brand­ing and how design can work in the advan­tage of cre­at­ing an social envi­ron­ment. Through adding social ele­ments in design the brand­ing will become a feel­ing which peo­ple can relate to. The book also talks about sus­tain­abil­ity and brand­ing and how it will enhance each other for a stronger brand. I very much enjoyed the vari­ety of top­ics in Iden­tity 2.0 which will give you a broad per­spec­tive of brand­ing and visual com­munca­tion which can be adapted in your own envi­ron­ment. The book con­tains con­tri­bu­tions from Pen­tas­cope, Boston Con­sult­ing Group, Twi­jn­stra Gudde and many many more. It is avail­able in both Dutch and Eng­lish language.

Avail­abil­ity of Iden­tity 2.0

The book Iden­tity 2.0 is pub­lished via BIS Pub­lish­ers in Ams­ter­dam, avail­able for Eur. 65,- Hard­cov­ered with a dust jacket, dimen­sions 28 x 21,5 cm. The Dutch ver­sions comes with a lis­ten­ing CD.

• Visit the BIS Pub­lish­ers shop for Eng­lish, ISBN 978–90-6369–183-7
• Visit the BIS Pub­lish­ers shop for Dutch, ISBN 978–90-6369–184-4

More infor­ma­tion

See more infor­ma­tion about Wim Crouwel at this wikipedia page and visit the cor­po­rate web­site of Total Iden­tity for more infor­ma­tion about their book and cases.
When you are into brand­ing and visual com­mu­ni­ca­tion I would rec­om­mend read­ing this book, I found it very use­ful and full of inspi­ra­tion. As the pre­vi­ous book, I believe Iden­tity 2.0 will set a new stan­dard in brand­ing and all of its related factors.

As I am search­ing for words to describe this book only this came up… Iden­tity 2.0!