Corporate identity: clarifying the concept
There are divergent views within the literature as to what is meant by corporate
identity. In this article the authors refer to three main developments in the area
which variously equate corporate identity with graphic design, with integrated
corporate communication and last, with a multidisciplinary approach which
draws heavily on organizational behaviour. Each of the three approaches has
tended to follow a separate line of development and it would appear that the
literature on each of the three strands has started to reach maturity.
Increasingly, writers are drawing on several of these strands and this has led to
a multidisciplinary approach. The characteristics of each of the three
aforementioned strands will be discussed in the next section.
Corporate identity: the graphic design paradigm
Originally, corporate identity was synonymous with organizational