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Many companies today have a series of children companies, products or services that are worthy of their own website. The challenge many companies face is finding a way to tie all of their children sites together.
Below we will explore some approaches to tying a series of websites together.
How EllisLab Handles Family Branding
EllisLab, a recognized technology company, initiates a cohesive look among its products and services with a consistent logo style.
The common styles include:
- the use of the same font
- the use of italics
- a symbol followed by a name
- a somewhat flat simple logo shape
- a white font
They then take creating a cohesive look a step further by using a common layout style on each of the sites
Some of the common layout features include:
- the same tabbed navigation
- the same logo placement
- the same placement of login/register links
- a large visual under the tabbed navigation
- a fixed width layout on a dark background
Finally Ellislab makes sure that its easy to return to the parent site by consistently placing a tab with a link in the upper right hand corner of each website.
How Hershey’s Handles Family Branding
While Hershey’s lets all of its products and corresponding websites have a unique look and logo, they tie their family of websites together with a bar at the top of the page and product finder at the bottom of the page.
Below are glimpses of the “hershey bar” applied to a couple of their websites. One advantage of this top bar is the ability to quickly click to any of the pages found on the parent Hershey’s site.
To easily navigate between the product sites Hershey’s also provides a product navigator at the bottom of each product site.
How Kellogg’s Handles Family Branding
Kellogg’s takes the more subtle approach of the examples featured here. They add the parent branding by simply putting the Kellogg’s logo in the top left corner of the product logo.
Kellogg’s more subtle branding commonalities include:
- the use of vibrant, somewhat primary, colors
- all of the logos are text outline in color
- the overall style of each site is playful and fun
- generous use of sound and animation
How to Maintain Cohesive Parent Branding
Once you have decided upon an approach to drawing a common thread between the parent and children websites, is it good practice to write a style guide that documents each of the design elements that should appear consistently across the sites.
Each company can then follow the design process to identify their unique themes while maintaining the unified look dictated by the style guide.
