The world of brand extends to crime-fighting.
In our history, we’ve consulted for various police agencies, patrol and security groups, building brands around protection of assets, people and their communities. It takes a particularly assertive sense of presence—something, as a brand that is, shall we say, gripping and powerful.
Things go around, and they come back, like our donated effort for the branding of Crime Stoppers. We designed this years ago; and I’d forgotten about it, then it came back in the form of a King County Sheriff promotion with Burien Chevrolet.
What I know about crime-fighting leadership in US scenarios, is in a sequence of conversations with deputies, sheriffs and police in both rural, urban and international discussions. And, as I note later, sitting with a US Sky Marshall on a flight.
There’s history in our criminal and protective agency-related theatrical branding and motion picture work, particularly in the crime-fighting genre, like our design programs for Eastwood’s US Secret Service profile in “In the Line of Fire.”
Cruise’s decimation of criminal,
Law racketeering monopolies—“The Firm.”
Crisis-based, international decision-making
in the nuclear failure of a Russian submarine.
Or another Harrison Ford crime protection narrative, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan
premise in “Clear and Present Danger.”
Working with William Friedkin’s on Paramount production of “The Hunted,”
a sheriff’s hunt for an expert criminal.
In our string of designs for Paramount Studios’s Mission:Impossible series,
bold plays out, the message is dynamically large and masculine.
And evolving from fully articulated titling treatments, to a monogrammatic compression, the crime-fighting brand tenets hold true.
You’d note that all of these treatments speak
to a bold brand design assertion—pushing hard.
But, in the following, there are contrastive brand design stances.
Another crime stopping team—our theatrical design package for Paramount’s “The Untouchables.”
Or similarly, if not somewhat peculiarly
upscale, GIRVIN’s renderings in a Mafiosi narrative.
Working in this environment, I was curious about how crime-fighting and protection might find itself rendered internationally—what does it look like?
France:
Direction générale de la sécurité intérieure
India:
The National Security Council (NSC)
Egypt:
The Egyptian Intelligence Agency combines ancient Egyptian symbolism
as the core of its branding.
General Intelligence Directorate (GID)
جهاز المخابرات العامة
UK:
MI5 boasts the most modernistic approach to branding—looks like a high tech firm.
Looking into their website,
the presumptions hold:
IF YOU SUSPECT IT, REPORT IT
Current UK threat level
SEVERE | threat levels
Canada:
China:
A mission:
“the security of the state through effective measures against enemy agents, spies, and counter-revolutionary activities designed to sabotage or overthrow China’s socialist system.”
Ministry of State Security
国家安全部
Guójiā Ānquánbù
Japan:
The Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office
内閣情報調査室, Naikaku Jōhō Chōsashitsu, also known as Naichō (内調)
Russia:
Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation
Служба внешней разведки Российской Федерации
Israel:
Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations
המוסד למודיעין ולתפקידים מיוחדים
الموساد للاستخبارات والمهام الخاصة
US:
Perhaps the most outdated brand identity program of all entities in terms of its overall image management.
Secret Service agents, professionals, and specialists work in field offices around the world to fight the 21st century’s financial crimes, which are increasingly conducted through cyberspace.
And a complex web of wordy missions.
As I mentioned earlier, I was sitting on a jet with a talkative neighbor, a US Marshal, who coincidentally spoke to me on the theories of the layering of police, detection and intelligence—I thought, “never knew, now I’m curious.”
And then wondered about those words that he used with such repetitive precision.
Why precise?
Because, to his take, there is a clear definition of who does what—which case, where it happened, what is the nature of the crime, and which agency would govern those investigations.
He started with the White House and the U.S.Secret Service and criminal and protective issues related to the President and the defense of the White House.
And then worked his way through the FBI,
the US Marshal Service, the State Patrol, down to county and city police.
I’d never realized it was so complicated—let alone, coordinated. I listened to his role, his work, his storytelling and it made me a brand detective—what do these brands actually look like—here and aboard.
Secret—what’s that actually mean?
Like occult, which is hidden?
Actually, returning to my elementary school Latin studies, it’s tied to “withdrawn, hidden, concealed, private.”
But it’s a bridged amalgam of a word in its original construct—“on one’s own” (see se-) + cernere “separate” (see crisis).
Of all the governmental agencies I was interested in there was one that was the most compelling—that of the gentleman sitting next to me.
Running back to the head of this blog, and contemplating brand design in relationship to crime-fighting, it ranges between the classically heraldic and more robustly empowered design systems. The legacy of the medallion—the badge—would be key, given that this is core to identification—and thence, brand identity.
Probably more “corporate,” in terms of their representations you might check out contractors, like Constellis, a merger string of Triple Canopy, Blackwater / Academi.
Or Wagner Group, with their logo above, operates as an army for the Russians in African protection services [also regarded as terrorists by some countries] and Frontier Services Group—Chinese security African-based protection.
Our original brand design of Crime Stoppers plays to an amalgamation of context—bold font work with a kind of graffiti-scrawl, a shout-out to Crime—coupled with the fast moving industrial power of “Stoppers.”
Tim
GIRVIN | Strategic Brands
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