Fictional brand design. Evolution, strategies, and an attempt to a history of visual identities in audiovisual narratives

Brands tell stories to affirm their values, positioning, and identity. They tell stories that allow people to recognise themselves in them, to share them, to feel part of them. That occurs in the real world as in the world of fiction. The term fictional branding refers to the design and use of brands that do not refer to any existing service, product, company or organisation. They can include any brand referring to products or commercial services, political institutions, military organisations, and more. This paper aims to offer a comprehensive look at the topic through historical and theoretical research and analyse the state of the art of the practice. Specifically, we will deepen fictional brands’ role in building engaging, believable and memorable stories and narratives. In order to carry out a more precise and in-depth analysis, we defined a specific field of investigation: that of long-form narrative audiovisual works, thus including films, TV series and video games. The result of the research is currently merged into the Fictional Brands Archive. This website allows users to consult an extensive collection of fictional brands accompanied by information and visual material.