A brand is simply a way of identifying one’s business. However, branding alone cannot strengthen a business. One also needs to establish their brand’s identity. How do you create a brand identity and furthermore, how do you create a strong one? Start by asking how you want your brand to be perceived. The most important and influential aspects of your brand design, are the quality provided to customers, and their experience. Once a business perception of the brand is defined, you can begin strategizing.
Your brand strategy is a plan and mission. What is the value proposition? Who are your competitors? What is the brand’s message? This strategy goes hand-in-hand with the brand’s identity or visual representation of your brand. Once you have a plan and strategy, you can then start on the visual representation. This can be displayed by branding tools such as color and font selection, different imagery used, including patterns and illustrations. When you think of Coca-Cola, you think of their branding tools such as the red with the script font. When you think about Louis Vuitton, you see the pattern they created with their initials. Every detail matters as the smallest one can set you apart from other businesses and make it instantly recognizable to customers.
To really understand how to create a brand identity, we have put together the three key elements to establishing a strong brand identity:
Establish a Brand Guideline
Start by creating brand guidelines. This consists of branding tools such as color, font, layouts, patterns, etc. These tools are the key to visually portraying brand strategy, but where do you start? Research, research, research! That is the best start to setting up solid brand guidelines. This comes from researching your audience and competitors. Once you establish a foundation of research, you can then start building a template of the “do’s” and “don’ts”, when it comes to a business’s logo, fonts, and color choices. The key is to be consistent and create a flexible design.
Implement Guidelines Through Different Mediums
Not only are you implementing these guidelines visually through the content posted, but also through the language used. You want to create a tone that matches the brand’s personality. This language can be included in your social graphics or within the post created. Aside from the language, adhering to your guideline is key. In order to be easily recognized, adhere to the colors, fonts, and logo variations throughout the website, print materials, social media, display graphics, and anything else that represents your business. This allows the customers to recognize and form a bond with your business right away.
Keep It Consistent
As you continue to visually represent your business, be consistent as this will create a relationship with customers. If you look at Nike, for example, they keep the same font throughout all aspects of their business. Brand consistency is key and over double the amount of times more visible to customers than being inconsistent. By choosing consistent brand colors, your brand can be recognized up to 80% more frequently. Keeping the brand consistent, will gain credibility of your business and earn trust amongst customers.
The first step is finding a company that provides expert branding services in order to help you build a strong brand identity. We are here to help you create a strong brand identity! Contact us today.
Grace Huntowski, Junior Graphic Designer
beMarketing
