HOW DO YOU VISUALISE YOUR BRAND?
I can just design my logo in Canva, right?
My answer might surprise you...
Absolutely you can! These days, there are so many tools out there to help small businesses get up and running and Canva is an incredible service that I highly recommend. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm a graphic designer, and seeing graphics that are designed in Canva is always going to be a whole lot more pleasing than something you've thrown together in Word!
So if Canva is where your budget is at, then go for it. But your brand is crucial to your business being a success and is one of the areas I recommend investing in, so if you can, hire a professional.
Whether you go the professional route or try your hand at a DIY job, there are a few things you need to understand, and that's what I want to cover here.
Determine who you are speaking to
Your businesses brand is an interesting one. One would think you have to LOVE everything about your brand and that it truly speaks to you and is a reflection of who you are. But, you actually should be designing it with your target audience in mind and not just create something that appeals to you. You may love hot pink, but is that what is going to attract your audience?
It’s important that your logo is something you love and are proud to display across all your businesses touchpoints, but it’s also important it speaks to who you want to be targeting!
Do you want your brand voice to be fun and playful? Or professional and authoritative? There are endless options when it comes to creating your brand voice and personality and determining it at the beginning will make the process of creating your brand a lot clearer.
It's important that you like your brand and that is a reflection of you and what your business is all about. But it's also important you take your target audience and their likes and dislikes into account when creating it.
Creating a brand voice that connects with your audience is vital. This voice, or personality, will be delivered through your logo, colours and typography, but also through images you choose, the design of your website, the interior of your shopfront and the look of your social media accounts. Creating a cohesive brand voice across all these mediums will help create a strong, clear brand that becomes instantly recognisable.
Keep this in mind when working through the next steps.
Next up, the logo.
Let me be clear and say your logo is NOT your brand. All the elements I'm going to be talking about in this article are what goes into creating your brand and each one is important.
Your logo, however, is generally the base foundation of your brand. Think of it this way, what you wear is not who you are, but it sure gives people a first impression of the sort of person you are. We can tell people a lot about ourselves with the clothes we wear and the same can be said for a logo.
A good logo can help attract the right audience, build trust and foster long term relationships. It can create a connection with your clients and set you apart from your competitors.
If you hire a professional to help you with creating the logo, then they should be able to guide you through the process, but in case you are going it alone, I wanted to give you a few things to keep in mind when you're creating your logo.
Think about end usage, are you going to need to put this logo on a business card? Website, Signage, uniform embroidery? Car graphics? The list goes on. Make sure what you come up with will work across a range of different mediums.
To elaborate on this point further, what I mean is if you have a vertical logo that is quite tall it won't translate well onto a website, especially on a mobile device. Or if your logo relies heavily on gradients or metallic textures, that might not translate onto uniform embroidery.
Keep in mind the end use and it will help you create something versatile when you're designing.
Also, do a quick competitor analysis. Search for what other people in your industry are doing, particularly the highly successful brands. What are they doing and why do you think it works. Make sure whatever you develop isn't too close to what anyone else is doing. It's good to be seen in the same light as competitors who are already successful but you want to be unique enough that you stand out and are memorable for all the right reasons.
Finally, think long term. It's always tempting to go with the latest fads but creating something timeless will serve you better in the long term and won't have you hating your logo and wanting to undertake the whole process again 12 months down the track.
The brand colours
The colour palette you choose for your brand will influence heavily who is attracted to your business. It is possibly the most important decision you make when it comes to creating your brand.
We are visual people and colour can elicit and a whole spectrum of emotions from people. So what you choose here will have an impact on your business.
Is your business bright and bold? Or soft and feminine? Or are you a high flying business person and want a brand to match? Once you can answer this then the process becomes slightly less daunting.
Once you start delving into the world of colour you might start seeing words like "Pantone", "CMYK", "RGB", "HEX" and a whole lot more. Basically another language for anyone that doesn't work in the design world. It can be overwhelming and confusing and to be honest, you must have a basic grasp of these concepts, otherwise, your brand is not going to look consistent across your various touchpoints.
What looks like a gorgeous shade of teal on your website can go oh so wrong when applied to your business cards or signage if you haven't considered these things.
On a very basic level, Pantone is the universal colour codes used for selecting a specific shade. When printing you can choose to print in "spot" colours and this will give you the exact Pantone colour you have chosen.
Each Pantone colour then has a CMYK, RGB and HEX/HTML breakdown.
CMYK is for process or digital printing, RGB is for on-screen use such as using a logo within a Word document and HEX/HTML is what you would use on your website to make sure it looks the same as your printed material.
The handiest tool I have come across to find colours and make sure I'm using them consistently across different mediums is the Pantone Colour Finder Website. It will let you choose the perfect shade and then give you all the breakdowns you need to make sure your brand colours are always consistent.
Finally, why is typography important for your brand
Typography is a fancy word for the fonts you choose, both in your logo and to represent your brand through the written word on your website and printed materials. It ties everything together and creates a non-verbal message about your business.
Keeping a consistent look with your fonts and maintaining a clear brand voice with your font choice will help cement your brand within your customers' mind.
This is where you will start to hear a whole lot more of weird terms like serif, sans serif, script, blackletter, display, etc. These are just ways of grouping similar style of fonts together.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of fonts out there to choose from and every one will lend a different voice to your brand.
For instance, Tiffany & Co use a classic serif font for their brand. It is timeless and elegant and perfect for their brand personality.
Google, on the other hand, uses and medium weight sans serif. It is simple, clear and perfect for the brand personality they have.
Each font will give your brand a different character and will communicate who you are and what your business is all about in a completely different manner, so choosing the right one is important!
How do you go about choosing the right typography for your brand?
Think about who your target audience is and what your brand voice wants to portray. Make sure the font you choose is consistent with that.
Other things to take into consideration are the font's legibility, can it be read, even when appearing quite small say on the header of your website on a mobile device.
It's also important to choose a couple of different fonts. Your logo will, of course, use a font, but you will then need complementary fonts for headings, subheadings and body copy for all your written communication. Make sure whatever you choose here that they work well together and create a cohesive look and feel.
Some of my favourite resources for fonts are:
A great resource for font pairing is Pinterest. Just jump on the website and type in "font pairings" or "best font combinations" and get lost down the rabbit hole of beautiful typography ideas!
So what happens to a brand if you change the typography? Well, it can become almost unrecognisable. For a bit of a laugh, check out these famous brands reimagined as hipster logos. Some of them are unrecognisable!
Phew! That was a lot of information! I hope if you are about to embark on creating a new brand for your business or are thinking about rebranding an existing business that you take into consideration all these points. It doesn't matter if you are outsourcing this to a professional or undertaking the task your self, you must have an understanding of what goes into creating a brand so you end up with a consistent brand that speaks to your target audience.
Remember, it's not the clothes you wear that make you who you are, but they sure can send a definite impression, so make sure your brand is sending out the impression you want your next customer to see!
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