Nowadays, your brand identity is defined by how customers perceive your business. It's the key building block in creating a strong, memorable, and lasting impression. However, far too often a brand's identity is diluted through inconsistent messaging, overthinking, and even your choice of font!
Take a look below for our 10 keys to maximize your brand's visual identity.
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1. Know Your Audience
The first step towards building your brand identity is to familiarize yourself with your audience. Without demographic specific knowledge and a clear understanding of who you’re marketing towards, all your hard work may never end up reaching your potential customers.
2. Tell Your Story
Every business has an exciting story to tell, and those stories help to bring meaning and create emotional connections to your brand. Ensuring that your brand is conveying the right message can make all the difference, while adding value to the customer experience.
3. Keep It Simple
Although it may seem like it at times, developing your brand identity shouldn't be rocket science. Take Apple for example; an identity built on minimalism, clean and simple design, and easy to use products. Your audience should have a clear understanding of who you are and what you're about at first glance. Determine your competitive advantage and use those strengths to optimize your brand identity.
4. Keep It Consistent
Consistency is key, especially when it comes to your brand's message. One easy way to save yourself time while ensuring your content is always on-brand is to create a comprehensive branding book. Spending time creating a well-detailed branding book now will help you eliminate disparities down the road as you'll always have a reference point to come back to.
5. Color Matters
If you read our previous post discussing the importance of brand color, then you're probably familiar with how certain color schemes evoke different thoughts and emotions. You wouldn't want your corporate colors triggering the wrong reactions, would you? That being said, definitely do a little bit of color research before finalizing your palette.
6. Corporate Typefaces
Different characteristics in a typeface can help emphasize your message. For example, simply italicizing text can accentuate quickness and speed. A rounded bubble font can represent fun or playfulness. With so many fonts to choose from, it’s important that your typeface represents your company the right way.
7. Consider All Applications
It’s easy to look at a logo and instantly fall in love with it! It might be the color or the shape that's so attracting, but be sure to consider certain characteristics before making a final design decision. If you have a colorful logo with gradients, contemplate how it would look in monochromatic form. If you have a strong stacked logo, think about it displayed on a pen with a horizontal imprint area. Before making anything final, it’s important to discuss every single application so you can avoid branding issues in the future.
8. Be Distinctive
Having a unique visual identity helps distinguish you from your competitors. If consumers can differentiate your brand from your competition, there’s a good chance you’re going to win their business.
9. Go With The Flow
We all strive for that first adopter/trendsetter status in our respective industries. However, when it comes to branding trends, that shouldn't always be the case. It is beneficial to modify and tweak your logo so you can continue to stand out, but there's no need to rebrand every time the industry begins to change. For example, look at how Google has stayed consistent with their logo design over time, but has slightly changed shape and dimension to ensure it stays current.
10. Stand Behind Your Brand
Standing behind your brand is one of the most important factors to having a successful visual identity. If you’re not confident in your brand, then your customers won’t be confident in it either. Your attitude towards your brand is infectious. Make sure that your brand is the best that it can be.