The Power of a Good Brand Identity
"Your brand is a story unfolding across all customer touch points."
Introduction
A brand’s identity is the sum of all of its moving parts – the things it sells, yes, but also the way it speaks to customers, the message it carries, and the customer service it provides. It’s the place, the people, and the product. It’s also the perception.
A visual brand identity is a purposefully created visual representation of a brand. It helps support the brand’s written content (the explicit message) by conveying things through imagery, style, and nuance. It also provides coherence – a strong visual identity follows a set framework that ensures that all elements complement each other and are consistent throughout its applications.
A brand’s identity can and should be woven into everything. The logo should be unique; this is fairly straightforward. The importance of having and utilizing a unique colour combination is not lost on many. But did you know that the fonts your brand uses are equally important? Their size, shape, and colour relative to each other can give the audience clues about the brand; consistent use of these things builds trust in the business and can help create brand champions.
A brand in action
Customers should see a business brand identity everywhere the business is. An obvious example the logo, which is placed on business cards, letterhead, social media profile photos and posts, among other things. The brand identity is also found in the business’s value proposition to potential customers through its personality, character, and tone of voice.
Here is an (incomplete) list of places that a brand’s identity should appear:
- Business cards
- Colour palette
- Company Letterhead
- Data visualization
- Downloads (handouts, workbooks)
- Emails (including email signoff and signature)
- Labels, envelopes, bags, and boxes
- Logo
- Iconography
- Illustration
- Personality
- Photography
- Promotional material (hats, banners, etc.)
- Reports (PowerPoints, etc.)
- Social Media profile photo, posts, and interactions with followers
- Tone of voice
- Typography
- Video
- Website
What makes a "capital-G" Good brand identity?
A strong brand identity is:
- Flexible. It can grow with the brand into new products and services, platforms, and industries.
- Comprehensive. It leaves no question as to which colour is the accent colour, which typeface is used for headings, and what kinds of images are used online. This equips the business, its employees, and any designers that may be hired in the future with the right tools to complete projects that fit the brand’s identity seamlessly.
- Intuitive. Each element should be a well-constructed piece of the brand’s identity (like a well-made puzzle).
- Accurate. A visual identity accurately captures what makes this particular brand unique: its personality, voice, and values, to name a few.
How can it further your business?
In business, presentation is everything. In retail, for example, companies work hard to ensure that the products they are going to sell are well-designed, clear about their purpose, and are placed in the best place possible in a brick-and-mortar store. Service companies ensure that their staff have detailed bios, professional photos, and testimonials galore.
In this way, companies hope the potential customer will come to the following conclusions:
- The perception of the business is, overall, a positive one, and
- Based on this positive perception, the company can be trusted.
The latter is especially important for companies using the internet to forge and maintain meaningful customer relationships.
Cohesive, consistent brand identities shows the audience that a company takes itself seriously enough to put effort into ensuring that its brand’s identity is presented consistently, in all interactions, on every platform and in every medium, at all times.
How to create a strong brand identity
Make a list
The key to building a strong brand really comes down to consistency. In order to do that, you need to create a list of the following:
- Your current colours
- Your current fonts
- Your current logo
- The imagery that you currently use or plan to use
If you’re just starting out and don’t yet have a brand, you can be a little bit more creative with your list. If you have a brand already, you will want to stick to what you currently have, unless you intend to overhaul certain aspects of your visual brand and create a new version for use going forward.
Write everything down
Once you have your list of visual brand elements, organize them into categories: Logo, Colour Palette, Typography, and Imagery. Add more categories, such as Icons, if necessary.
Keep this information easily accessible so that you can reference it whenever you need to update your website, print materials, or create something new for social media.
Implement
After you outline the components of your brand’s visual identity, you should write down guidelines to ensure that all of the content you create/post/print is consistent (remember, this is Rule No. 1 of visual branding!). Here are some examples:
- Logo Usage
- Use the complete logo (text and icon) in full colour on the website.
- Use the icon only in social media posts (in black or in white)
- Typography
- Use Montserrat 24pt Bold for headings on the website, on social media graphics, and on company letterhead
- Use Lato 14pt for paragraphs on the website, social media graphics, and company letterhead
Further Steps
You may want to create a digital package with your visual brand identity and guidelines and include some examples for easier reference and implementation. Knowns as a “Brand Guide” or a “Style Guide,” this information is incredibly valuable in this format because it can not only help you create consistent content but makes it incredibly easy for you to outsource work to someone else without having to worry about whether or not it will be on-brand.
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