A brand identity refers to your companies look and feel. It’s your name, logo, design style, the way you speak and so on. Your brand identity is not only about what is visually seen by your audiences, but also the emotional connection you establish through your visual content and copy (text) to convey a message. Think about big brands like Coca-Cola and Nandos. They don’t have to make their logo and brand name the focal point of their ad campaigns. Why? Because they are consistent in the way they look and how they ‘speak’.
Does your company have these brand attributes?
- logo
- colour palette
- typography
- image style
- brand voice
If you responded yes to even one of these, are you confident that your brand is consistent wherever it ‘shows up’?
Step-by-step guide to building a solid brand identity
1.
Define your brand values
Define what you want to say, how you want to be perceived and by what type of audience. The more you understand your brand values, the better others will be able to connect with it. To help unpack what your brand values are, think about what’s important to you. One of our core brand values is to do business with people whose business practices do not harm the environment or any living thing on our planet. This means we know right away which clients we want to attract and do business with.
We suggest you brainstorm a whole bunch of brand adjectives with your team and select from there which you best identify with. There’s no right or wrong answer – it all depends on what inspires you and fits well with what you’re selling.
And, if you really want to gather your thoughts and creative ideas in one place, create a mood board – Pinterest is especially fantastic for this kind of project, and it’s free!
2.
Create personas to bring your target audience to life
Decide who you want your brand to resonate with and develop different characters that embody them. The more specific you can be here, the better! If your business has been around for a while you have the opportunity to dig into who your customers already are. This will help you find more like them. Polls and surveys are often the best way to get to know your audience. Once you know more about your customers, you can starting build your personas. If your business is new then you’ll need to brainstorm your potential customers’ personas.
Remember, you can have more than one persona for your brand, each with their unique set of characteristics. Once completed, ask yourself:
- Does my brand appeal to all the personas
- Is what the brand’s saying relevant, inspiring or helpful?
3.
Pick your brand colours & find the perfect font
Have you ever thought about how your brand’s colour, can influence a purchasing decision, its likability and mood?
Colours.cafe is a great tool to assist you in choosing the right colour for your business. They simply share colour palette pairing options on their Instagram account along with the colour code to make it super easy for you to find the colour.
Just like the importance of colour, the type of font you choose tells a story too. Serif fonts tend to represent tradition, respectability and discernment. Sans serif font tends to signal modernity, objectivity and even innovation (LinkedIn & Facebook have both adopted this font typeface). Modern fonts are usually perceived as stylish and modern; while display fonts is seen as friendly, expressive and amusing (think of Disney).
4.
Curate your social feed’s aesthetic appeal
Decide how you want your page to look. Do you want it to be seen as modern, fun, simplistic or out the box? It is important to identify a consistent aesthetic appeal to ensure your brand can be easily identifiable. The social content outline also needs to be planned ahead so that it flows well.
Look at our Instagram page you will be able to see our consistent font, brand colour, imagery, icons and elements included to portray our very own unique style.
Did you know that colour psychology is a thing? It is important to not just choose a colour because ‘it’s your favourite’. Every colour has a specific meaning and personality, which is why it’s important to select a colour that will help and not hinder someone doing business with you.
Is your brand visual identity strong in all of these areas as per identified above? Or do you need some extra help, but don’t quite know where to start? Get in touch, we’d love to help.
