This content originally appeared on Envato Tuts+ Tutorials and was authored by Grace Fussell
Designing a brand visual identity for your business is a fun and creative process, but the pressure to create something that both represents the values of your business and has commercial appeal can feel like a tall order.
Following a structured plan of action will help you keep your ideas moving forward. Here I share my essential nine-step guide to approaching a brand design project and making it unique, developed, and super-professional.
When designing a brand, the number of tasks to be done (Logo! Website! Stationery!) can feel overwhelming. Breaking the process down into manageable chunks will allow you to achieve real progress.
Let's dive into these nine steps to build a brand identity design for your business.
1. Do your research
No business exists in a vacuum. We all know this, but it’s amazing how many business owners completely forget it when they embark on a brand design project. Many will dive into design ideas straight away, neglecting the fact that their brand will inevitably exist in a competitive market.
To avoid looking like your brand was designed by an alien or, worse, to avoid mistakenly mimicking an existing design (see the unfortunate Tokyo 2020 logo debate as an extreme example), you need to do some research into your competitors’ brands.
If you’re starting a freelance business, take a look at the way local design firms and ad agencies present themselves online and at their offices.
Take a notepad and jot down some of the most common traits shared by the brands you’re researching. Here are a couple of examples:
- Researching cosmetics? Look out for common colors or font styles used across a number of skincare and makeup brands. Clue: you'll soon find yourself in a sea of pastel colors and Vogue-esque serifs.
- Coffee? Keep your eyes peeled for the sorts of graphics used. Hint: rarely photography, and almost always vintage.
This rough list will be your anchor to the wider commercial market as you delve into designing your own brand. When you’ve completed the design process, return to this list.
Does your design have any of the features listed? If not, it might be a sign that your brand will be too unconventional to do well in a competitive market.
2. Know your niche
You’ve looked up the competition and dissected how they approach their own brand designs. Now you need to file this knowledge to the back of your brain and focus on the goal for your brand.
The tricky part: to ensure that your brand fits into the right market sector—and in some ways looks relevant against competitor brands—while making sure your brand is not only unique but also superior to the rest.
Imagine staring at a Van Gogh painting for hours, and then being told to paint something like it but different and even better. Not an easy feat, right?
Now that you’ve made a list of competitors, you can put it to one side for now. Don’t worry—you won’t forget what the competitor brands looked like now that you’ve spent the time researching them.
What's important is that you feel in a position to create a brand design that feels fresh and unique—something that references your positioning against these competitor brands without copying them.
You need to focus now on your USP (Unique Selling Point). What makes your business’s offering completely different to that of your competitors?
Say you’re designing a brand for a small photo agency. You’ve looked up local photographers and seen what they offer. You wouldn’t start a business without knowing you can exploit the market in some way that’s different to others.
Perhaps you offer unique portrait photography or superior post-editing services. This is your USP, and you need to refer to it in your brand design.
3. Put pencil to paper
When a consumer comes into contact with a brand for a first time, the first visual they are likely to encounter is the brand’s logo.
What’s the first thing you see on a store’s sign? Yup, the logo. What’s plastered on the side of your morning coffee cup? You guessed it.
Unless you’re encountering a product blindly—for example, if you try out a product a friend has already bought without first knowing its brand—it’s nearly impossible to interact with a product without first seeing the logo of the company behind it.
They might have opted for a serif font to look more formal or posh, whereas a script font might make a brand feel more casual and crafts-oriented. Color psychology might be at play too—orange feels optimistic and good-value, blue calming and technological. Bringing in a metallic tone like gold or copper can up the luxury factor and make a brand feel more aspirational.
Because a logo is not only the first port of call for customers to your brand but also a visual summary of everything you want your brand to be, the logo is a natural starting point for designing a brand identity.
Pick up a pen or pencil, whether digital or physical. Aim for some ideas that have a symbolic emphasis (more image-based) and others that play around with the type-style of the business’s name.
Don’t dwell on any single idea for long—a couple of minutes for each will be sufficient. Annotate each idea with quick text notes to remind yourself later of any ideas you have about color, style, or possible ways to improve the concept.
Don’t worry if you feel some ideas are weaker than others—you never know which sketch will be a springboard for an amazing idea.
When you’re done, take a little break, either for a coffee or overnight. When you come back to your work, you’ll be able to see your ideas in a new light with a fresh mind.
4. Narrow it down to three logo concepts
Refine, then seek outside opinions. Value the brainstorming process, and avoid committing emotionally to one idea too early.
When you come back to your logo sketches feeling refreshed, take a critical look at your designs. Which sketches appear immediately stronger than others? Are any of your concepts too complex for an outsider to understand instantly?
Identify the three designs with the most potential—perhaps they have a stronger thematic idea or simply a stronger visual style—and refine them further in different sketches.
Once you have your refined sketches, seek outside opinion. Grab a few friends, family members, or colleagues and ask them to take a look the three designs.
You may find that they prefer a design that’s not your personal favorite, but don’t be disheartened. This will ensure that your brand has commercial appeal and isn’t based on your personal taste alone.
Narrow down the sketches to your strongest design, based on others’ as well as your own opinions.
5. Think about color
If you created your sketch on paper, it’s time to vectorize it! You can use your scanned design as a template for creating the final vector logo in your program of choice (such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDRAW).
Now’s the time to start experimenting with color too. Think back to your market research—were there any colors that cropped up frequently in your brand’s sector?
You can also tap into color trend forecasts and the principles of color psychology. Try switching up the color of your logo and judge how this changes the overall effect.
How does a particular color make you feel? Does this emotional pull fit with what you're trying to achieve with your brand?
If, for example, a gold color makes this gym logo feel luxurious it might be sending out the wrong message if your gym’s USP is to offer cheap joining fees to customers. In that case, a more calming, efficient-looking blue would be a better choice.
6. Expand your brand: Type
Once you’ve vectorized your logo and decided on a suitable color you’re ready to start expanding your brand. One of the key ways of defining the personality of your brand is to choose typefaces that have some of the characteristics you’d like to give your brand visual identity.
Most brands adopt two ‘brand typefaces’:
- one for headers and slogans
- another for body text
Some larger brands might commission a custom font which is completely unique to them, but most businesses will simply adopt fonts they feel suit their brand.
Browse a broad range of fonts to get suitable ideas when designing a brand identity. Uppercase sans serifs feel confident and modern. Replacing a rounded style for a sharper, more graphic look can make a brand feel more assertive.
Script typefaces are popular with brands looking to appear more informal. The vintage-inspired look of scripts taps into the market trend for craft styles. This makes it a great match for brands looking to appear less corporate and more independent.
Try teaming your logo with a sample piece of text set in different fonts. Make print-outs of a few options and compare them. Can you identify a best fit, which both complements your logo design and has the right personality for it?
7. Expand your brand: Photography and graphics
A brand visual identity isn’t made up of a logo and type alone. Continue to expand your brand by thinking about other visual elements, like photography and graphics.
While your logo, colors and typefaces might remain constant on your stationery, marketing and website, the images you use to communicate particular messages, like special deals, ads or product-specific packaging design, will inevitably vary.
Variation, however, is the enemy of a strong brand identity design. Especially for a digital brand identity, as it's easier and cheaper to change.
When you’re using different images you need to ensure that there remains an element of consistency among them. Let’s say you’re designing a brand visual identity for a food business. One of your brand rules could be that you will only use overhead shots.
When designing a brand identity, you can be simple or complex with your rules.
Imagine you’re designing a brand to be used by a lifestyle company with multiple offices. You might want to make a few more rules regarding images so that all the marketing output looks consistent and in tune with your overall vision for the brand.
You could say that all images have to be photos of people, but not only that, they also have to be black-and-white portraits and have the person looking face-on to the camera. So these three photos will tick the box:
However, the one below breaks your rules as the subject isn’t facing the camera. It looks like the odd one out, which breaks the consistency of your branding.
8. Apply your brand
You’ve got a logo and fonts sorted out, and set down your rules for using images. Now it’s time to start applying both your print and digital brand identity.
Prioritise the media that your business uses on a daily basis to communicate with customers—if you work remotely this might mean it’s best to prioritise your website, and don’t forget to add your logo to your email signature too. If you attend a lot of networking events or conferences, a branded business card will put you in good stead.
Even though snail mail might be unfashionable these days, it’s important to extend your brand to print stationery as well. The digital world can be (and often is) overwhelming, so it's nice to offer a physical alternative for potential clients to remember you. This approach can help you to stand out from your competitors!
To get you started, here’s our selection of stationery template packs, which do all the hard work for you, and are quick and easy to customize:
Making sure to extend your branding across invoices and receipts too will leave a business-like impression. It might even mean you get paid on time more often!
If your brand has a number of employees, you should also look into creating a brand guidelines manual. This will be a document showing the correct way to apply your branding: from smaller-scale items, like marketing materials, to larger-scale interpretations of how the company is publicly represented, such as advertising and website design.
9. Review your brand
You’ve finished designing a brand identity—congratulations! Now what?
It may seem like the last thing you want to do, but you need to keep your mind open to reviewing your brand now that it’s in use.
The first part of this is research-based. Take notice of how customers respond to the brand. You might want to use email lists to conduct surveys (use discounts and offers as an incentive for giving feedback) or analyse sales performance in the weeks and months after launching your new brand look.
If your sales are improving, that’s a strong sign your brand is performing well. If your sales are the same as before, this might be a sign that your brand isn’t being well received.
Now is the time to consider reviewing your brand, and either tweaking elements of the existing identity or creating a new one from scratch. Return to the market research stage and see if there’s anything you could have missed.
Could you be more thorough with your industry research? Could you seek more outside advice about your logo designs?
Designing a brand visual identity isn’t a precise science, but with a methodical approach, you can create something that connects with people on an emotional and commercial level.
Your essential brand visual identity checklist
Designing a brand identity for your business can be a challenge, but it’s a rewarding and creative challenge if you have the right steps in place.
This is your ‘cut-out and keep’ checklist for creating any new brand visual identity. This nine-step process will put you in good stead for tackling the branding fundamentals of any project:
- Do your research. Look into the brand identities of competitors in your sector.
- Know your niche. Understand your USP (‘unique selling point’) within the sector.
- Put pen to paper. Start with the logo and draft a range of symbolic and type-based ideas.
- Narrow down to three logo concepts. Do this before selecting a final design to refine.
- Think about color. Look into the psychology of color to choose the best color fit for your logo.
- Expand your brand with type. Choose two brand typefaces for headers and body text.
- Expand your brand with images. Define the rules for using photos and graphics in your marketing materials.
- Apply your brand. Focus on designing a brand identity across print and digital media, such as websites or business cards.
- Review your brand. Assess whether your brand works, and consider reviewing it if it doesn’t perform well.
Make sure to check out the range of branded stationery templates over on Envato to help develop your brand further.
This content originally appeared on Envato Tuts+ Tutorials and was authored by Grace Fussell
Grace Fussell | Sciencx (2016-08-09T14:57:46+00:00) How to design a new brand visual identity for your business. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2016/08/09/how-to-design-a-new-brand-visual-identity-for-your-business/
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