Branding tells a story or communicates a message about a particular company to attract new consumers and build loyalty with existing customers. This strategic marketing technique helps shoppers quickly identify the products and companies they prefer while communicating the value to those who have never tried them. Regardless of the product, consumers often associate a certain feeling or experience with one brand over another. That is why, to effectively sell products and reach new consumers, narrowing a visual identity for your company’s brand is critical.
Branding involves every aspect of visual identity, including logo design and placement, color selection, typography, product packaging, and marketing campaigns. The most crucial aspect of developing a brand identity is maintaining a consistent look across all design elements.
To establish a reliable consumer base, customers have to know what your products look like on the shelves and associate them with your company. Working with an agency like East End Yovth can help ensure that your branding efforts are streamlined across all platforms.
Getting started
In developing a visual identity, it’s essential to start with the basics. Understanding the direction you’d like to take with your products will help establish the foundation for further design work. Some questions you might consider before diving into color palettes and font selections might be:
- What are some images I would associate with my brand?
- How could I communicate my company or product’s mission with a product label?
- What are the values I would assign to my brand? For example: trustworthy, fun, traditional, reliable, or natural
- What do I want consumers to recognize my brand?
- Who is my target audience, and what do I want them to understand about my products?
Design elements
When it comes to designing a consistent and memorable brand, there are several elements to consider as part of your strategy. While slogans or keywords communicate a company’s mission, visual identity can have a stronger emphasis on how your company makes consumers feel. To strategically develop your branding, evaluate your logo, marketing campaigns, product designs, and packaging elements.
Color
Color can communicate a lot more than we sometimes realize. For example, most fast-food restaurants incorporate colors like red, yellow, and orange because they stimulate hunger. Meanwhile, cooler colors like light purple or blue tend to calm the mind and promote relaxation. Marketing agencies recognize the power behind a color palette and often use these strategies to aid their company or product’s success.
If you are a luxury brand, you might lean towards color selections that include black, gold, or silver. If you’re promoting a financial product, you might consider incorporating greens and golds. Bright primary colors might communicate fun and cost-effective product, while deeper shades tend to inspire feelings of trust or reliability.
Typography
It’s not just the words associated with your product that matter; it’s the way you display them. The font, scale, and arrangement of your messaging can have a more significant impact than the words themselves. For example, a funeral home that uses a bold, fun, and brightly-colored font may make grieving families uncomfortable. When in doubt, select a font that is simple and easy to read.
Once you’ve selected a font, consider the placement and size of the text. Being creative can help consumers better identify a unique product, but being too creative can distract shoppers from the intended messaging. Prioritize text based on impact and importance, and use colors to emphasize particular elements of the design. Keep the font and color variation to a minimum so as not to confuse consumers.
Imagery
Images offer a significant part of our ability to recognize brands. In addition to developing an impactful logo, you should consider all other symbols or pictures as crucial elements to your visual identity. This includes website photos, billboards, business card designs, signage, and any product markings. Every image or icon utilized for your visual identity should have a specific intent and a purposeful message for consumers.
Be consistent
Once you’ve developed your visual identity, the most important thing to remember is consistency. Companies are encouraged to continually evaluate the impacts of their marketing and re-design as needs emerge. However, when making changes to your visual identity, you must do so slowly and with precaution. Too many changes at once may prevent consumers from recognizing and trusting your brand.