Creating a Visual Identity

Why Branding Matters – Pt 2

So you’ve just employed a local design company to create your logo. You are in love with it, it says everything you wanted it to say about your business, you feel like you’ve achieved success – right?

Well…not quite.

You see, a brand isn’t just a logo. It’s a whole visual and social identity.

It’s what customers feel about your business, it’s how they talk about you, it’s the whole package, or culture of your organisation.

How do you create that, you may ask?

For us, the starting point is always visual.

Because like it or not, we all form opinions from what is in front of our eyes.

That’s not to say we are advising you to pour your hard earned cash into creating huge amounts of visual collateral. Its more that you need to replicate your core brand identity across everything.

Your brand colours need to be used consistently.

Everything you send out needs to use the same font and writing style.

You need to speak with a coherent voice. If you are writing a press release, you need to use the same language as your socials, blogs or website copy.

Your emails need to use the same styling and always have a well-designed email footer attached.

Familiarity breeds trust. If your outputs differ all the time, you become unrecognisable.

Which is why it’s worth investing in a suite of marketing collateral.

We are not talking about printing realms of letterheads and with compliments slips here. Rather, having your logo in a full range of sizes and colour pallets (reversed and standard). Having your designer create you a decent email footer and some well-designed business cards.

Following that through with your social pages, having header bars professionally designed and a copywriter write your profile.

And what you need above all else, is a style guide. A set of rules around what everything you output should look like.

This visual identity is the first step in your branding process. How you get customers to connect with you, how they feel about you, that’s your next step.