Whether you’ve DIY’ed your brand identity or worked with a designer there are some key things I recommend having as part of your brand identity.
1 – Some level of strategy or strategic design
This is about knowing your brands who, what and why, positioning, messaging, purpose, values, target audience. It factors in how you’ll build and market your brand. And the more tangible things like personality, voice and of course informs the visual direction of the brand.
Hopefully this will have been planned out and put in some kind of documentation, perhaps a business plan, marketing plan or a brand launch plan will include some or all of this. It is good to have something to look back on as a touchstone and check-in point, which you can look at when planning things like marketing or making business decisions.
Not all brands and businesses need or are in the position to pay for a brand strategist or designer including brand strategy so this is something that can be mapped out yourself.
If you’re working with a designer it is standard for them to do some level of research before diving into a design anyway, we look at things like competitors brands and websites. Then a decision needs to be made as to whether it should be inline with competitors or stand out.
2 – A main logo
You’ll sometimes see it argued that a logo isn’t necessarily needed and sure a business can start without one depending on industry, niche and goals. However for brand recognition and consistency most people would agree that you do need one. Because if you end up writing your business name in the same font, well you’ve kind of created a logo anyway – it’s just not overly designed.
I feel it is especially important for B2C (Business to Consumer) and even more so if there is a product retail element as this will go across multiple customer touchpoints from marketing to website to packaging. Even if you have nothing else a logo will help to keep your brand in customers minds as they continue to see it.
The main logo is an identifier, it doesn’t have to include everything about the business or be a literal representation eg. a photographer with a photo icon, a painter with a brush etc. Sometimes it can be beneficial to include a tagline but this isn’t necessary at all and can be somewhat limiting as a business evolves.
This will be the logo that you aim to use most of the time. And a lot of small businesses will only have the main logo.
3 – Secondary/Alternativee logos, submarks and brandmarks
Whilst having one main logo is the top priority and can be the starting point for businesses on a budget starting out. An ideal situation is to have a full suite of logos and brandmarks that can be used.
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A secondary/alternate logo is usually a version of the main logo and is formatted so that it fills a different dimension.
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A submark logo is a more simplified version of the logo, which often works well as a watermark. It might work well as a watermark, in a brand pattern or when the main logo would become repetitive etc. These are commonly designed to fit into a circular format.
- A brandmark is often a graphic, icon or icon that may or may not have formed part of the main logo and will also be recognisably part of the brand. They can be very helpful as social media profile images, favicons on websites or used as a small representation of a brand within marketing – I like to use mine as an accent on my website or on social media posts.
4 – Other brand elements / visual design system
When you think of certain brands it might even be a distinguishing pattern that comes to mind before the logo – Burberry, Gucci, Versace. Or maybe you think of a mascot like Tony the Tiger for Frosties. This shows the impact that elements other than the logo can have on brand recognition. And the importance of cohesiveness with other brand elements, so that it all feels part of the same brand.
I personally love to include these within a brand as I think it gives so much extra visual interest to work with too. A brand that has a pattern you can use on the reverse of a thank you note card say – beautiful!
So what can be included as brand elements:
- pattern/s
- textures
- illustrations
- icons
5 – Brand fonts
You’ll forever hear me talking about keeping things consistent and cohesive when it comes to your visual identity! Because if every time you post your font changes or you’ve got multiple fonts across your website it’s going to look messy. And whilst it might be subtle even having the same fonts over and over all contributes to brand recognition.
Most designers, including myself, would recommend having 2-3 brand fonts. One should be used consistently for heading, one for body copy and one more can be an accent font.
NOTE: You should also have alternative commonly used fonts for when your special brand fonts aren’t available! There will be times, such as for email marketing, when you need to use safe font to ensure it displays the same for everyone. Or perhaps internal documents so that staff can use the same system font rather than needing multiple font licenses.
6 – Colour palette
Colour choices add so much to a brand they help to give a sense of mood and personality, they also aid in building a memorable brand. What colour is Mcdonalds for example? Yep, we all know those golden arches.
Typically I find having 6 colours as part of a colour palette can work really well. Six colours give plenty of flexibility and variety to work with. Some brands may have more or less colours, as long as that is a strategic decision, then great. Here is how I breakdown my choices:
1 – a main brand colour
2 – a neutral colour
3 – a darker colour for type
4 – 6 – accent colours, ranging from complimentary to clashing depending on your brands personality (yep back to strategy again with that one)
7 – Brand photography and imagery style guide
During the branding phase it can be helpful to define what the photography style will be like. Should they be clean, white, bright photos or dark and moody, luxury and editorial, minimal, maximalist, filtered, unfiltered etc. As with any brand decisions this should keep in mind the brand strategy and what will appeal to the target audience.
If you aren’t a product based business or in the retail space then maybe a strategic brand decision could even be that you’ll choose to never use photos and only illustrations or graphics!
8 – Brand board (stylesheet) and/or Brand Guidelines
And finally, to keep everything looking cohesive whoever is designing in future you should have a brand board or brand guidelines to showcase how the visual identity should be used.
Brand Board: is a one sheet, at a glance view of the different elements making up a brand identity.
Brand Guidelines: is an in depth document that covers usage and rules for every part of the brand identity.
Things to think about
Does your brand identity have all of these elements or were some of them skipped in the start up stages? Do you feel you need to add in anything now?
If you are ready to develop your brand identity, then one of my design services might be a good fit for you.
