building your brand identity
The building blocks to success !
How you build your brand Identity can determine your brands longterm success! Creating an Identity is a big step for a company and often the highlight for business owners. In my experience, clients are the most exited about this process and usually want to jump right in. Brand Identity is where you can create your company and where you get to visualize how your brand will look to the outside world. You finally see what it will look like and get to visually experience the colors and design of your company. In this step, your company will have a visual voice and showcase itself through typography, business cards, packaging, stationary, logo and in a plethora of digital design platforms . But more often than not, business owners overlook key elements needed to go into this process, and skip over essential steps in the process to save on time and money. The steps to branding a company are important to follow and vital to the longterm health of your brand Identity. Don't overlook the process before moving forward with content and visuals for your company.
Design strategy is key at this stage of branding and it is important to have all the other components worked out including brand purpose, brand personality, brand positioning and a marketing strategy to effectively complete this process in its entirety.
With brand Identity, you will be focussing on the look and feel of typography, style of business card & shape of your packaging, if you have any, digital design platforms and social media icons, tag lines, brand color palettes, sayings and so on. All of these attributes tell a cohesive story of your brand Identity. All of these are tangible design assets that customers will directly see and experience and will include your brand name and logo, but also many other forms of visuals representative of your branding and personal marketing strategy. It is so important to take care with this step in creating your company, your brand Identity will become your visual voice and image customers see first.
Ultimately, you want your customer to be able to recognize your brand in all forms of communication, even if your brand is covered up. Think big, and think Coca Cola and Nike. When we look at these big names, it isn't necessary for us to see the name of the company, they are identified by there logo, color palate and imagery. Much like the big names, you want your visual communication to stand out and to be recognized in all forms of imagery and wording.
Being consistent and strategic in how you bring life to your brand across all platforms of brand purpose, values, personality and positioning, will ensure your brands success across all touch points in creating your perfect brand Identity.