Branding
What do you think of when you hear the word “branding”? Most people’s gut instinct is to start picturing color palettes and dreaming up logos. This is why creatives are often tasked with building brands from the ground up. However, trying to creatively construct a brand without the proper blueprints in place will only lead to failure and frustration — especially when visuals and copy are intended to embody a particular value, feeling, or message.
Positioning refers to figuring out who your brand is at its core. It’s the exercise of defining why you exist, what makes you different, and where you sit in the mind of the consumer. Branding is how you choose to represent and articulate who your company is in the market to effectively convey your position. Positioning is the backbone of branding and should always come first. It’s critical for creatives to help educate marketing leaders and others who may ask for branding that, without a clearly defined position, creating meaningful visuals and content is like putting the cart before the horse. In other words, a weak position leads to a weak brand.
What Is Branding?
Why You Need A Strong Brand Identity
What is a brand? It is a unique collection of key messages and visual identity components (including logos, colors, fonts, and imagery) that convey the essence of your company to the marketplace. A strong brand creates a powerful connection between you and your customers, employees, and other key stakeholders. Developing a brand is more than just a creative exercise; it’s a discipline involving research and analysis, plus structured management and implementation.
In today’s crowded landscape, a strong brand cuts through noise and clutter and delivers a clear picture of who you are and what you do. The truth is your company has a brand. As an established business, you’ve created an impression on your customers and stakeholders through your communications and interactions. A brand lets you formalize and codify the creative identity and approaches that work to create a market presence that is unique to you. You have a brand regardless if you have ever thought about it before now.
Part of branding includes staying consistent and distinct on all online and offline platforms. A style guide tells everyone who interacts with your brand exactly how your branding elements (logo, colors, font, etc.) should be displayed. Whether we are discussing online ads, in-store ads, or social media content, your brand needs to stay consistent if you want your followers and clients to view you as genuine, honest, and direct. Creative guidelines allow people who produce your marketing and business material to become immersed in your brand identity and understand how to portray it.
Building your brand identity is the first step in creating a brand style guide. In order to create your brand identity, you must ask the right questions about yourself, your business, and your products or services. Then it is a good idea to spend some time thinking about each question and how it relates to you. You must consider your business mission, vision, and goals when designing a brand identity. These all work together and allow you to have a united, solid, concrete "personality" that will then attract your best target market. Asking yourself deep questions in order to get to your true brand is as important as any other part of your business plan.
Brand Style &
Creative Guidelines
I can help you achieve this connection between your small business success and brand. Creating a brand allows me to use both my academic knowledge of business and the creative side of myself which I also love. I am very passionate about how much your brand means to your small business's success and look forward to helping you gain this knowledge. We will use brand "personalities" to guide us in creating your logo, colors, fonts, style, and voice. We will also use contextual branding to create consistency. Check out my portfolio for some of the branding work I have done and then don't hesitate to get in touch with me for more information. Better yet, fill out the new project form by clicking the button below to see if we are a good fit. I will get back to you soon.