When it comes to marketing and branding your business, having a solid visual identity is critical. A cohesive, professional visual branding strategy can help you stand out from the competition and create a lasting impression with your customers.
What Is Visual Branding?
In a nutshell, visual branding is the process of creating a cohesive visual identity for your brand. Visual branding includes every element of your company’s image, from its looks to how it feels. A solid visual identity can establish trust and credibility, instilling customers with confidence in what you have to offer.
An excellent way to think of visual branding is to imagine walking into a store. You can tell quickly whether or not you like the way it looks, even before walking in. The same goes for the companies you interact with online—visual branding helps make your business more recognizable, memorable, and trustworthy.
Establishing a solid brand identity can help you boost your company’s success.
Why Do I Need Visual Branding?
Visual branding is essential for several reasons. Here are just a few:
Visual branding can help you stand out from the competition.
A solid visual identity can make your company significant and reliable.
It can help you create a consistent brand experience for your customers.
Good visual branding can increase brand awareness.
It can help you build a loyal customer base.
How Do I Create A Visual Brand Identity?
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this, but here are nine tips for creating a solid visual branding strategy that might work for your business:
1. Start With The Basics
Before creating logos and designing marketing materials, you must establish critical brand identity elements, such as your company’s name, colors, and fonts. These elements should be consistent across your branding materials so that your customers will know what to expect from your brand.
An excellent way to create your brand identity is to picture it as creating a character. Like building a fictional character, you need strong foundations to make something compelling and cohesive.
For example, consider the image or feeling you want your brand to evoke when creating a logo. These questions can guide you in building your brand: What is your company’s personality? What are its values? What do you want customers to remember about your business?
Once you understand your brand identity well, you can create designs that reflect these elements.
2. Know Your Audience
It’s essential to tailor your visuals to your target audience. It means creating materials that are relevant and interesting to them.
For instance, you might want to use more contemporary designs and fonts if you’re targeting millennials. On the other hand, you might want to use more professional designs if you’re targeting business owners.
You’ll find it easier to create a cohesive brand identity if you know who you’re making it for. It’s essential to determine how your target customers perceive your business and what they want from the companies they choose to engage with. Hence, you can decide which colors, fonts, logos, and images will work best for your visual branding strategy.
3. Create A Mood Board
A mood board is a collection of images, fonts, and colors representing the elements you’d like to include in your branding strategy. It’s a great way to create cohesion between all of your materials—from logos to website graphics to social media posts.
Mood boards can help you better understand how your visual branding elements will work together. They can also help you experiment with different designs and find those that resonate with your target audience.
It’s imperative to be as specific as possible when creating your mood board. Pros suggest creating mood board categories for color palettes, typography, images, and patterns.
Here’s a simple way on how to make a mood board:
Collect images, fonts, and colors that represent your brand identity.
Create categories for each element type (e.g., color palettes, typography, images, patterns).
Start assembling your mood board by adding images, fonts, and colors to the corresponding categories.
Conduct some consumer research to see how others perceive your brand identity.
Reflect on it and make changes if necessary.
Mood boards can be a great tool to experiment with different designs, but they’re subjective. However, it’s essential to conduct consumer research before finalizing your designs. A mock-up of your branding materials can be shared with friends and family or even put up on social media to get feedback from your target audience.
4. Work With Professionals
If you’re not confident in your design skills, working with a professional graphic designer is a good idea. A professional can help you create a visual branding strategy that accurately represents your brand and appeals to your target audience. Find a Visual Designer from Toptal who can also help you design marketing materials on-brand and look polished and professional.
They can also help you design marketing materials on-brand and look polished and professional.
5. Be Consistent
As you’re creating your visual branding, it’s essential to be consistent across all of your materials. That includes everything from the colors, fonts, and images you use to the overall style of your marketing materials.
If you’re creating a logo or another visual element that will appear on more than one element—like website header, business signage, social media images—it’s a good idea to create a mock-up of your brand identity look like together.
It’ll give you a better sense of how all of your materials work together and help you decide which elements are most effective before creating them all.
6. Maximize Your Space
When creating visuals for your brand, it’s crucial to think about how much space you have to work with. It means using font sizes and images of the appropriate scale for the medium you’re using.
For example, if you’re creating a social media post, you’ll want to use a smaller image than creating a billboard. And if you’re making a website header, you’ll want to use a larger image than creating a social media profile picture.
7. Use Appropriate Images
One of the essential visual branding elements is using appropriate images for your brand. It means using images that reflect your company’s values and target audience.
It’s also essential to use images that are high quality and visually appealing. It’ll help your materials stand out from the competition and positively impact your target customers.
8. Test Your Visual Branding Strategy
It is crucial to test your visual branding strategy. You can do this by sending some of your marketing materials to a small group of people and seeing how they react.
Assess whether they could grasp your branding or if they liked the images and fonts you’ve chosen and the colors you used. Their feedback is essential in determining whether your visual branding is effective and needs further refinement.
9. Be Flexible
As your business grows and progresses, so will your visual branding. It’s necessary to be flexible and adapt your branding strategy to reflect your company’s direction.
That may mean creating new logos, changing the colors and fonts you use or updating your image library. Be prepared to make minor tweaks to keep your branding fresh and relevant.
Now that you’re well-versed in creating a visual branding strategy, it’s time to get started creating your company’s visuals.
What Does My Visual Brand Identity Need?
When creating a visual brand identity, there are a few key elements you’ll need to consider. Here is a list of what you need:
A Logo
Your logo is one of the essential elements of your visual branding. It’s what people will remember most about your company, so it’s crucial to choose a logo that accurately represents your brand and is visually appealing. Your logo should also be versatile to be used on various marketing materials.
There are variations of logotypes, so be sure to choose one that best represents your company. Here are a few of the most common:
- Logotype
A logotype is a logo that consists only of text. This type of logo is suitable for companies that want to emphasize their name and make it the focal point of their branding.
- Wordmark
A wordmark logo is a logotype but with a graphic element added. This type of logo is suitable for companies that want to add a little bit of flair to their branding.
- Iconic Mark
An iconic mark is a type of logo that consists of a symbol or icon. This type of logo is excellent for companies that want their branding to be easily identifiable but want it to be different than the status quo. When considering a logo, it’s important to think about professional logo design. A professional designer can help you create a logo that is not only visually appealing but also strategically designed to represent your brand effectively.
Color Palette
The colors you choose for your branding will play a significant role in how customers perceive your company. It’s essential to choose colors that reflect your company’s values and target audience. In addition, you’ll need to make sure your colors are consistent across all of your marketing materials.
According to color psychology, specific colors can evoke different feelings in people, so be sure to choose appropriate colors for your brand. Here are a few general guidelines for choosing branding colors:
Blue: Representing trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, and stability.
Red: Representing power, passion, excitement, speed, and strength.
Green: Representing growth, harmony, freshness, and new beginnings.
Purple: Representing luxury, creativity, romance, and mystery.
Orange: Representing adventure, warmth, and energy.
Yellow: Representing joy, happiness, and fun.
Fonts And Typography
Your fonts also play an essential role in your branding. It’s important to choose fonts that are easy to read and match the overall style of your marketing materials. Moreover, you’ll need to ensure the fonts and typography are consistent across all your materials.
Forms And Shapes
The overall forms and shapes you use in your branding should be visually appealing while also representing the quality of your brand. You’ll want to choose forms that match your target audience’s expectations.
If you find it hard to figure out what types of forms and shapes might work for your company, try brainstorming with your team members or asking people outside your company for their opinion.
Symbolism
Symbolism is a powerful tool for visual branding. When used correctly, it can help people understand your brand’s values and mission statement.
When choosing symbolism for your branding, be sure to do your research and make sure the symbols you choose are appropriate. You don’t want to accidentally misrepresent your brand with the wrong type of symbolism.
Images
The images you use in your branding are also necessary. It’s essential to use high-quality, visually appealing photos that accurately reflect your company’s values and target audience.
Appropriate Elements For Your Visual Branding
When creating a visual branding strategy, choosing elements that accurately represent your company and its values are important. Here are a few considerations to note when selecting your branding elements:
Meaningfulness: Your branding elements should be meaningful to your company and its target audience. They should reflect your company’s values and what you want your customers to know about you.
Memorability: Your branding elements should be easily recognizable and memorable. Even if your customers can’t recall the details of your visual branding, they should still be able to remember and recognize your company’s logo when they see it.
Visually Appealing: Choosing aesthetically pleasing elements for your branding strategy is essential. Your company’s visuals should be appealing to customers and reflect your target audience.
Consistency: Your branding elements should be consistent across all your marketing materials. It’ll ensure that your branding is cohesive and looks professional.
Versatility: Your branding elements should be versatile to be used on various marketing materials like print ads, billboards, and social media. It’ll make it easier to share your branding across different platforms.
Timeless: Your branding elements should be timeless. It means they should stay relevant and appropriate for years to come.
Accessibility: You must make all of your branding elements easily accessible to customers, so they can access your image online and share it across their own social media profiles.
Final Note
Creating a strong visual branding strategy can be a lot of work, but it’s worth it in the long run. It can help you build an influential and recognizable brand that customers will love when done correctly. So, take your time, conduct thorough research, and make sure you choose elements that accurately reflect your company and its values.
When creating your visual branding strategy, it’s essential to keep the above tips in mind. You can create a solid brand identity that accurately represents your company and its values by following these guidelines. And don’t forget to be creative and have fun with it. Your branding should be unique to your company and reflect its personality.
Working with a top-rated branding agency to develop a solid visual identity is also a must if you are new to the business. Professional visual branding strategy created by experts in the field can really help you stand out from the competition and attract customers.