How to create your brand identity
Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2025 5:22 am
As Marty Neumeier would say, identity is the external expression of a brand, including its logo, name, communication and visual appearance.
And it can be even more than that, with the sum of how a brand is felt, seen and how it speaks to people (all of them, from your external audience to your internal one). And you can even extrapolate to the sound identity, to the flavor of your brand, to the aromas of your brand.
For a good brand design (in all aspects, not just the shapes, but the texts, sounds, tastes, language, etc.), there are three points that we cannot lose sight of:
1. Differentiation: This is how your brand stands out in a market full of competitors. Imagine your product on a shelf with several competitors next to it, imagine an ad of yours on Instagram with several ads and posts running across the screen. How would your brand stand out?
2. Connection: the clearer you communicate, the greater your benin phone number data chances of having people who connect with your purpose, values, products and will accompany you on your brand's life journey.
3. Brand experience: All points of contact with your brand help determine the experience that your multiple audiences will have with your brand, whether it’s your website, your social media, your videos, or your store. So, the more aligned and coherent your identity is, the better your brand’s performance will be.
What does a brand identity encompass?
When you create a brand identity, you are creating a toolbox that your company will be able to use throughout its life. It is also an accelerator of communication with all audiences: both internal and external. Therefore, this toolbox can be basic or super extensive.
From a more basic standpoint, what you will need is:
– A logo
– A color palette
– Typography
Research study: How logo designs impact brand trust
If you plan to create a wide range of content, which is highly recommended nowadays due to the projection that social networks can give to your brand, you will also need:
– Style guide for photography
– Guide for your videos (here we can help you)
– Iconography
– Data visualization
To make your brand identity strong, it needs to have some essential elements:
– Distinctive: how it stands out from its competitors
– Memorable: it has to make an immediate impact (for example, Apple: just by looking at the little apple you already know what the brand is, you don’t even need to write the name underneath)
– Scalable: must be able to grow with your business/brand
– Flexible: it should work in different applications such as your website, business card, videos, posts, etc.
In more practical terms, there are several processes to define your brand, and here we have made a list of what can help you along the way.
Step 1: Set your foundations
Whenever we think about brand identity, we tend to rush to designing the logo, colors, and typography. But in reality, these are the last steps in the process. Just like a house, you first need to define the foundations, then put up the walls and paint.
First, you need to know and define who you are as a brand: what is your personality? What do you care about? What do you do? How do you talk about what you do?
And it can be even more than that, with the sum of how a brand is felt, seen and how it speaks to people (all of them, from your external audience to your internal one). And you can even extrapolate to the sound identity, to the flavor of your brand, to the aromas of your brand.
For a good brand design (in all aspects, not just the shapes, but the texts, sounds, tastes, language, etc.), there are three points that we cannot lose sight of:
1. Differentiation: This is how your brand stands out in a market full of competitors. Imagine your product on a shelf with several competitors next to it, imagine an ad of yours on Instagram with several ads and posts running across the screen. How would your brand stand out?
2. Connection: the clearer you communicate, the greater your benin phone number data chances of having people who connect with your purpose, values, products and will accompany you on your brand's life journey.
3. Brand experience: All points of contact with your brand help determine the experience that your multiple audiences will have with your brand, whether it’s your website, your social media, your videos, or your store. So, the more aligned and coherent your identity is, the better your brand’s performance will be.
What does a brand identity encompass?
When you create a brand identity, you are creating a toolbox that your company will be able to use throughout its life. It is also an accelerator of communication with all audiences: both internal and external. Therefore, this toolbox can be basic or super extensive.
From a more basic standpoint, what you will need is:
– A logo
– A color palette
– Typography
Research study: How logo designs impact brand trust
If you plan to create a wide range of content, which is highly recommended nowadays due to the projection that social networks can give to your brand, you will also need:
– Style guide for photography
– Guide for your videos (here we can help you)
– Iconography
– Data visualization
To make your brand identity strong, it needs to have some essential elements:
– Distinctive: how it stands out from its competitors
– Memorable: it has to make an immediate impact (for example, Apple: just by looking at the little apple you already know what the brand is, you don’t even need to write the name underneath)
– Scalable: must be able to grow with your business/brand
– Flexible: it should work in different applications such as your website, business card, videos, posts, etc.
In more practical terms, there are several processes to define your brand, and here we have made a list of what can help you along the way.
Step 1: Set your foundations
Whenever we think about brand identity, we tend to rush to designing the logo, colors, and typography. But in reality, these are the last steps in the process. Just like a house, you first need to define the foundations, then put up the walls and paint.
First, you need to know and define who you are as a brand: what is your personality? What do you care about? What do you do? How do you talk about what you do?