10 Essential Elements of Great Brand Design
If you’re unsure how to improve your brand’s design or redesign your current one, this is the ultimate checklist to consider when developing a successful brand strategy.
To make sure your brand is as effective as possible, you have to get it right. A great brand design is one of the most critical components of your overall marketing strategy, from the logo to the colour scheme to the fonts used.
Some say brand design is just as important as your content strategy. You won’t get anywhere with your online or offline marketing campaigns without a great brand design.
It’s not enough to simply put your brand’s name and logo on something. You have to build your brand’s personality into everything you do, from the colours you use to your fonts. And if you’re not sure where to start, check out our tips for designing a powerful brand identity below.
1 – Visual Language
We live in a world of images and visual language. If we don’t know how to read and understand visual language, it’s nearly impossible to communicate effectively. So why is that? Because we’re not trained to understand visual language.
I’m not talking about basic reading skills but learning how to read the language surrounding us. And if you’re a visual learner like me, you’ll learn faster and retain more when you’re exposed to visuals that teach you about a topic.
Experts say that when we see something for the first time, our brains can memorise it better than if we were to study and read the same information.
Your visual identity is a powerful tool for communicating your brand’s personality. While many consumers rely heavily on verbal communication to develop a positive or negative opinion of a brand, visuals are also used to communicate.
According to research, more than 75% of information is processed visually, creating a more memorable impression on the audience. To establish a strong brand identity, you must define your audience’s needs and provide a visual solution to those needs.
2 – Brand Identity
There are two big questions to ask yourself when you want to build your brand identity.
- What is the company’s purpose?
- And what are the values of the business?
Once you answer those questions, you can start to create a story around your brand. It’s helpful to think about what makes your company special.
- How do you want your customers to see you?
- How does your company make a difference in the world? What are you known for?
- How do your products or services positively impact the lives of a consumer?
- What are the brand’s values?
While a logo can help a business stand out from competitors, a branding campaign can bring it to life. Branding campaigns often take a longer commitment, but they can create more lasting results. A great brand design should create a positive association in your mind for the business and its products.
Your brand identity can be straightforward. It’s the company’s visual identity. It’s what your audience perceives from your logo. However, it’s also more than just your logo.
Your brand identity should be reflected in everything you produce, from how you dress to interacting with your customers and colleagues. It’s also a key piece in a company’s overall branding strategy.
3 – Branding Strategy
You probably know the basic idea behind branding: associate a particular product with a particular business. That association is the basis of a good brand strategy. For example, when consumers hear “Kleenex,” they immediately think of the tissue brand.
But just because a company creates great brand design doesn’t mean it is always effective. Sometimes a brand looks and sounds like it comes from another source or even a competitor. A company might spend all the money globally to create a strong identity, but it’s useless if consumers don’t associate it with the company.
When creating a branding strategy, you first need to decide on your brand. Your brand can be anything from a personality to a mission statement. Once you have decided what your brand is, you’ll need to think about your audience.
Think about who is going to be your target market.
- Who will be interested in what you have to offer?
- Whom are you trying to impress?
- Are you trying to sell to consumers or businesses?
- Do you want to target a specific demographic?
If you don’t know the answers to these questions, it’s time to find out. Start by thinking about the different ways you can use your brand to reach your target market and get them to want to become a part of your strategy.
4 – Branding Execution
All the pieces are in place to build a strong foundation for a brand that resonates with its consumers. These brands tend to have a consistent message and a consistent voice. For example, a brand like Nike has a consistent tone throughout all of their marketing communications, as they share the same message: “It doesn’t matter what kind of sport you play; Nike can help you play better.”
Similarly, Starbucks has a consistent message with its tagline: “Be your own hero.” By consistently delivering the same message through all of their marketing content, these brands build trust and credibility with their clients.
There’s much talk these days about executing brand positioning and differentiation. The execution is a very different yet closely related process to brand positioning.
It’s essentially the day-to-day, ongoing application of the brand positioning strategy. The positioning strategy is a high-level plan, but brand execution is the plan that gets implemented daily. It’s the way the brand is expressed to buyers. Execution focuses on the customer experience, including customer experience across channels.
5 – Digital Identity
Your digital identity is often defined as “a cohesive visual brand system fully integrated with all digital channels and across all customer experience touchpoints.” But what does that mean?
Digital identity is an umbrella term for the various techniques we can use to tell the story of a company online. It encompasses everything from social media marketing to search engine optimisation and everything in between.
In the digital age, it’s no longer enough to build a website and hope people visit. The way customers interact with your business through digital channels is changing. They may start their search for your product on Google or Facebook, browse your company’s site or mobile app, and then buy or interact with your business offline.
In the digital age, everything you do online—from your online presence to your website to your online marketing tactics—matters.
There are many ways to create a digital identity. These days, it’s become the responsibility of marketing departments to think of ways to promote brands, products and services through digital channels.
Some common ways are to create social media profiles and use blogs and press releases. Digital branding has evolved to mean much more than just a website. Today, we also consider social media, email marketing, search engine optimisation and mobile marketing when thinking about your digital identity.
6 – Mobile Branding
Mobile branding is all about the ability to engage a consumer with your brand. Approximately 25% of smartphone owners will look up a company online on any given day.
Mobile brand awareness is key to keeping a business competitive and relevant. If a business is not being viewed as a trusted brand on mobile, it can lose out on the ability to connect with consumers.
There are four key areas where mobile branding must be present: 1) Mobile Web, 2) Mobile App, 3) Mobile Advertising and 4) Mobile Social Media. Each area has its unique challenges that a brand must face to succeed.
It’s no surprise that mobile advertising is taking off, and it’s still growing. According to Statista, mobile advertising spending reached a record $288 billion. This figure marked an increase of 26% compared to the previous year, and according to the latest data, spending will amount to nearly $413 billion by 2024.
The growth of mobile advertising is clear — people are spending more and more time on their smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. And while consumers are using these devices for more than just playing games and watching videos, marketers have started to notice.
7 – Branding Education
If you’re a small business owner, you know just how important it is to make sure all your employees are on the same page regarding your brand and how to convey it to customers. Your staff may refer to you as “we” instead of “I”, even though you’ve spent hours telling them otherwise.
So, you may be wondering what you can do to make sure everyone knows who you are and how to talk about you in the right way. The first thing to do is figure out what your brand is.
There are two ways to educate your employees about your plan: one, do it yourself, and two, let someone else do it.
The first method requires you to have the skills necessary to educate yourself about your branding elements. This should not only be done by you but by someone as passionate about your brand as you are.
However, the second method is the easiest way to educate your employees. It doesn’t require a ton of time or money, and it gives you much flexibility.
8 – Content Marketing
Content marketing is a relatively new concept, but it’s already a widely accepted form of marketing. It can help your company establish a recognisable brand, increase your search rankings, and improve customer engagement and retention.
In addition to these benefits, content marketing can help your company stand out from your competitors. To put it simply, content marketing is a way to build an audience for your business. The more popular your content is, the more likely people are to link back to your site and share it.
A growing body of research suggests that consumers increasingly rely on Google and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter as their primary source of information about a company.
It turns out that customers are looking for products and services based on reviews and recommendations from their social networks, not just ads that appear on search engine results pages.
These days, it’s all about building a great brand design online. It means spending more time on your site and social channels, engaging with your community, and promoting your name.
Content marketing is the best way to communicate with prospects and customers about your products and services in a relevant way. Content marketing is not just for businesses with a large marketing budget. Small business owners should, too, because it’s an innovative and affordable way to market yourself.
9 – Brand Evangelism
Brand evangelism is a great way to introduce your brand to new people. It’s a term for using social media and other online channels to reach out and tell people about your brand.
You may even consider your core value proposition: connecting people to your brand and your products and services.
Brands need to establish brand evangelism as a core function of their marketing strategy. They must make sure that consumers understand their brand and its value proposition.
It should be a core part of their marketing plan because it involves establishing a dialogue between consumers and companies.
10 – Repositioning
Brand repositioning is redesigning your brand or re-inventing your identity to reflect a new and improved positioning.
It’s a process that requires a thorough understanding of your company history and your target audience and the ability to craft your message accordingly.
Repositioning is not only the act of marketing your products and services, but it is also a continuous process that includes developing and managing your brand over time.
Today’s consumers have short attention spans. Therefore, repositioning a brand requires focusing on changing the image you present to consumers rather than just making minor changes in your branding. Repositioning your brand focuses on two distinct areas: the message and the look.
Conclusion
In conclusion, a great brand design is unique, memorable, and represents a promise. It also needs to reflect your values and tell a story.
Whether you’re a product manufacturer, a retail business, a service provider, or a non-profit organisation, branding is the face of your company. It’s the first thing people see when they encounter you.
How can you expect your customers to find you if you don’t have a great brand design?
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