You know when a brand is visually pleasing to you. You are immediately taken by their website. Their social media pages are eye-catching. Their overall look seems more polished and more professional. Many people think visually branding has to be an expensive and time consuming project but what it takes is an excellent designer and a few key elements that we’ll outline here.
1) Understand your brand and the feelings you want to portray.
Some brands are funky, some are playful, others are sophisticated. All of these attributes can be expressed through visual branding but the important thing to know what you are representing and how you want your audience to feel. If you are a local coffeehouse and want your audience to feel cozy and comfortable, then neon colors will not properly express that. Excellent graphic designers understand how to evoke specific feelings through their designs and will be able to help you through this.
2) Don’t just copy someone else’s brand.
It’s easy to look at someone’s website or social media pages, business cards or branding and say “I want to look like that.” However, someone else’s brand will not translate over to your brand. You need to identify your audience, your products and services and the graphic elements that will tell your businesses story instead of trying to replicate what a competitor is doing.
3) Visual branding is more than a logo.
While logos are an important aspect of any business or online presence, you need to have more than just a logo to have. At the very least, you should have a color scheme and fonts, in addition to a logo.
4) Keep everything consistent.
You want your audience to know that they are working with the same company and get the same visual feeling, whether they are on your website, receiving emails from you or on your social media pages. Keep the colors, fonts and images consistent in look and feel.
5) It can be simple.
There’s no need to over complicate your visual brand. You do not need a thousand different images or seven different fonts. Sometimes, the most powerful branding is one that is simple, with one or two colors and two fonts but is extremely consistent.
6) Understand that visual branding is important.
Graphic design and visual branding is easy to ignore. After all, it’s hard to measure if the branding is working and it’s easier to focus on matters you can attach numbers and analytics too. But we live in a very visual world. Graphic design has become more prominent in the past century because people are attracted to visually pleasing information. Additionally, you are competing for attention and visual branding can help you stand out in a sea of competition.
If you’re interested in revamping your visual brand or learning about our graphic design services, drop us a line to find out more.
