Brand Appearance
Brand appearance must represent what your brand stands for. With the brand mission, values, and market demographics defined, the brand appearance design will stay on target. Its visual elements will express the brand personality and address the expectations of the targeted audience.
Market Research
Check your competition and gather insights. Believe me, unless your business idea is absolutely innovative, you will be among the many in the marketplace.
Browse social media for influencers in your niche. By checking them, you can learn a lot about the lingo and aesthetics popular in your industry, and already expected by your future audience
This is not a suggestion to become a copycat. That’s illegal and quickly punishable. If not by a lawsuit, then by search engines ignorance. It’s also not a command to be like everyone else. Are you confident enough to stand out with individuality? It is a valid option. Just double-check if this aligns with your values.
While you browse create an Ideas Library and save all the best examples you will find there. This library will become an inspiration and a time saver in the future. Gather inspiration and observe existing standards. Save all great fonts, catchy images, beautiful pictures, clever quotes, and anything you’ll find interesting.
- Pay attention to colors. You can narrow your color search by learning a little about color psychology ahead of time. Download my free PDF file listing general meanings associated with several popular colors and see what color will align with your values.
- Pay attention to fonts. Notice what looks nice or trendy and what is easy to read. How many different fonts are in a publication that looks best and has the most visitors?
- Start taking pictures. Many free images are available online. Don’t fall into this trap! You don’t want to look just like a million others. Your team, product, and premises will always be better than generic.
Remember that a cohesive visual style is a must. While it’s easy to drift down some “rabbit trails” when scrolling through thousands of online samples, a consistent visual style is like the glue that holds your brand appearance elements together.
Elements of Brand Appearance
There are several elements of visual brand appearance, and they should be consistent, and look good together. A cohesive visual style is a must. It is like the glue that will hold your brand together. Here is a list of elements to consider:
1. Company Logo
The logo consists of shapes, fonts, or both. Shapes and colors have meaning, fonts have different characters. Be mindful when choosing them for your logo. Simple design will be easier to remember and more cost-effective to reproduce on countless promotional items.
Think Apple©, Nike©, or Amazon Prime©.
2. Color Palette
Colors have proven sociological power. They set the mood, attract attention, and make a statement. Colors also can have slightly different meanings for different people. If you decided already on your main color – see what other colors would complement it best.
Well-designed brands do not need many colors.
3. Fonts
Fonts, just like shapes and colors also have personality. Fonts can be fancy or formal, decorative, simple, bold, or subtle. Your fonts need to harmonize with your business profile, appeal to your audience (again!), and look good with each other. Usually, you need a set of three fonts:
- One that stands out – for titles, and headlines.
- One that is easy to read – for all descriptions, and body copy of your content.
- One that is unique – for logo, highlights, and special display.
4. Photography and Illustration Style
The images across all your media should showcase your product or service in an easy-to-understand and remember way; their aesthetics should match your business profile, and their style should be consistent.
If in the layouts of your publications, you plan to use graphics, make sure that they are created as a matching set of icons that complements your logo and uses your color palette.
5. Patterns and Texture
This is one more way to consistently showcase your brand. For example: woodgrain can represent the environment, shimmering marble – luxury, polished metal – cleanliness, or maybe a medical environment – and so on. Choose your texture and use it in your presentation for a unified look. Even if you don’t have products or services to display – you could apply it as a consistent background to your idea’s graphics and presentations.
6. Layouts
There are many documents to use even in the smallest venture: business cards, letters, e-mails, proposals, labels, thank you notes… even invoices. Using pre-defined layouts for them is a shortcut that saves time and preserves consistency. By using uniform style sheets and templates of once-designed publications, you will streamline the creation process and eliminate the need for repeated design decisions. What a time saver!
7. Sound and Tone of Voice
Yes, there is such a thing as a “tone of voice” even in writing. That is why proofreading software, like Grammarly, Chat GPT, and other AI writing tools, have built-in tone detectors. They let you know if your writing is friendly informative, casual, or formal. That is also why I put the “sound” among the “visuals”. Your unique writing tone should also be a part of your branding.
Tools for the Brand Appearance Research
Although searching online is almost synonymous with “google it” – there are many other platforms to check. For a specific niche – there might be specific, specialized programs, and you may be more familiar with them than yours truly. But for the general research and collecting ideas for the appearance of your brand, I would recommend Pinterest and Canva.
Often considered to be one of the social media platforms, it is also a visual search engine.
- Establish in Pinterest your brand profile and start your work by following “pinners” that post content related to your niche
- Create your own “secret” boards to pin and sort the ideas and designs that inspire you.
- Finally, when your brand is ready, create public boards that you will use to present your proposition and promote it.
So, from research, and collecting ideas through sharing your brand promos when ready, Pinterest can be your Best Friend Forever.
An easy-to-use and popular online design platform, Canva is loaded with thousands of images, fonts, and templates. Many of them can be used even in the free Canva account.
Since you are not yet working on specific designs, just collecting the elements, check the Canva feature called a “Whiteboard”. It is an infinite space where you can gather and organize all the elements that will catch your eye. You can mix and match, and check what will work for your brand and look good together.
QUICK TIP: Your search results on Pinterest and Canva can become part of your Creative Ideas Library. Note, that since they live online – you can easily share them with anyone who may work now or later on your brand project.
Also, the whiteboard on Canva can be used to create your initial Mood Board, a strategic tool that will set the tone for all your designs and keep them coherent and consistent.
Excellent overview of branding. These elements are easy to take for granted when viewing a website. Distilling it down to these elements was very helpful. Thanks Margaret!
Thank you, Rick! I am writing more on this topic as we speak. Watching a customer who lost existing brand esthetics after outsourcing social media marketing to a random designer I realized again that the company’s MISSION should always precede all the visual designs. Otherwise, you are becoming one of the many.