Branding Elements
If you are creating your company or personal branding, the list below can help. It contains seven branding elements. Together they form the necessary Brand Design Kit a part of your Brand Strategy.
Building a coherent structure of all major brand elements is important even before you start expanding the presence of your business.
Consistency in presenting your business is vital. It will show up in many places: your website, e-commerce, e-mail, prints, digital marketing, videos, broadcast, social media, and so on. Uniformity and repetition build recognition and then trust. This is how you will be noticed and eventually remembered. It is a proven way to win trust and retain customers.
Before you start, remember that you are not building the company for yourself. Define your best customers, what problems they may have, and what solution you plan to offer.
Imagine an avatar of your best customer. This is who you’re catering for
Seven Elements of Brand Design
1. Company Logo
It should be simple, with no more than three colors.
Shapes and colors have meaning. Fonts have different characters. Be mindful when choosing them. The logo should represent what you do and be pleasing to the customers you hope to reach. Simple design will be easier to remember and later more cost effective to reproduce on countless promotional items.
2. Color Palette
Here you can expand on your logo simplicity and add color variations and shades.
Colors have proven sociological power. Before you choose your scheme you need to understand the basics of how colors affect people. Check my Colors for a Brand blog for more details.
Colors set the mood, attract attention, and make a statement. Colors also can have slightly different meanings for different people – so your personal preference at this point is a little less important than your consumers’ expectations. Remember: if your venture is to be successful, it must deliver value to your future buyers.
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 is standing out – for your logo, titles, and headlines.
- One that is easy to read – for all descriptions, and body copy of your content.
- One that is unique – for highlights, accents, and special display.
4. Photography and Illustration Style
This is another element that can help people recognize you. 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.
You may not be using any cartoons or drawings across your media, but often icons and symbols are utilized to point to certain features or services. Make sure that the iconography is created as a matching set that complements your logo and uses your color palette.
Wonder how on some products and profiles many different pictures have somehow similar feel to them? One of the ways to achieve it is through predefined filters applied to all images. That is where you should observe your color scheme again. Maybe even pick one color from the palette and apply it as a constant element to all your images.
5. Sound and Tone of Voice
Could you finish the insurance company jingle “Like a good neighbor….”? We all can! Your content should include a polished to-perfection mission statement, a memorable opening phrase or tune, and a few catchphrases, and they all need a distinct tone of voice.
Yes, there is such a thing as a “tone of voice” 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 or informative, casual, or formal. And if you are serious about marketing, your unique speaking tone should also be a part of your branding.
6. Patterns and Texture
This is an additional way to stand out. It will help showcase your service or product in a consistent manner, so it should match it. For example woodgrain can represent environment, shimmering marble – luxury, polished metal – cleanliness or maybe a medical environment – and so on.
Even if you don’t have products or services to display – you could apply a texture as a consistent background to your graphics and presentations.
7. Layout
Using a consistent layout across all media is another way to make your audience remember you. If, for example, you ship goods to your customers you may extend the layout templates from your online pages to your packaging. The more times your clientele will be presented with your patterns the better. Familiarity is a big part of brand strategy because it creates a sense of comfort and trust.
Does it saound like a lot?
It is. I just “brushed over” each element. But if you view creating your Brand as a DIY project and would like to learn more details, this is a great book I would like to recommend: The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding. It provides step-by-step instructions validated by stories and anecdotes about creating some of the world’s best-known brands. Funny to listen to and loaded with great ideas to learn.
Yes, LISTEN. This book is available on the Amazon Audible app. If you have not subscribed to it yet, I highly recommend it.
Subscribing to Amazon Audible not only enables you to multitask by listening to audiobooks during various activities but also allows you to personalize your learning by highlighting important text, rewinding, and taking notes when it’s important.
Disclaimer: Links to products and services on this page are in most cases my Affiliate Links. That means if you click on them and make a purchase I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Nevertheless, because I update the links, I also look out for the best deals, and most up-to-date, and relevant materials. And, I don’t recommend what I would not use myself.
Keep A Record
Sometimes your brand will come together in a few sittings, but sometimes, you develop it over time. If this is your case, record your progress, and keep control. There is a saying that if you do not create your brand, your customers will. It is a possible, but not always desirable outcome.
Once you have all elements defined, you should put them together in a Brand Guidance Document.
- First, to see how all the elements look and feel together, and if there is still a need for adjustment.
- Finally – it is important to share the Brand Guidance with all your marketing services as a clear and strict recipe to follow. Otherwise, your branding will disappear in their aesthetics before you know it.
Consistency in your company’s visuals and presence is King. And if you invest in your branding at the start, and respect it – it will pay you back many times.
You will soon be RECOGNIZED and REMEMBERED.
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.