Your brand has numerous elements, all playing an essential role in conveying your core message to consumers, and none more so than your visual identity.
It’s because visual branding is the most effective way of capturing your target audience’s attention, and as images stay stored in our memory for years, they’re also essential for building brand recognition.
As consumers gravitate further away from the traditional written content and move towards visual advertising, brands must know how to implement a consistent visual branding strategy if they want audiences to notice them. Consistency also creates familiarity, and this is what builds the trust between a brand and its community.
But how do you find the perfect visuals, ones that accurately reflect your written content, and most importantly, your brand’s voice and core beliefs?
1. Know your brand voice and set the tone
Every visual you promote has to relate to your brand’s voice; think of it as your DNA. It’s only when you have your voice can set the tone of your visual branding. By doing so, you can apply it to everything you do, ensuring that all your content, especially your visuals, are connected.
Get this right, and viewers will instantly know the brand they’re interacting with, and that element of trust will build.
Here are some strategies for finding and maintaining your voice:
- Start by creating a brand voice chart: An essential tool for ensuring that your content consistently uses the same voice.
- Review all your content to date: Are there any examples that could have come from a competitor? If so, remove them. You want content that’s unique to your brand; then build on it.
- Describe your brand in three words: These are your core values.
- Describe your brand as a person: What’s their personality?
- Update your voice chart regularly.
- Make sure your writers and visual designers are tuned into your DNA and know-how to implement it.
You can’t fake your voice, or to be more precise, you shouldn’t, because today’s online consumers want authenticity; it’s what replaces that lack of tactility; it’s also why they’ll trust to use your brand.
2. Your logo requires special attention
Think of three major brands that you use. Did their logos appear in your mind?
Logos may be small, but their importance is unmeasurable.
It’s because they are a summary of your brand and what it stands for.
A logo has milliseconds to engage the viewer, connect on an emotional level, and convey your brand’s ethos! So, the type (Wordmark, Icon, Combination), the style (traditional, modern, minimalistic, bold), and the colors, fonts, and shapes you choose must all work together in getting your message across.
Here are some tips on how to start designing your logo:
- Find inspiration for your design: Look at the leading brands in your market place; odds are they’ve done their research.
- Decide on your design style: It’s related to your voice. Are you a fun-loving or formal type brand? Do you sell surfboards or insurance? Choose a style that fits your voice.
- Choose a logotype: You have three main choices (A Combination logotype – which can contain your name, a slogan, and an image. A Wordmark logotype – your name. And an Icon logotype – an image)
- Give color a lot of thought: The design rule with logos is simplicity; this also applies to color. Great logos use no more than three; two is even better; also, the color you use will convey its own unique subliminal message, so it’s advisable to research color psychology before you decide.
- Use fonts that suit your voice: Just like color; you want to minimize your fonts; again, two is what works best. Using contrasting fonts for your name and slogan helps make your logo grab the viewer`s attention.
An excellent way of finding inspiration and designing a logo is by using one of the various companies, such as Tailor Brands or DesignCrowd, that lets you get a logo online. These innovative AI logo makers already know which designs, colors, and fonts work for each market and save you both time and money.
Whichever logotype, style, colors, or fonts you choose, they all have to be versatile (work for both online and offline on numerous materials) and scalable (so it looks just as good on your website header and your social media avatar).
3. Choose the right colors for your brand
An excellent way of giving your visual branding a distinct style is by choosing a color palette that suits your voice.
All markets have a range of colors that suit them; however, you can distinguish yourself from your competitors and create that all-important visual identity by carefully choosing a palette that your competitors aren’t using.
Palettes generally have three primary and three secondary colors, giving you all the colors you need for creating a distinct and cohesive feel to your visual branding. A pro tip is to start with one color that suits your core voice and then find its related palette.
When choosing your palette, consider the emotions and feelings you want them to convey, as color is often the first visual viewers see. When asked, 85% of consumers said color to be the main driving factor when choosing a product, and 92% believe visual appearance to be the biggest motivator for giving their allegiance to a brand!
Fortunately, there’s a proven method for finding the right color for your visual branding:
- First and foremost, research color psychology, so you know the message each color sends.
- Research your market; everyone has a color palette or at least two primary colors proven to connect with their target audience.
- Next, look at your main competitors, find those primary colors.
- Now make your color palette unique by identifying your brand’s essence.
- Finally, test your palette across all your branding strategies.
4. Create your identity with images
It pays to be mindful of all the images you use and not just your infographics.
But let’s first talk about infographics:
Infographics are being used more today than ever before due to their visual impact. A consumer will learn more about your brand from a well laid out infographic than pages of content, and as most consumers now skim read, the only way to grab their attention is by using attention-grabbing graphics.
However, they’re just a part of the general strategy of visual branding!
You also need to consider other equally essential visuals for your branding to work at an optimum level.
Here’s where images have a starring role:
Images are now a driving factor in e-commerce, and brands need to embrace them in every way possible.
Consider Instagram for a moment. Brands are creating communities based on the high-quality images they’re posting, but it’s not just Instagram where they’re needed!
Almost every social media platform now considers images as an essential element in any brand’s advertising campaign.
But you must also use the same high-quality images on your website, merchandise, icons, and avatars; by doing so, you’ll create consistency throughout your visual branding.
5. Choose fonts that speak your customer’s language
Keep an eye on your fonts as they can have an impact on how your target audience and community perceive your brand. It’s because every audience has their style of language, and your fonts must speak it.
You can find the perfect fonts for your brand by choosing ones that reflect its message and values; this, in turn, will attract the kind of customers that are right for you.
As with color, try to use no more than two font types as this helps build that all-important continuity.
Some tips for finding and using the right fonts:
- Bold clean fonts work best for titles, headings, subheadings, and your call to action. They also attract the viewer’s attention to what’s most important.
- Choose ones that suit your brand’s voice and help to communicate its personality.
- Only use fonts that are versatile and work on all platforms.
- Ensure that they are legible at all scales.
- Be as unique as possible.
Are you ready to get your brand on?
Trying to design your visual branding alone can be a daunting and confusing task, so don’t!
There’s a wealth of high-quality online information available, and you can find almost everything you need for creating high-quality infographics and eye-popping visuals.
You can also reach out and collaborate with designers; these can be hired on a task by task basis. But of course, you first want to build the design relationship so any team you use knows your brand’s DNA and how you want to show it to the world.