Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team, 5th Edition

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Iconography is part art, part science, so you want to make sure things are as clear as possible. For more tips, see Design Systems’ complete guide to iconography . Courtney is a talented, respected designer. She formerly ran the popular design blog Design Work Life, and produces well-designed, thoughtful brand identities alongside her husband at their 2-person studio, Seamless Creative. She recently launched her latest venture, En Route Workshop, where she works with people who are going places to develop brands that get them there. First, you need to know who you are: What’s your personality? What do you care about? What do you do? How do you talk about what you do? These are the core elements of your brand that your visual identity will communicate. If you don’t have this foundation to build upon, you can’t design a visual identity that properly tells your brand story. As you can tell, it’s complicated. Two agencies who I think do a good job with their brand research are Landor and Fi. It shows in the way that they describe their completed work as challenge-and-solution projects. The Design Brief A brand identity is a template for everything you would include on an advertisement for your business — whether that ad is in print, online, or a preroll commercial on YouTube.

I really wanted to dress a woman like me: someone who wanted to feel empowered and strong and understated but not afraid to stand out in a crowd," Siyana said in an interview with Forbes. "My designs are very minimalist, very simple, but there's always a little bit of a twist or a cool edge to it. Red: Red is the color of passion and excitement. It’s the perfect choice if your brand identity is loud, youthful, and exciting.

How to Create a Brand Identity

For instance, if you’re selling to entrepreneurs, you’ll want to know exactly who your target is: is it solopreneurs who juggle several tasks in a day or an established entrepreneur who manages teams? Memorable: It makes a visual impact. (Consider Apple: The logo is so memorable they only include the logo—not their name—on their products.) More than its consistency in identity projects, the Coca-Cola brand is consistent in its product – the original coke has always been the same. Even though the brand introduced other flavors such as vanilla and cherry, these were branded slightly differently to keep the original flavor as unmistakably “coke” as possible. When selecting, however, make sure your brand fonts are easy to read. After all, you don’t want potential customers to squint to try and understand your tagline.

Moving forward, your job is to market your brand identity. How? Share your logo. Design all marketing materials using your brand fonts, colors and design elements. In fact, the infographics you design should also be on-brand.Green: An incredibly versatile color, green can be used for just about any brand. Culturally, though, when people see green, they think two things: money or nature. If your brand is tied to either of those things, green is an especially good choice. From producing many of the highest-grossing movies of all time to the invention of the theme park to the first entirely computer-generated animated movie and owning a host of other amazing companies, Disney holds a special place in our memories. A brand identity — one with a face, trust, and a mission — attracts people who agree with what your brand has to offer. But once these people become customers, that same brand identity gives them a sense of belonging. After the research phase is complete and a design brief has been created, it’s time to start designing the logo and identity system. The Logo Founder Ashley Sutton always wanted to start a stationery company, but after a career working in some of the top Fortune 500 companies, she became passionate about empowering people to be their best professional selves.

Coca-Cola, once again, makes great use of its Facebook cover photo real estate by keeping it consistent with the happiness theme. Google’s brand stretches far beyond its products and services to its values and how its employees are treated. Image Source: Wikimedia Commons 5 steps to successful brand identity design Your competition may have exemplary branding, and since you're selling the same products or services, you might want to do what you know works — don't. Your brand identity can be expressed in any number of elements. Depending on the nature of your business, one asset or another may be more or less important. Asana's mission is "to help humanity thrive by enabling the world's teams to work together effortlessly."You too? Me too! Because why would you buy from someone you don’t know when you can buy from someone you know.