There’s much more to an effective brand identity than its logo, font, or colour pallet. In this blog, we explore the key rules marketers, business owners and designers should follow to ensure the creation and longevity of the brand identity endures.
For centuries, humans have championed beauty and tried to represent it as best they can. A Greek expression that helps us to understand why beauty was celebrated and still is today is – ‘καλοκαγαθία’ (kalokagathìa) which indicates the perfection of a person both physically and morally. The Greeks in fact believed that beautiful people were also good and morally correct because they associated good looks with other positive personal qualities.
In the same way, we all try to look our best, even via our choice of clothes or how we style our hair. Have you ever wondered what is it that guides us in the way we choose to look? For some, it is to express our individuality, impress others, appear younger. The style we choose reflects our way of thinking and living. When we choose our external style, in favour (or not) of the trends, is the most concrete means to express ourselves. The style becomes a tangible way to show the world what we are inside, what we believe in.
This is a premise we can use to better understand what visual identity is, in relation to brands. It is comparable to that of the external appearance for people, the combination of physical traits and the style we choose to follow, our clothes, haircut and colours used.
Brand Identity or Visual Identity?
The two words are often used interchangeably but in this instance, I want to focus in particular on the visual identity, and not on the brand identity. Visual identity explores, in particular, the elements with the visual details related to the brand and less to the other elements that make up the brand, such as naming or tone of voice.
Marketing and Visual
When creating the Visual Identity of a brand there are many elements that must be taken into account. It is important to keep in mind that the creation of the visual elements of a brand is not something only around graphic design but is part of a clear and defined marketing strategy.
A very common mistake during the creation of the Visual Identity (and also of the Brand Identity) is to start making it without having a clear idea of the direction you want to take with the brand. As I said before, the Visual Identity is the result of the essence of the brand, it is the way to externalize to the public – through the images – the values, the target, the positioning etc… For example, relying on a graphic agency (or a freelance graphic designer) who has no marketing knowledge and who cannot carry out a strategy for your brand is always a bad idea.
So, the first step to take when you decide to launch a new brand (or re-design it) is to rely on a team of marketers who can create a clear strategy.
It is necessary that this visual fully reflects the desires and interests of the target audience defined by the marketing strategy as these will be the people you will aim to connect with. Returning to the initial comparison, it is similar to when we choose the right clothing for a particular occasion, if we have to go to a business meeting with clients we will choose a smart outfit that makes us look reliable and professional and not a sporty and or tightly fit one that instead would highlight our physical qualities.
What are the rules of “good branding”?
In a globalized world, to stand out from competitors and emerge, it is essential to build – and then communicate – our identity in a distinctive way. To make all this happen, companies and organizations must constantly take into account the market in which they operate (a variable in continuous mutation, to be monitored and understood) and the trends of the moment.
The topic of trends is a very delicate one when it comes to branding. A crucial aspect of the brand image is that it must last over time, be solid and, be able to grow together with the business without ever-changing. But how can this durability feature merge with the idea of trends which by nature is something fleeting?
When we talk about trends within the branding world, their time frame expands much more than other types of trends. For example, if we talk about logos, typically the trends change around every 10 years. What comes to the rescue companies to be always modern, but also to be consistent is the re-brand. A brand, indeed, cannot be immutable. Or rather, there are very few cases in which a brand, will remain the same as itself, can cross the decades always recording successes and consensuses. For all the others, as the market and consumers, technologies, and competitors change, it is necessary to update.
Consistency
I decided to dedicate an entire paragraph to this topic because it is one of the most important for me and I believe it is among the essential things for a good Visual Identity and consequently for a winning visual strategy.
Brand identity, as you know, is fundamental when it comes to content. We could define it as that set of values, know-how, naming, logo and graphic interface that make a brand immediately recognisable.
When working on content, it is good practice to take into account all these elements to remain consistent with respect to brand identity. For example when actioning real-time marketing trend-jacking such as live videos or Adhoc-unplanned social posts – if the event in question is not in line with brand communication this could not only be risky but be misleading and potentially brand-damaging.
If digital marketing today allows companies to expand and root their value proposition, the risk can be a loss of consistency and recognisability between the different channels and touchpoints.
People are sensitive to inconsistencies. Most consumers are habitual and seek consistency to have a solid measure of the credibility and quality of a brand. In a recent survey, 41% of consumers consider brand consistency to be the most important factor for loyalty to a company; a more decisive aspect than authenticity, relevance or transparency.
Being consistent means always showing the same face, in every situation, so as not to confuse customers – habitual creatures who love routine and constants. The tone and style must always be the same, both on your website and on your Facebook page, as well as in your YouTube videos and promotional and printed materials.
Your brand is always ‘communicating’– therefore it must be unequivocal, the logo, fonts, colours and elements of your Visual identity must always be the same and appear homogeneously in every type of business communication.
It seems ridiculous, but often companies make serious errors of inconsistency, often caused by the lack of practicality in managing multi-channel marketing or driven by wanting to copy competitors choices with different brand, target and marketing strategy.
Logos deformed to make them enter the Facebook square, wrong fonts in corporate communications, or a different attitude or tone from what is typically expressed in the identity of the brand.
To be recognised, appreciated and preferred among many is fundamental businesses enlist the help of professionals, that will research, map, plan and create a complete and consistent visual identity.
The great help of the brand manual
Brand guidelines/manuals are very popular today because they help the team adhere to the pre-established standards.
A brand manual is a document that sets out certain guidelines on how all aspects of a company’s brand will be treated. It establishes the rules to create a unique and easily identifiable presence of the Brand Identity. You need to include everything in the manual, and everything must be specific. It must be the exact and precise description of what the logo represents and everything that surrounds it.
A good brand manual defines all the basic characteristics that serve to create and spread corporate communication; from usable fonts to colour palette, from the use of accompanying images to the tone of voice to be used in all business communications.
It is important that your brand manual is not only created but circulated within your business internally so that your brand identity can be the starting point for the treatment of each element of the business with completeness and consistency, establishing the fixed points for each future declination.
As an in-house / out-of-house marketing department we become the brand ambassadors for you – not only helping you to create and evolve your brand and its identity but to ensure its consistency in order for you to have the strongest footing in your market, connect with potential customers, build loyalty and trust. See how we’ve helped our other clients with their brand management, view case studies.
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