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What is a brand, anyway?
Many people when they think about a brand, they immediately picture a logo. But a logo is not a brand. A brand is so much more than just a visual mark, so… What is a brand, anyway?
A brand begins with constructing solid ideas about foundational elements. What are they? These elements include the emotional impact of your brand, your brand values, your brand mission, your brand vision, your ideal client, your goals (long and short-term) and how you expect to solve the pain points felt by your ideal client.
Be sure to register for my Live in our Visibility Membership Group for next week – we will be going more in-depth with these elements.
Once you develop these elements you are more prepared to start on the next step of brand building: your visual elements. Your visual elements include your color palette, font selections, logo, business collateral and other marketing materials. Depending on your designer, this may also include templates for social media or a templated design for your website.
When you are ready to begin the process of creating visual elements for your brand, where do you start?
When I am working with clients, I like to look back at the values, vision/mission statements and the emotional impact they want their brand to convey. Then, we take those and transcribe them into several color palettes. There is a whole psychology behind color choices (which we will discuss in a future blog), so I take this process very seriously. You should never be frivolous (unless that is your brand purpose) when deciding on what colors define your brand. You should be very deliberate in choosing them.
Once the color palettes have been tentatively created, we start to look at fonts/typography. Selecting fonts is just as important as creating the color palette, and, again, should be taken seriously. A font, simply on its own, can convey visual messages. These messages should pertain to the emotional feel you want for your brand.
Once the color palette and font have been chosen, you should start thinking about the symbolism and imagery you want associated with your brand. Once you have nailed these down, you can start on what most people believe to be the “real” heart of branding – your logo.
Once you have nailed down the main visuals of your brand, you are ready to extend them out into other aspects of your visual identity, such as your brand collateral and marketing materials.
The answer to our original question … What is a brand, anyway? Once you have fully developed both the foundational elements AND the visual elements of your brand, you should find that you have a collection of marketing strategies, values, visuals, and more that come together to communicate what your business is about to your audience and influence their perception of what it is that you do. When you put all of them together, you have successfully created your brand.
Now, the hard part? Staying consistently on brand as you expand your marketing materials and social engagement. But we will discuss that more in-depth in future blogs.
Want to learn more about all of this in greater detail? Join us for our live event in our Visibility Membership group. Members can join for free, but anyone not in our paid group can join for $25.00! Click below to learn more!
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