Creating a logo and other visual components, such as business cards and a website, is just the beginning of creating a brand’s visual identity. It’s equally crucial to ensure consistency and proper utilization of created projects on all of your business’ future materials.
One of the many elements that brands use to make sure they get noticed at first glance is through their visuals. With branding, these enterprises and companies were able to create their own distinct visual identities, but this is only a small portion of it.
Your brand as a company should build awareness, develop trust, and loyalty with clients. A brand personality that changes frequently simply isn’t effective. Establishing guidelines for maintaining brand consistency both online and offline is crucial for this reason. Every time a customer interacts with your brand, your brand should clearly demonstrate it’s values understandably.
To get started, we’ll take a closer look first at what makes a brand visual identity and the importance of consistency…
1. The Brand’s Visual Identity and Guidelines
Your visual identity plays an essential role in your business, so it’s important to understand what makes up a brand identity and how to create one. It is everything that your customers physically see, from the logo, colors, fonts, to the design and layout of a website. If done effectively and consistently, your brand will be able to communicate to your client without the need of using words. It’s not surprising that consistent brands are 3.5x more likely to have strong brand visibility than inconsistent brands.
It’s necessary to make sure that your visual identity has been carefully considered and researched because it serves as a reflection of who you are as a brand. This is to ensure that every image and visual you use to communicate with customers is consistent with your brand’s overall identity.
2. Elements of your Visual Identity
Your visual identity is made up of several components, including imagery, colors, typography, photography, and logo that you may combine and experiment with to further elevate your brand. These elements is what makes your business unique and recognizable among the competitors.
Consistent Style for Graphics
Whatever you use in the branding matters, whether it be patterns, graphics, photos, or shapes. For a specific business, all visual components must be organized and specially created in accordance with the company’s tone of voice, message, offerings, values, and, of course, target audience.
Being consistent in using the same visual identification, such as shapes, colors, fonts, etc., is a direct way to become memorable on your customers.
Why should businesses have a consistent brand style?
- A consistent brand style creates a professional brand impression that cares how people see it.
- Staying true to your brand identity will allow your business to become recognizable and memorable.
Brand Typography
Choosing the right fonts is just part of what typography is all about. As a whole, it’s a way the fonts are displayed, their hierarchy, sizes, boldness, etc. If designed correctly it helps your visuals to convey the needed message to your target audience.
Why is it important for businesses to have a brand typography?
- Your business will be easily recognizable with the use of proper font layout
- Most importantly, your business will have a clear structure and hierarchy which allows you to control what information gets to the user first.
Brand Color Palette
Depending on what message you want your brand to convey, the psychological aspect of colors should be taken into consideration.
You can mix and match colors to create a palette (or combination) that corresponds to your brand message by leveraging the meanings associated with each color. When these colors are applied consistently and appropriately, you can convey the same message to your audience across all of your touchpoints at once.
Why should businesses have a brand color palette?
- To easily establish an emotional connection with clients, on a subconscious level.
- To convey and create an appealing visual brand identity for your company
- For your business to be recognizable to your target audience.
Brand Book
Establishing a professional brand guidelines from the start will help your business to always stay on track and leaves no room from going outside the brand. This will serve as your brand cheat sheet and guide you on what direction to pursue.
Why should businesses have a brand book?
- Creating a brand guidelines are a great way to stay consistent with your businesses’ brand style.
- Being consistent will give you an upper hand for your customers to remember you easily.
- This will also serve as a brand book for your new employees or outsourced creative professionals.
Logo
Logos are the standard bearer of a businesses’ brand visual identity. It is an invaluable part of the visual identity that represents and identifies the your business. Logos are designed to grab the attention of your target market and reflects the overall image of your brand. It goes without saying that your logo is quite important and should be carefully considered while creating your own logo.
Why should businesses have a logo?
- This is where the visual identity starts – with an official logo.
- Allows your business to be recognizable.
- Serves as the first impression of your brand and potentially evoke certain associations and experiences from your clients.
3. Why Visual Brand Consistency Matters
If you want to take your business a bit further, consistency is the key. Being consistent with your visual design usage creates a big impact to the success of your company.
Now, consistency does not always mean sticking to a single set of color palettes or typography or any visual identity element. What matters is that the set of visuals you have leave the same impression and evoke the same emotional response from your customers. A good example of this is fashion brand Moschino. They don’t follow the conventional three-color palette rule like other brands. Yet, you can always tell that it’s them because their bright, bold, and wild visuals consistently evoke the brand’s main message: “change,” “uniqueness,” and “fun.”
When you are able to craft and apply that kind of consistency to your visual identity, your brand will reap the following benefits:
Better brand recognition
Have you ever thought about what makes it easier for us to recognize some people? External aspect such as appearance, posture, tone of voice, and behavior. You will be able to easily recognize people through these elements. Similarly, this also applies with brands. A brand should be easily identifiable by the customers for it become effective.
That is also the reason we would recommend to avoid changing your established visual identity drastically. Customers can recognize your brand even when they only see visual components like your logo. It’s similar to recognizing an old friend even though you can’t see their face. But if you alter even the smallest aspect of them, like their hair color or their attire, it becomes difficult to recognize them. Watch out for these kinds of adjustments in your brand, too. Make sure they make sense and are consistent with your brand’s overall identity. Even when there has been a little adjustment, your customers should still be able to recognize the brand.
More effective memorization
Brand memorization is one of the most important tasks of visual identity. This usually takes a while to really get your business to stick in the minds of your customers. Although there are still other things that might influence this, one of the best ways to ensure that your customers remember who you are is through your visual identity.
Worry not! As long as you continuously communicate with your customers using the same materials that are based on your brand’s style and character, they will find it easy to recall who you are and what you stand for. Customers must repeatedly encounter your brand’s visual identity in order to link it to your company. So they would be able to state without a doubt that it is your business the next time they see any of your marketing materials.
Customers’ feelings and thoughts about your brand are also beneficial. If your visual identity is inconsistent across all of your platforms or if you’re continuously altering it, customers won’t be able to create those connections.
Establishing higher trust
As a customer, would you trust and associate yourself to a brand who’s messy and disorganized? Of course not.
Customers will unavoidably form opinions and assumptions about your brand when they start to study and analyze your visual elements. The same quality and style across all of your brand materials conveys that your company functions like a well-oiled machine. It conveys a sense of seriousness and dependability. Additionally, it guarantees that your clients will experience your brand consistently wherever they choose to buy your goods or use your services. The confidence they experience makes it simple for them to refer you to their friends and relatives.
Easily reach your target customer
Keep in mind that the elements, designs, colors, and all other visual aspects that you choose for your brand are all for your customers. Here’s why it’s important to know your ideal target customer.
Given that, it will be easier for you to capture your customer’s attention if you use graphics to convey a consistent brand message to them. Even if they initially reject you, with enough exposure to your branding materials, they will gradually change their minds and think about inquiring and purchasing your products/services.
Better brand experience for clients
Keep in mind that your business should provide customers with the same high-quality experience consistently. Your visual identity plays a significant role in establishing that coherent atmosphere and experience.
The tone for what your customers can expect from your brand is set by your brand. Even if you have a excellent product or service, it will be difficult to draw in clients if everything is a mess and inconsistent.
Does this mean you have to maintain your present visual identity forever, considering all of these? No, really.
In reality, altering your visual identity may benefit your brand. Even huge corporations do it. It’s something that tech giants like Facebook, Apple, and Google have been doing for years. Their graphic identity changes as the times go. They are aware that as people’s demands and perspectives change over time, so too should their ideal client. The competition will eat you up if you can’t let your clients know that you’re prepared to service their demands right now.
Now to better do this, it is highly recommended to seek professional creative advice to maximize and help your business deliver a consistent impact that triggers your customers emotionally. This will also saves you a lot of time and money with the benefit of your brand’s consistency. Lastly, remember that the changes should not be significantly huge. Give your customers time to get used to the changes by introducing them slowly and gradually.
