Business magazines and websites are sprinkled with terms like branding, brand identity, logo design, corporate identity, and brand strategy. Different terms can describe the same thing. Sometimes the same term is used to describe different things - It’s so confusing! As a brand identity designer, I want to be clear with my clients about what I do.
What is a brand? A brand is the perception of a company.
Branding is a key factor in setting up your business in a manner that allows you to charge what you’re worth. If a potential customer is not absolutely certain about what is being offering, why it’s being offered, and how it will offer value, then they will not trust in your product or service. A well-designed identity allows you to stand out from the competition, look established as a brand, and helps foster customer desire and loyalty.
Your brand is what people think of when they think about your company. It’s your reputation. It’s influenced by your values, your products, your marketing, your customer service. It’s shaped by magazine articles about you, how your stores smell inside, and what your neighbour’s mom said about you at the grocery store. And yes, it includes your logo, website, and business cards. Everything people encounter when they interact with your company adds to their perception of you. This is your brand.
Branding is the perception that people have in their minds about your business. It’s not your business logo, it’s not your business website, it’s not your nicely designed brochure — it is what people think about your business. How you interact and relate to your customers in every capacity contributes to your “brand”. Much of the interaction you’ll have happens even before your customer becomes your customer.
“Branding” is the effort to influence this perception. You can’t control what your neighbour’s mom might say. But you can do your best to make the right impression.
What is an identity? An identity is a brand’s set of visual elements.
A subset of a brand is the brand identity (also called corporate identity or identity system). The key word is identity. Just like with people, checking an ID proves you’re you and not somebody else. The tangible elements you can see when a company communicates with you make up its identity design:
Logo, colours, fonts, icons, letterhead, business cards, envelopes, websites, packaging, uniforms, office aesthetics, promotional swag, social media, email blasts, signage, messaging.
A brand style guide is a document that records this identity. It keeps everyone on the right track, using the right fonts, colours, and more.
Simple brand style guide book documenting an identity
What is a logo? A logo is a mark that represents a company.
Of all the visual parts that make up your brand identity, your logo is the strongest point of recognition. It doesn’t need to tell the world everything you do. It’s a tag or identifier. A red bullseye doesn’t reveal all the clothing, housewares, and food you can buy at Target. But it works as a quick mental trigger for everything you’ve learned about Target over time. And if you knew absolutely nothing about Target, you could still make some guesses about the style and personality of the company by looking at the logo.
Logos by Kate Galna
What Do Identity Designers Do?
Brand identity designers use strategy to create the visual elements of your brand. These elements include your logo, colour palette, typography, image style, and general look and feel. These should be unique to your company. They should help illustrate your brand. An identity designer isn’t going to make the conveyor belt in your plant run faster or tell you which employees to hire. But we can influence the public’s perception of you by creating an appropriate, consistent look and feel.
The Benefits of Hiring an Identity Designer for Your Business
Maybe you’re a small business beginning from scratch. Or maybe you’ve been around for many years, and you’re wondering whether you should update your existing brand identity. After all, it’s gotten you this far! Is it worth investing in better design?
For businesses that get all their customers from neighbourhood referrals—and they’re satisfied with that—it’s probably not worth it. Think of plumbers, mechanics, or dentists. As long as their service is great, nobody minds if their visuals are less than stellar.
But if you’re in a competitive market or an industry where aesthetics can increase your revenue (think food and beverage, hospitality, fashion, financial services, health and wellness, etc.), you can benefit from the work of an identity designer. You might need a brand refresh if your mission has shifted, your audience has changed, or you have new competition. Maybe you’ve got a nagging feeling that your old identity design looks dated.
Great design can help you:
SPARK DESIRE
Customers are drawn to attractiveness and a company who clearly gets them.
CREATE LOYALTY
When your design fits your company and is associated with a good experience, customers form a lasting emotional connection.
BE MEMORABLE
Strong identity design differentiates you from the other choices. You stick in customers’ minds.
LOOK ESTABLISHED
Even if you’re new, there’s no need to look like you launched yesterday. The right brand identity design can suggest stability and longevity.
The Value of Investing in Your Brand Design
Branding, when done properly, provides you with a platform to communicate your story; to tell customers who you are and what you stand for.
When a customer is able to 100% trust that you’re completely capable of carrying out the project or service you’re offering in a manner that’s flawless, they’ll pay more. When your own company’s brand support is on-point, those who view that support will get the sense that you know what you’re doing.
Branding makes your business memorable. Whenever a customer wants to purchase a product or service, they will consider your company first because you’ve invested in your brand and established yourself as the leader in your field - one that is professional and a cut above the competition.
Identity Design Requires a Brand Strategy
Sometimes when you’re watching a TV commercial, you can guess who it’s for based on the style alone—even before the product or company is revealed. Sometimes you can cover up the logo on a package, ad, or truck and still know who it belongs to. That’s how good identity design works. It’s a cohesive system, not just a logo.
What that system looks like should be based on a strategy. What’s the main idea behind your business? Why are you doing this? What are your values and ways of working? What’s the personality of your company? Who are the kindred-spirit customers who will like what you’re doing? What do they need and respond to? Insights about you, combined with insights about them, will shape your brand identity. When your design connects both parties, you’ve done it right.
Effectively brand your business today to stand out of the crowd, create engagement with customers, drive more sales, and foster growth. It’s worth the investment. You don’t have to book me for branding, but book someone!