You may have heard "brand identity" many times before, but do you know what it is and how it can determine the future of your business?
In this article, we will see the importance of brand identity, the elements that compose it, and how a professional designer can help you take advantage of them.
What is a brand identity?
The brand identity is the soul of a business. It can sound exaggerated, but it works like that. It works by constructing your business identity by creating logos, typography and colors you will use, and other factors that distinguish your brand from the others.
Your brand identity will be how you want to show your brand to your audience. This is why it is so essential to work on solid brand identity, because it will help you to achieve a positive brand image, or not.
It is essential to know the difference between brand identity and brand image. We can work directly on the brand identity and modify it however we want. This image is what we call brand image and is created by every person in our audience we can not work directly over them, but yes through our brand identity. It consists of symbols, logos, names, fonts, color, tone, images, and other visual elements that will create an image in the audience's mind.
To sum up, our brand identity is the vehicle we can use to create our desired brand image over our audience.
Why is brand identity so important?
Differentiation
Solid brand identity will be the key to differentiating your business from your competitors. Customers will have plenty of options when deciding which brand they will choose, so it is essential to establish and show what aspects make you different from the other businesses.
Brand identity is essential when trying to stand out and highlight it in a competitive communication world. Professional designers will make a difference in this step. You can try creating your logo in a DIY graphic design tool, and you may get pretty good results, but it is almost impossible to create an outstanding one without the work of a professional.
Awareness
There is a direct relationship between more awareness and more customers. It is impossible to have new clients if they don't know you exist.
In brand communications, there is something essential to know: it's not the one who screams the loudest who gets noticed the most.
The correct development of your brand identity will give your brand the necessary tools for creating effective awareness in your target audience. Creating an effective brand recall is a slow and laborious but essential job. The most successful companies in the world have at least one element that will represent them by itself: we all know who Colonel Sanders means, don't we?
Personality
Every company has a mission and values, and the brand identity is the way to show them to your audience. A professional designer will be able to represent them with visual communication.
Colors, images, and typography are never chosen randomly or on a whim. Every element a designer decides has a reason to be and is expected to create a particular effect on the audience. Without a doubt, leaving these decisions to chance can be very detrimental to the effective communication of a brand
4 key elements of brand identity
Logo
A big yellow M, a bitten apple, a red mouth sticking out its tongue, four interlocking circles in the same line. In there, we did not show you any image of the logos, but we are entirely sure that you were able to identify the four brands. That is how important the logo is. It doesn't matter what your business is food, technology, music, or cars, but you always need a good, personal and memorable logo.
The logo is usually your brand's first visual impact and minimal reduction of itself. Indeed, it is not easy to establish a global symbol as Mcdonald's did. It is also true that a few companies can achieve this, but creating a logo that can be memorable to your target audience has to be your goal.
There are many recommendations to create a good logo, but it is not an easy job. A professional designer will be able to create a representative, memorable, notorious, and simple logo that can fit your brand.
Graphic elements
Graphic elements work similarly to logos when building a brand identity. The repetition of a range of factors will create an association between them and your brand in the customer's mind. You can use many designs to build your brand's graphic elements, and there are not good or bad ones, but adequate and inadequate ones in different situations. 3D elements, isometric, flat, minimalist…
Brand colors
Colors are essential for brand identity. Colors communicate. It is not the same to use dark gray or shining green. There are a lot of studies about what colors represent and how they affect the audience, and something exciting is that results change with different cultures.
When choosing the colors for your brand, you will need to remember who will be your audience and how it will affect them. Here we will share a list of common effects that colors can create, but remember that it is not an exact science.
Red: love, anger, passion
Blue: calm, sadness
Yellow: happiness, deceit, hope
Green: nature, new beginnings, health
Black: Mystery, elegance, evilness
White: purity, cleanness
As you can see, the same color can have different effects, so it is essential knowing how to use and combine them correctly.
Typography
Finding proper typography is an essential step in building a solid brand identity. Text is as important as images, so you want a unique, easy-to-read, and straightforward typography that can successfully deliver your communications.
Building brand identity
Building brand identity is a complex and essential job. A brand that achieves differentiation, awareness, and personality with its brand identity will probably be more successful than another that did not work with them.
A professional designer is the best option for creating a solid brand identity. It will be able to handle correctly the elements mentioned in this article, so your business communication can be professional and effective.
