Defining Your Visual Identity, Empowering Your Brand.

Your content matters, but the way you present your content can not be forgotten. In fact, the way you present your content might define if your customer reads your newsletter or just decides to delete it. It is not about adding bling-bling or fireworks to the brand or to your content, it is more about making it clear, understandable and consistent.

Investing in your visual identity will open a lot of doors and will help you gaining the respect of your audience. There are more people willing to read things that look organized and clean than people willing to read the messy ones. Making your visual identity consistent will define your company and your brand, too.

Defining Visual Identity:

Visual identity consists of the visible elements which define your brand. We talk about visual identity for example, when we talk about your company colors, the font that you use when writing, the logo, the way you present the slogan, etc. Some companies also have taken visual identity to the next level including other elements such as the way how their buildings look like and how those are decorated as well as the employees’ dress code.  

Visual Identity and your brand:

The visual identity add some meaning to your brand. Among others, you can see the visual identity reflected in your marketing material.

Let say that I am customer and the company X send me their new clothes catalogue. For sure, I will check it out. The first thing to check is if I recognize the brand. Does the catalogue looks familiar? Do I recognize the logo, the style, the colors? If this is something complete new, a catalogue can already tell me about the company, their style and their products.

Visual identity is powerful:

By looking at the catalogue I can answer

Is this a company for me?

Can I find something suitable?

Is this company trustful?

If the visual identity is not consistent, as a customer I might get confused and disappointed. So make sure that all your channels show your company in a similar way.

Visual identity is not just about having nice photos, it is the sum of all the visual elements that define your brand, your values, your style presented consistently in all your channels. All those elements together define your brand and your story.

How to start with your visual identity. Back to basics:

You don’t really need to hire a visual identity expert to work on your visual identity from the very beginning. You can take the first steps by defining the basic elements of your visual identity.

Defining the color of your brand: You need a color for the logo, for the slogan and for the text.

Defining the logo: Define which logo to use for example in printed material and online content. Do you need a clean logo or do you need the logo and the slogan? If you need both, define clearly when to use each one. Make the logo in three or four different sizes and define when to use each size. Make sure that you don’t change the logo size randomly.

Defining your fonts: There is nothing more annoying that text with many fonts. It looks like a woman with too much make-up. Select one or maximum two which can be used in your printed material, your website and your social media content. Select a font that is suitable for your business and industry. If you are in a graphic designing business your font for sure will be different than if you are in the bank industry. If you select different fonts for the titles and subtitles make sure that those are aligned.

  

Defining your style: This is not an easy one, defining your style means defining what kind of brand do you want to be: what kind of sentiment do you want to show, what kind of people are you trying to attract. You can start by selecting what kind of pictures do you want to have in your material? Remember that when defining your style you need to consider all the previous selections such as font, color, logo, etc.

Make sure that once you have built your visual identity, you train your people on how to use it. You need to communicate this internally and with any third parties working with you e.g. marketing and advertising agencies. The most important about defining your visual identity is applying it consistently among the different channels.