You’ve done the groundwork and the research. You know your target audience and core values, you have your messaging down and your strategy is locked in. The only thing missing is…making it pretty? Unfortunately, you’re not a designer.
In our most recent session, marketing director, graphic designer, and branding expert Shauna Thayer dove into the creative process behind creating a compelling brand identity. They discussed the five essential elements of any brand, how to create designs to reinforce brand identity using those elements, and lastly, how to maintain brand consistency. Here’s our key takeaways from her discussion!
“Branding adds spirit and a soul to what would otherwise be a robotic, automated, generic price-value proposition.” – David Aaker
Branding goes beyond just your tagline or your logo. It’s really what people feel about your brand, what they believe is true about your brand, and your identity. Branding gives your company personality. It creates those emotional connections. Without branding, your business is really just a transaction.
The Five Essential Elements of a Brand
- Logo
- Color Palette
- Typography
- Elements
- Photos
Logos
Logos are the most recognizable element of your brand. Generally, simple is best with a logo. Generally a symbol with few words that feels modern and minimalistic, or very distinct typography or color selection.
Make sure your logo has variations – if you scale it up or down, you can read it and it works in many applications.
Logo integrity:
DO follow these steps to maintain logo integrity:
- Use logo consistently across all platforms
- Maintain logo aspect ratio
- Use high-quality logo formats – Canva offers a lot of options for exporting file types and sizes
- Respect clear space around your logo to avoid crowding
DON’T allow these to happen when using your logo:
- Don’t change logo colors or modify – this confuses brand identity (and your customers!)
- Don’t add effects
- Don’t crop the logo
Color Palette
Selecting a brand color palette really is an art all on its own. Colors evoke emotions, so understanding the psychology behind colors while selecting colors that align with your brand, is very important.
So how do you choose color palettes? Try to create a final spread of 4-5 colors to allow your website and collateral to have more dimension.
Start by choosing two main colors and then branch out from there. Continue by choosing a lighter tone of one of those main colors. There are free tools out there (like Tint and Shade Finder), where you can type in your color and it will give you all the relevant shades for digital and print. Canva also has tools for color palette suggestions, and will group them in about a group of five so that you have main colors and accent colors.
Once you’ve got colors, you’ll want to make sure they’re accessible and that there is enough contrast when using them together so that folks with vision challenges can read them. There are lots of free tools to help with that, too.
Typography
Typography plays a critical role in branding and communication because it instantly says something about your brand. Is it playful? Is it serious? It evokes emotions similarly to how colors do.
You’ll want to have a primary font and a secondary font – and it can sometimes be hard to pair fonts together? Don’t worry – there are lots of tools to help with this, too. Canva has a beautiful font pairing tool, but there are lots of other options, too.
Be sure to stay consistent with use of your primary and secondary fonts in print, digital – all aspects of your branding.
Shapes and Elements
Distinctive shapes and graphic elements can be synonymous with your brand. Illustrations, patterns, and more can help add branding and visual interest to many aspects of your brand design.
The shapes you choose to use are also important, because they can also create emotion. Circles tend to cause us to think of unity, where triangles can lead to feelings of stability. Do you want angles? More soft lines? They say something about your brand as a whole, so keep that in mind as you finalize graphic elements.
Photography
Brand photography is a pivotal thing to showcase brand personality and values. Try to get your own original photos whenever possible. However, if that’s not possible, there are lots of royalty-free stock photo sites you can use. Canva also offers a lot of stock options.
When using your own photos, pay attention to the quality. It’s really important. Smartphones provide quality that is certainly good enough for social media, but if you’re doing something in print form, you want to make sure the resolution is good enough for that format.
Finally, maintain a photo style. Are they playful, bright and fun? Are they moody and dark? Be mindful to create consistency with the styles just as much as with what is featured in the image.
Using a Style Guide to Reinforce Brand Identity
A brand guide represents your visual identity – a roadmap for your brand. Use a style guide to make sure all relevant team members across the organization use your brand elements correctly. It also helps for working with partners or outside designers, making sure everyone respects your brand integrity.
More Resources
- Link to this Presentation Deck
- Free Resource from Shauna – Creating a Brand Kit in Canva – Click Here
- Photo Recap of the event, thanks to Bryant Vander Weerd of VEDUB Media.
Thank you to our June volunteer, Meg Golz, for writing this recap of the event!
