When it comes to managing your brand, there is nothing more important than identity branding. In the olden days, a brand was just a logo and some general ideas. In the modern age, identity branding has taken over and we are all slaves to it.
This process involves carefully choosing key branding details. It is the reason why top brands look so refined. Everything about the brand identity can be used to carry the brand forward.
Identity branding is focused on making sure that your brand is on point visually. It makes it easy for people to recognize your brand because it is so distinctive.
People know that a brand is something about what you can recognize, but most don’t realize how extensive it is. In the world of marketing, identity branding is all that anyone talks about. If it is off-brand, people want nothing to do with it.
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What Is Identity Branding?
Identity branding is the process of actually selecting the visual brand for a company. This process involves focusing on different attributes that the brand can be known for. A brand needs to be true to itself and match the industry as well.
While you can easily get creative with identity branding, there are plenty of rules to it.
That isn’t to say that you can’t experiment. It just means that you have to be a little more careful or you might compromise your brand.
The process of identity branding is choosing key elements to represent a brand. These elements must be consistent all the time or the brand can be compromised. To effectively manage this, there are many factors to consider. Choosing the various attributes of a brand is not only a matter of making things look nice.
A brand is a message. It will tell people who your company is. Making these decisions is imperative to finding success with your business.
Why Getting Your Identity in Branding Concrete is Important
Identity branding only becomes more important over time. As you begin to grow, your brand identity must be concrete. This will help you to remain visible and easy to spot. It isn’t to say that you can’t rebrand later. You absolutely can, but that doesn’t mean it always goes well.
Recently, we saw Slack try a rebranding effort with their logo that gained a lot of negative publicity. It isn’t that their new logo was bad, but rather that the transition was sudden and, frankly, awkward.
Identity branding is the act of choosing what people will remember your brand for. It is the colors, the feel, the design. Everything that people see and interact with, identity branding controls. Understanding what does and does not work is crucial for branding success.
The last thing that you want is to find that your web colors don’t compliment your logo. This is a disaster of epic proportions that can significantly damage your brand, as silly as it seems.
What Are Identity Branding Elements?
Identity branding is not just a matter of looking at a brand and making a few decisions. In reality, it is a complex process focused on certain key elements. These elements are generally used as a base for all branding decisions going forward.
People subconsciously recognize these elements and judge you accordingly. If one of your branding decisions does not sit well, chances are, people will recognize it before you. This can be difficult to recover from, and can even get expensive.
There are a variety of common and less common branding elements. The major branding elements include the most recognizable attributes. This includes your company logo, your color scheme, and design choices. Many people think that this is just a process of picking what looks nice.
This could not be any further from the truth. In reality, you need elements that look nice and flow together. Each one must share the same message.
Why Getting Your Identity Branding Elements to Flow is Important
These core elements act for a base when it comes to all other elements. Color scheme, for example, might impact your logo choice. Your logo choice might impact your company slogan. These are ways that the elements can work together or apart.
If you make decisions that don’t line up, people will feel it. It becomes obvious and can make your brand look scattered. Finding a way to connect all of the elements is crucial.
In addition to these core elements, various other smaller elements can be considered. This can include elements like typography or image use. While these might be called upon in different cases, they are still important. As visible branding elements, they must find their place among the other elements.
Even these smaller elements can drastically impact how together your brand looks. This is why the core elements need to be used as a reference point.
What’s The Deal With Color Scheme In Identity Branding?
The most visible brand identity attribute is the color scheme of your business. Color scheme is vital when it comes to showing people who you are. A good color scheme can make you look fun or professional. A bad color scheme can lead you into trouble.
The reality is that a bad color scheme can be spotted from a while away. This is one area where you do not want to try to “make fetch happen” in branding.
Why Getting Your Identity Branding Color is Important
Color scheme is important for a few key reasons. The first concern is obviously that it has to look nice. If your color scheme doesn’t work well or you pick bad colors, you’re ruined. Some colors simply were not made for branding, and that’s fine.
There is a place for the color of mud, but that place is not on anyone’s website. Choosing colors that are appropriate for the industry and nice to look at is an important part of this process.
Finding colors that convey the proper message is crucial for identity branding. You don’t want to pick anything that might conflict with your overall brand. This is why it is considered a branding element.
Your color scheme can tell customers exactly who you are.
You would probably rather use a nice shade of pink for your cupcake company rather than a mottled orange. Some colors simply line up better with certain types of businesses. You must know this to send the right message when it comes to your brand.
You might want a nice subtle green for your wellness brand or a fun peach for a children’s clothing line. There are ways to show that you are fun, adventurous, or professional.
Color scheme is a vital consideration because of how big of a role it plays. People will recognize your color scheme and affiliate it with you. This means that you want to make sure that your colors send the right message to your customers.
It’s a matter of making sure that nobody ever looks at your coloring and thinks it is ugly. You want to use these decisions to communicate your competency.
What Role Does Design Play In Identity Branding?
Design is an interesting branding element because it can be so vast. A case can be made to say that design encompasses a variety of smaller elements for your brand. It is not easily defined and means something different to everyone.
However, design is still a very specific and important branding element. It is the way that everything else comes together in a sense.
The Easiest Way to Make Identity Branding and Design Choices
The easiest way to identify design choices is to consider the appearance. It is a matter of thinking about where everything falls and what it looks like. If you choose to arrange photos in a specific way, that is design.
If you pick a particular font shift for headers and sub-headers, that is design. Everything that you see in a brand is design related. This is what makes this concept confusing for some people.
Design shows people a lot about your company. The biggest consideration is that it shows how you think. If your brand design is off, it won’t match you. You should not be a law office and have a dinosaur-themed website.
It simply does not make sense and can confuse your customers. This is important because if your design is lacking, people will hold it against you.
There are a few ways that design decisions can go wrong. The first way is that it simply does not match your company. The second is that it is done poorly. If you have a bad design, it will look messy and disheveled. There are a lot of considerations when it comes to designs. To avoid any problems, it is best to research common design rules in advance.
The Logo As A Crucial Brand Identity Feature
An easily recognizable brand element is the need for a logo. Every single company has a logo. If a company doesn’t have a logo, they’re too small for recognition. The easiest way to note this is that without a logo, you can’t be recognized. A logo is what you are known for. It is your way of announcing yourself to the world.
Finding a good logo is such an important part of your branding process. It is often what people will first see or think of when they call on your company. Because of this, you want to make sure that your logo makes sense.
There are a lot of different ways for this to go, and people can get very creative. Logos can be very simple or complex, though complexity is best left to a minimum.
Your logo can just be your name or might include other elements. It might include using shapes or writing hidden messages. This element can be used in a variety of ways. Most people go for a simple and iconic look, but others get more creative. At the end of the day, as long as it matches your brand identity, you should be fine.
Conclusion
Identity branding is a process that is relatively new, but has always existed in other ways. Now that we live in a world where we all freely market ourselves, understanding is building. It is easy to see how you might influence the way that people view you. However, the process has no gotten so refined that it is a science. Just remember, it is possible to learn how to brand effectively.
If you don’t want to be responsible for your brand, you’re in luck. Today’s world includes branding companies. You can easily work with experts in this field who know how to manage your brand identity. Regardless, you will need to sit down and focus on your identity before you begin.
Do you make conscious branding identity decisions to elevate your brand?