How to build a brand. (Introduction)
What exactly is a brand that everyone starting from a marketing expert, CEO to a street sales man emphasises upon. Often the sales team has a common complaint about the low sales. To build a brand is not just easy if not done properly, at times just to pass the buck. What’s in a brand after all that has the attention of all and sundry, let’s find out below.
Basics of brand building.
As brand inculcates the vision, objective and other features of the business hence build a brand identity is as much an art as that of research and data. One must consider the following when build a brand identity.
- Company mission and vision
- Present DNA of the company (Company Value system)
- Where you want it to be
- The Customers and society
“ The whole process of brand building starts the moment you decide to choose a name for it. “
- Promoter’s name (TATA, Birla, Zindal)
- Industry name (British Airways, Singapore Airlines)
- Function of the brand (Aquaguard)
The logo types (with examples).
Most of the times people take logo as the brand identity of the company. The importance of logo can be gauged from the fact that logo is widely used interchangeably as brand. Logo is that unique symbol that after a while becomes the face of the company.
“ There are 7 different types of logo to symbolizes your business. Let’s find which is yours. “
Abstract Logo
Lettermark Logo
Wordmark Logo
Pictorial Logo
Combination Mark Logo
Mascot Logo
Emblem Logo
1. Abstract logo
It represents your brand in an abstract geometric shape that represent your business. It can attribute meaning, emotion and connection around your brand that can gain customer’s attention. The mark or icon can convey your business symbolically through its shape and colors .
Lets think of Pepsi, Sportify or adidas, they represent their brand icon in a unique way that differentiate from other competitors.
2. Lettermark or Monogram
The lettermark logos are represented through brand initials. Its little tricky to choose because it is a typography logo and it all depends on what font you choose. The most important part of a lettermark logo is it should be simple and elegant. For example, british broadcasting corporation use their initials “BBC” as lettermark.
If you are new in business, you may use the complete name along with lettermark so that your customers can slowly connect with your brand. Here is an example of lettermark logo.
3. Wordmark
Wordmark is same as lettermark where the focus should be on typography. The major difference is wordmark represents the company name like Google, Coca-cola etc. It depends on how memorable or catchy the brand names themselves and with a good font pairing it can create a strong brand recognition.
4. Pictorial Mark
Its like an Icon or a graphic that represents an image similar to your brand. Think Apple or Twitter, their icon is instantly recognizable. Choosing an image while designing a pictorial mark logo is tricky sometimes because without strong brand recognition it may go the wrong way.
5. Combination Mark
Combination mark logos are safest choice to recognise as a brand. Its a combination of wordmark or lettermark, and a mascot, or a pictorial mark. The symbol and text goes together to create the brand like “Burger King”, “ROLEX” or “Starbucks Coffee” etc.
6. Mascot
Mascot logos are like brand ambassador of your business. It can be a character or a cartoon with colourful elements and fun around. Think “KFC” and “Mailchimp”, they present a character to create their brand.
7. Emblem Logo
An emblem logo consists of texts and logo icon inside a shape (Circle, Badges, Crests etc.). Its perfectly suitable for Government organization, Sports, School and Colleges, auto industries & also works well for food industries. For Example Harvard University, Manchester City and BMW. Look at this perfect example of emblem logo for a food delivery company.
Final thought.
A logo needs to represent the company in a best possible way. While creating logo do keep in mind how it appears in different media. The logo needs to depict either of the following properties like the value of the company, ethics, vision, history and objective.
This way the logo is ingrained in the company’s DNA. If need be add the tagline. But make it short and simple. That way it has better recall value. Once the visual part is over one can proceed to building the brand.
How to choose fonts for your brand.
A logo font can speak louder than words while selecting carefully. In fact fonts are the prime assets for any kind of design. Be it logo or a graphic, a good font can change the perspective of any design. So, let’s see how we can choose the right font for our brand.
“ There are 5 types of fonts that widely used in any design.“
Serif font
San Serif font
Slab serif font
Script font
Display font
Serif Font
Serif fonts are oldest classical typeface with many emotions attached to it. They depict Serious, Luxury & traditional brand emotions.
Script Font
A script font has a lot of curves. It holds a strong feminine and elegance emotion.
Slab Serif Font
The brand emotions are Old type, masculine, dependable and go well with logos depicting the above characters.
Display Font
It’s a kind of Funky and unusual typeface. You will have to choose display font very carefully because it evokes a particularly strong emotions in your customers heart.
San Serif Font
San Serif fonts are simple and good for general readability. They have a huge benefit of working well in small sizes and bring clarity & strength in branding. The brand emotions are Simple, Clean, Modern. They are quite like liquid in the sense that they can take any shape and gel well into any design.
Final thought.
A font can be so powerful that it can carry your brand without any logo icon or pictorial elements. Your customers can have an idea about your business just by looking at the font in your logo and brand. So make sure to pick a right font while designing an identity.
Find a perfect color for your brand.
Photo by Anna Nekrashevich from Pexels
One needs a logo and a colour that can match the brand personality. Research shows that Color increases brand recognition by up to 80 percent. Different colours signify emotions differently hence choosing the right colour is the most important aspect of a brand. Below are few examples.
Pink stands for Feminine, Love, Tranquil and Innocence. It’s shades are used for modern and luxurious brands.
Red generates emotion of Power and Passion. The shades signify excitement and attention.
Orange stands for friendship, playful, Warmth and can also evokes energy.
Green shades has connection to nature, it also signify growth and stability.
Blue is most widely used color. It signifies trust, maturity and professionalism.
Purple stands for creativity, royalty and luxury.
Brown evokes a rural, outdoors and masculine feeling. It also connects to earth & nature.
Black stands for power, sophistication, luxury and modern.
White is all about purity, cleanliness and Simplicity. It can be used with any colors and still has its creditability.
Final thought.
The brand colors are easy to choose if you already know what you’re trying to communicate. As per your choice you can choose an appropriate colour that suits your company the best.
Conclusion
The world now is tech-savvy more than ever and to get success it is very important to represent your business or product online. An online presentation of your brand can creates awareness about your business. You can interact with your customers in real-time which can create trust among your audience which helps in the growth of your business.
Once your brand is printed in your customers mind, it is considered as half job done. Rest depends on how you market your brand. Get a good user friendly website, be active on social media, top of the SERP, e-mail marketing and the list goes on. To know about how to choose a logo designer read this article here.
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