What is brand identity design?

Introduction

Branding is one of the most important aspects of marketing. Without it, there’s almost no point doing marketing at all! It is so much more than just a logo and some nice colours. Branding is the strategy behind how your business is positioned, looks, communicates, and connects with people.

But how do you build a strong brand? In this blog we talk through the process of brand design, why it’s important, the exact steps to go through, and what makes a great brand. We love sustainable brands, so couldn’t help adding a special section of the blog just for them!

The basics of brand design

Brand identity design is the creation of your company’s visual persona and tone of voice. Basically, it’s your company’s look and feel. This is manifested in assets like your logo, tagline, colours, and photography. But the brand identity is the accumulation of all of these aspects together.

We all instinctively know how important brand design is from our lives. Some branding makes us hungry, others we see as trustworthy, and some we see as exciting and fresh. Whatever our perception, these feelings don’t come out of the blue. The brands you know and love have put in a lot of work behind the scenes to create an identity for their business. So what does good brand identity design look like?

At a minimum, brand design should be:

• Coherent: The last thing you want your brand to be is confusing. It should be immediately clear to people what you do and what kind of company you are.
• Consistent: The brand should have the same identity wherever someone finds you, whether that is on your website, social media accounts, merchandise, etc.
• Clean: Sometimes it is tempting to throw everything at a brand but the results can be messy and offputting. Simple is best when it comes to brand design.

However, a great brand identity is about much more. Executed perfectly, brand design should:

• Instantly show what’s unique about your company : What you do, why you do it, and who you do it for. 
• Differentiate you from your competitors: Claiming a spot in the market that no one else occupies.
• Demonstrate authenticity: Making your business feel credible and reliable to potential customers.

That is the power of great brand identity design. Now let’s talk about how it’s done.

The five phases of brand identity design

This is the five step process we take to make sure that our clients get their dream outcome from brand design:

Step 1: Discovery

Building an authentic brand identity has to start with understanding the company and what it wants to get out of its brand. In an in-depth interview, we delve into the “desired brand,” covering the company’s vision, values, target audience, competitors, and more. This serves as the brief for the brand design.

Remember that brand design isn’t just for new businesses. There are three branding types we typically deal with, each with different considerations:

• A new company brand: In this case the business is completely starting from scratch. The discovery call focuses on how the company wants to be known and we consider how it will stand out from competitors, be instantly recognisable, and quickly establish trust with potential customers.
• A company rebrand: Rebrands are about updating the visual identity and tone of voice of the company to match changes in the business. Maybe the business has become more mature, it’s focusing on different customers, or it needs to adapt to make sure it's not outdated in today’s digital world.
• A sub brand: Companies develop sub brands for a number of different reasons, like to launch a new product or service, a whole new business department, or even for marketing initiatives like an event series or podcast. Sub brands need to be distinct but also work in conversation with the parent brand.

Step 2: Research & analysis

Next we take what we have learnt from within the business and apply an external lens through our own research and analysis of the market. This includes:

• 5Ws and 1H: Using the framework of  “who, what, when, why, where, and how” to work out what makes the company special and the potential creative angles it could take.
• Know Your Customer (KYC): We learn about the ideal target audience for the company, uncovering their characteristics, demographics, psychographic, and pain points to understand the types of branding that appeals to them.
• Competitor brand analysis: Reviewing the messaging and visual identity of the business’ competitors to understand what market positions are already taken and the gap the business could fill to differentiate itself.

Step 3: Brand strategy

Now we’re ready to bring together everything we learned through the interview, research, and analysis to develop a creative strategy for the brand. This includes:

• Brand Positioning: Establishing a distinctive market position to set the brand apart from competitors.
• The brand story, mission, and vision: A compelling narrative that embodies the company’s essence and resonates with its target audience. This includes setting out the brand’s mission and vision for the future, to inspire customers with its aspirations, attract like-minded individuals, and foster a community of passionate advocates.
• Purpose and values: Outlining the company’s reason to exist beyond making a profit - fostering trust, authenticity, and a sense of purposeful involvement among customers. Articulating a business’ guiding principles helps to maintain brand integrity and foster a strong connection with customers who share its values.
• Brand personality and tone of voice: A consistent and authentic tone of voice builds brand credibility and reliability. This should include personality traits and characteristics that authentically reflect the brand, evoke emotional responses, and create personal connections with customers.
• Tagline, slogan and keywords: Crafting memorable phrases that linger in the customers' minds, increase brand recall, and represent the brand and product/service. A focus on keywords that trigger positive associations and emotions, and enhance brand recognition and searchability.

Step 4: Visual brand identity design

Only once all of the research has been done and the brand strategy is agreed can a Visual Brand Identity Design be created. While everyone wants to get to their new logo as soon as possible, there are no shortcuts here. The visual brand identity is best when it’s based on a brand strategy.

When the time is right, the Visual Brand Identity Design includes:

• Brand colors: A color palette to consistently reinforce brand identity and evoke the desired emotions to influence customer perception.
• Brand logo: A unique and memorable logo or icon that visually represents the brand to enhance brand recognition and visibility.
• Brand typography & fonts: Typography and fonts maintain brand cohesiveness, enhance professionalism, and create a captivating experience.
• Brand photography guide: Guidelines for capturing and selecting brand visuals that ensure consistency, authenticity, and reinforce brand identity.

Step 5: Implementation & launch

All of the components are brought together into a brand book or implementation guide. The “bible” of the new brand identity, this is the single source of truth that staff from across the business can use to make sure their work is always on brand.

The brand bible in place - and all the visual brand identity assets (fonts, colours, logos, stock photography, etc.) saved in the right formats - the work can now be done to launch the brand across all channels and materials. This includes the website, social media accounts, business cards, merchandise, email signatures, presentations, documentation, marketing collateral, and more.

It’s a big job, often involving web design and development to bring the company site up to date and the social media manager to make sure everything looks right across all of the company’s profiles. But the brand launch is the big pay off moment! It’s when your brand finally comes to life and the feedback and response you get from customers is so rewarding.

Launching a sustainable brand

We’re experts in brand identity design and have worked with everyone from lifestyle brands, to influencers, and business consultants. However, our real passion - and expertise - is in sustainable brands.

There is so much scope for a creative strategy with sustainable brands - from the logos (often leaning into nature imagery), to the colours (earthy tones and soft greens anyone?), to the photography (lush forest landscapes and thriving community projects).

However, there are challenges. As highlighted above, there is an established “look” for sustainable brands and sometimes it can be difficult to stand out. Making a different or counterintuitive choice with colours, typography, or logo can help to differentiate a brand design from similar companies in the market. You don't have to be green and brown to be sustainable!

Truly sustainable brands also have to differentiate themselves from those that are simply greenwashing - using sustainable branding to attract a certain demographic, claim credibility, or portray an ethos that isn’t truly reflected by their business practices. 

Putting purpose front and center in your storytelling, using the right tone of voice, and emphasising your company’s commitments can make companies that are legitimately doing good for the world stand out and call out those that aren’t.

Do you need a new brand design?

If you’re launching a business, looking to rebrand, or need a sub brand for a new product, service, or business division - then it’s time to hire brand builders like us!

We build brands designed to grow. Contact us to get going on your brand design right away.