Stand out within the Market With Distinct Brand Identity Design (2024)

Designing a brand identity is greater than simply making a logo. Making strategic design decisions across every facet of your visual brand can mean the difference between mixing in and coming out from the competition.

A robust and consistent visual representation of your brand is something you wish regardless of what business you’re in—whether that’s starting a personal brand, monetizing your YouTube channel, or launching an online store.

This guide will aid you understand the most effective practices and fundamentals of strong brand identity design. Throughout, you’ll find advice from design experts and examples of brands which might be doing it right. 

What’s brand identity design?

Brand identity design is the creation of a holistic package of assets, visual elements, and design decisions that represent your brand image. It consists of quite a lot of creative decisions that outline your brand personality visually. The alternatives you make will turn into a part of your brand guidelines, informing visual decisions you make when constructing your website, creating marketing materials or business cards, and curating content for social media feeds.

Why is brand identity necessary?

Brand identity is a tool used to create consistency at every customer touchpoint. A tagline, a singular logo, or a definite palette can stick in customers’ minds, helping you construct brand recognition. Over time, consistent visuals and branding design decisions will even aid you generate brand loyalty and trust—customers will know to expect the identical high-quality content or products they’re used to from you.

In crowded markets, a robust brand identity may aid you stand other than your competitors. When customers select one white t-shirt over one other, much of that call comes right down to brand. Taking a robust position together with your overall brand—including brand identity design that resonates together with your target market—can provide your small business an edge.

Essential elements of name identity design

Your brand identity consists of quite a lot of parts that each one form your brand guidelines or brand kit. You’ll set the stage during your branding exercise by determining your mission statement, brand values, target market, and the mood you ought to encourage. These decisions will aid you create brand identity design components similar to: 

• Typefaces (or fonts)
• Color palette (or color scheme)
• Logo
• Photographic treatments and magnificence
• Visual elements and assets 
• Brand name
• Brand tagline

Tips on how to design a brand identity in 8 steps

1. Set the inspiration to your brand identity
2. Conduct market research
3. Establish your overall brand aesthetic
4. Design a logo
5. Construct a typeface library and a brand color scheme
6. Hone in on a photographic style
7. Create an asset library
8. Construct a brand style guide

1. Set the inspiration to your brand identity

It’s necessary to notice that your overall brand encompasses greater than just visuals. It also includes your brand values, value proposition, brand voice, mission statement, and more. 

It should be difficult to start on brand identity without putting within the foundational work of constructing a brand first. This includes market research to know learn how to cater your brand to your target market, capturing a compelling brand story, and understanding the competitive landscape. Constructing a visible brand identity is only one a part of your overall branding exercise—and it should occur last.

Selecting a brand name

Certainly one of the primary steps you would possibly take after you lay the inspiration is coming up with a brand name. There are quite a lot of aspects to think about when selecting an organization name. Ask yourself what you wish the name to say about you. 

For instance:

• Is the brand connected to you as an individual? Use your individual name, like Betsey Johnson.
• Is it necessary that individuals know exactly what you’re about out of your name alone? Try a descriptive phrase, like The Container Store.
• Do you ought to be playful and unique, creating something entirely latest? A portmanteau—two words mashed together, like Netflix—or a very made-up or derivative word, like Volvo, will work here.

Run a reputation check to see if one other brand (especially in your industry) is already using the name or if it’s already trademarked. The provision of an appropriate domain name and social media handles will even factor into your decision.

A business name generator will be an excellent place to start out—plug in a couple of details about your corporation and get an inventory to pick from. These might also encourage something entirely latest.

In two brand naming examples, Brooklyn Brew Shop selected a literal description of its location and product (this is useful for search engine optimization or targeting a location), while Alaffia selected a word with a private intending to its founders and the origin of the corporate (it’s a standard greeting from central Togo, Benin, and Nigeria).

2. Conduct market research

Whilst you will conduct research at first of your branding journey, your brand identity design will even profit from this exercise.

If you’re a blank canvas, it might be difficult to know where to start out. “I might recommend what competitors are doing,” says designer Skyler Hestnes. What font styles are common to your industry? Are the logos more typographical or illustrative?

Researching the highest brands in your industry will aid you understand what fonts or colours resonate with the target market and people who might not be a fit. “You’ll be able to still push the boundaries and take a look at latest things inside that realm,” says Skyler. 

In some saturated industries, like fashion, examining the competition and finding your differentiator is critical—especially with the rise in latest online businesses. “Differentiating a line from similar brands is more of a challenge than ever,” says Boxwood Co founder Carolyn Delacorte.

3. Establish your overall brand aesthetic

When you’ve nailed your brand strategy basics and you may have an excellent name, it’s time to get creative. A very good brand strategy includes clear guidelines about how a brand will show up creatively.

Here, you may do a brainstorming exercise to aid you narrow down the precise feeling you wish people to have once they engage together with your brand. Should they feel inspired or curious? Excited or calm? What colours and visual cues invoke those feelings? A mood board can aid you put together the pieces of this exercise and encourage your overall brand identity design.

On this example from clothing brand Nui, the brand’s aesthetic is straight away felt on its homepage—even with a basic logo design—because of its selection of photographic style and tones.

Remember to take a look at competition with a grain of salt. It should help steer toward what’s expected by the industry, but put a twist on it to make it your individual. “If something’s working within the marketplace, that signifies that everyone’s doing it,” says Graza founder Andrew Benin. “And that may result in homogeneity.”

4. Design a logo 

Designing a logo can feel daunting whenever you don’t know where to start out. A couple of easy rules can aid you create a logo that represents your brand:

• Keep it easy. “One issue I see probably the most is logos which might be very busy with a lot of color and with none refinement,” says Skyler. A straightforward logo will probably be probably the most versatile, allowing it to work on the whole lot from a web site favicon to a billboard ad.
• Create variations. A wordmark or an icon? Why not create each? Variations will help your logo fit into different applications.
• Consider context. If using recognizable symbols or objects in your logos, consider what message those symbols mean in various contexts and cultures.

Home décor brand Schoolhouse uses different versions of its logo across various applications, from a wordmark on its website and products to a stylized initial-based logo for social and a straightforward “S” in its favicon:

Now that you may have a couple of basic rules down, it’s time to get designing. Depending in your level of experience and eye for design, there are quite a lot of tools you may pick from to create a robust brand identity, starting together with your logo design.

Skyler recommends using a tool like Canva, Shopify’s free logo maker, or a comparable easy logo generator that has built-in templates, fonts, and design elements. “There are lots of free SVG files online,” says Skyler. “If you may have a hair care brand you may just Google ‘hair brush SVG’ and pull it into Canva to make it your individual.”

Shopify’s logo maker relies on preset templates which might be generated from your corporation name, industry, and use case of your logo (social, etc). You’ll be able to make basic changes to colours and fonts. The functionality is more limited than Canva, nevertheless it’s great for beginners.

With Canva, you may start with a preset template and swap out icons, colours, and fonts, repositioning and resizing design elements to suit your brand. In this instance we began with a template, updated the sort, modified the font, and wrapped it across the icon, then updated the background color.

💡Pro tip: “Canva Pro users can construct a brand kit throughout the tool, complete with chosen brand colours, fonts, and other elements, like logos,” says content designer Ibrahim Hasan. “This turns out to be useful if you happen to’re working with a team or must create lots of assets with consistent branding.”

5. Construct a typeface library and a brand color scheme

Your brand guidelines will include a set of fonts (also called typefaces) that you sometimes use, in addition to rules for learn how to use them. You’ll be able to select “fun” fonts for headings and social graphics and a straightforward complementary font for body text.

Color and font decisions can communicate different brand attributes. For instance, green may say “fresh” and a bubbly sans serif font can say “playful.” This could be a wonderful combo for a bubble tea brand or an organic cotton kidswear line, for instance.

First aid brand Welly uses three fonts across its touchpoints: a straightforward sans serif for body copy and navigation, a daring serif for titles, and its own playful logo’s font, used sparingly. While the location has a various color palette, the brand’s primary color—a vivid emerald green—threads throughout.

6. Hone in on a photographic style

If you shoot latest collections, a digital lookbook, lifestyle images for social, and even product photos, you’ll want to have a consistent visual identity and brand feel. This will be achieved with a set of guidelines for photographers (or for selecting stock photos) that covers the whole lot from composition to saturation. 

A brand color palette may help to dictate a few of this. You may as well use the identical photo filter for social media images. Selections of model, set, location, and lighting must also be consistent with other brand and visual identity decisions. 

Vegan footwear brand KOI is consistent when creating its on-model photographs. The tones and overall mood may change by collection, but its consistent styling makes for a robust brand identity:

Olive oil brand Graza uses a photographic treatment popular amongst food DTC brands lately: a raw documentary-style attribute with an on-camera flash quality. 

7. Create an asset library

Fonts and logos aren’t the one assets you’ll must assemble as a part of your brand identity exercise. Create a library of other visual elements that will be used for various purposes, similar to website flourishes or packaging design. These might include photos, graphic elements like arrows, patterns or textures, and even character mascots.

Offlimits founder Emily Miller began her cereal brand with a forged of mascots, meant to appeal to her millennial target market. Each character represents a cereal flavor and is a critical a part of the corporate’s overall brand identity.

Image file types

You’ll work with two primary varieties of image files as you embark in your brand identity design journey: vector images and bitmap images.

Vector images are made up of paths (or lines) moderately than pixels, allowing them to scale to any size. SVG, AI, and EPS are common vector file types. Vector images are typically used to design logos or graphics inside design software and are utilized by printers, but generally are exported to a bitmap format to be used online.

Chances are you’ll be more conversant in bitmap images—JPEG, GIF, and PNG. These are made up of pixels and due to this fact have limitations for scaling. GIF supports animation, PNG allows for transparent backgrounds, and JPG lets images be optimized to a low file size for web use.

8. Construct a brand style guide

A brand style guide (also called brand guidelines) can aid you keep track of all of the creative decisions you’ve made about your brand. That is the visual language of your brand. That way, each time you create something—an ad, a post, an email—you may have a set of specific guidelines to assist keep it consistent. 

A method guide can be helpful if you happen to’re delegating design tasks to a virtual assistant, a branding agency, or in-house staff as you grow your corporation.

Your brand guidelines may contain:

• Logo design and alternate logos
• Primary and secondary colours
• Visual brand elements like patterns or icons
• Brand logo usage guidelines
• Brand font library including rules to be used
• Brand story or history
• Brand positioning
• Goal market and audience demographics
• Example social media graphics
• Brand voice and brand personality

Tips on how to put your brand identity into motion

The most important think about constructing a robust brand identity is getting it out into the world. This implies consistently applying your style across every platform and space where your brand shows up. This cements your brand image within the minds of shoppers. Here’s where your brand’s identity design will be used.

Brand your online store

In some unspecified time in the future in your project, you’ll probably need to construct your individual branded website. Sometimes it’s step one, sometimes it’s the last, but having a spot to call your individual (versus selling on a marketplace or third-party channel) gives you full creative control.

Pet product company Wild One has a quite simple type-based logo, but its visual identity shows up in other ways. Color palette is vital to this brand’s collection and people decisions are apparent across the web site’s theme and photography:

You might have more visual flexibility on your individual website than on some other platform, but you’ll still must adhere to your brand guidelines to make sure your brand identity is consistent. Here, you’ll apply those guidelines to quite a lot of places:

• Store theme. Your theme is a website template that forms the skeleton of your site. Pick one which already aligns together with your brand identity, and easily edit it to plug in your individual fonts, colours, and pictures.
• Photos and graphics. Product and lifestyle photos must be consistent together with your photographic style. Some Shopify themes have existing graphic elements—make certain these work together with your brand whenever you select your theme. 
• Fonts. Most themes permit you to pick your fonts throughout the editor. In case your fonts will not be available, you might require some coding or advanced knowledge to load these fonts. 
• Logo variation and placement. Select the fitting logo variant for every use case: Your favicon will use your simplest logo, while your homepage might feature your primary logo.
• Color palette. If you establish your color scheme in your initial branding design exercise, you must have hexadecimal codes for every color. Inside your theme, you may set your brand colours using these codes.

Surface your brand identity on products and packaging 

Your brand decisions can show up in all places, from on the product itself (say, a t-shirt label) to product packaging (a chocolate wrapper) to the outer shipping packaging (a custom poly mailer). 

Brand identity design for packaging and products suggestions:

• When working with an experienced printer or using a self-serve online printing service, the onus is on you to make certain that the files you produce have the proper colours (compatible for print) and sizes to accommodate the printing application. 
• The more places you may have your logo or other branding elements show up, the higher probability you’ll have to cement your brand in your customer’s minds. 
• Use the suitable variant for every application of your logo.

Blackstock & Weber uses its full wordmark logo on its website and a compact version embossed on the insoles of its shoes:

Show up on-brand in marketing and customer communication

Your social media pages don’t should be plastered with big versions of your logo time and again—and in reality, they shouldn’t. They must be more organic and aspirational, and show products in a way of life context. Your logo can pop up in subtle ways on packaging, but your brand identity will be successfully communicated through photographic and color decisions across your grid or playlists.

Gummy candy brand Behave uses its Instagram account to speak its brand without excessive use of its logo and products. As an alternative, imagery tells a story in regards to the customer it hopes to draw using lifestyle images and memes.

Have your brand identity show up consistently across all of your communications channels, including the whole lot from shipping notification emails to checkout. Using the suitable logo variant and size is very important for every use case.

Working with a designer to execute your brand identity

If you may have the budget to achieve this, Skyler suggests working with a brand identity designer to create a memorable brand. You’ll be able to deal with a couple of key items which might be versatile that may carry through quite a lot of use cases. “For ecommerce, I might start with a logo,” she says. “Secondly, ask for color scheme that may scale.” 

With these two things, you may go a good distance, mixing and matching colours and fidgeting with logo size and positioning to bring consistency across your brand, packaging, website, and social.

Some more suggestions for working with brand identity designers:

• Commission branded templates. You’ll be able to reuse these time and again in your content and marketing. “Ask them to provide you with a repeatable template for wherever your largest touchpoints together with your customers are,” Skyler says. 
• Be crystal clear together with your vision. Nail your brand’s personality before you hire a designer. The more detail you may provide about your required look, mission, and customer, the higher.
• Trust the designer to do their job. For those who’re clear together with your brand vision upfront, you won’t must hinder the design process by micromanaging. You’re hiring knowledgeable for his or her expertise.

Where to seek out a branding design pro

When selecting a designer, Skyler says, “Find one who has work that you simply like and focuses on the areas that you ought to deal with.” There are quite a lot of sites where you may browse profiles of freelance designers and design studios. 

• Shopify Experts are vetted professionals who can tackle projects of any size. If you may have or plan to make use of a Shopify store, these designers and agencies have experience with the platform.
• Dribbble or Behance are goldmines for locating designers. Filter to seek out designers that fit together with your vision and magnificence and reach out.
• Upwork or Fiverr will not be design-specific, but you may filter to seek out freelance designers to your project.
• Sustainable packaging company noissue also has a community of creatives able to tackle commissions for design projects. 
• Local design colleges can have students or recent grads in search of entry-level work or work experiences for credit. 

How much does it cost to rent a brand identity designer?

In 1971, the designer who created the famous Nike swoosh was paid $35. However, major brands today can spend tens of millions of dollars on a whole branding package that falls flat. Whilst you get what you pay for generally, what’s necessary is to seek out the fitting designer to your project and be clear about your vision and expectations.

Retail brick-and-mortar businesses and restaurants may spend tens of 1000’s on a branding package for menu design, signage, and other physical design needs.

As a web-based business, nonetheless, you may deal with digital basics like a logo, color scheme, and a couple of templates. “Take note, the emblem goes to be the costliest,” says Skyler. “But if you happen to’re very clear in what you wish, I might say on the lower range, it might be anywhere from $300 to $500.” This, she says, is a rate for a more junior designer. A more seasoned designer would charge a pair thousand dollars for a similar work. 

Your brand identity should leave an enduring impression

A number of the world’s most successful brands—Apple, Nike, McDonald’s—are widely recognizable by their most simplified logo. Often you’ll even know the brand by the tone of an ad, font decisions, or photography style—before the brand is even mentioned. That’s because great brands have trained customers through consistent brand identity design. 

Whether you DIY your brand identity or hire a professional, you now have the tools to start out your branding journey. Stay true to your vision as you craft a brand identity that resonates with potential customers.