How to Creative a Cohesive Brand
Today we are going to delve into why making sure your brand has fluidity and cohesiveness, and is important to making an impression on your clients. As a designer, cohesive branding calls for a methodical flow in planning. Planning out your new brand idea or refreshing an existing one, is essential to making sure you have a blueprint to follow. This “branding blueprint” if you will, can be referred to repeatedly when creating an instagram post, a new packaging design, logo, or website style. Anything visual that is associated with your brand should tie back to the aforementioned “branding blueprint.” The reason this is so important is so that your customers will be picking up subconsciously on your branding choices, and what things go together. Choosing appropriate colours, typography, images, icons etc. for your brand or service is SO personal and it comes down to how you want your brand displayed to the world. I’m going to share my top tips on how to plan out a cohesive branding strategy and practical ways to implement a “branding blueprint” into the foundation of everything your brand creates!
Your Vision
Brainstorming or what I like to call “ideation” is the MOST important step when thinking about your visual brand. The more effort you put into flushing out who you are as a brand, and how you want others to see you represented, the more effectively your message will come across! Find a comfy place, grab your favourite drink and a notebook, and begin writing down the answers to these questions: What makes you unique? What are you selling? What is your vision? Who is your target market? Get to know your brand a bit better; this is where you want to come up with your vision and get a clear picture with how you are going to show up as a business in an ultra saturated world. What can you bring to the table that no one else can? All of these questions will be your corner stones to come back to, when building your visual identity.
Make a Muse
Did you know that Lululemon tailors all their products and branding to specific “people”? This iconic brand uses a female muse Ocean and a male muse Duke to inspire everything about their brand! I remember learning about this when I first started out as a designer, and it really stuck with me that Lululemon's muse is essential to keeping cohesive branding in their style. You can do the same thing with your business! Coming up with a muse aka BUYER PERSONA for your business goes beyond your “ideal client” which can be much more general and broad. A muse is a specific “person” they have a name, they make a specific amount of money, and they live a certain lifestyle. Imagine them, get in their head and visualize them as much as you can, write down all their attributes. This might sound silly but I believe it is an integral part of your business strategy. Coming up with a muse for your business, partnered with getting clear on your vision will help you stay cohesive in your branding.
Visual Identity
This next step is really fun! You get to delve into fonts, colours and images that you feel best describe your brand. The two previous steps were conceptual, and now you get to move into the more visual aspect! What colours do you love? What typography are you drawn to? What images do you feel describe your brand? This is a fine line between your PERSONAL PREFERENCE, and your MUSE....remember to always come back to the conceptual design plan of your brand and your muse when in doubt. Something I find really helpful when planning a branding style is using Pinterest to create a mood board! You can save these resources when planning out your website, logo, packaging or anything visually connected to your brand.
Ask a Professional
It can be really hard to notice the difference between your personal preference and your branding identity. Not everything you like will match with your brand. Getting another set of eyes on your branding blueprint can help you notice the gaps you missed. Professional designers can analyze your concepts and help you create a visual branding style that really matches your muse and vision. Hiring someone to do this early on in your branding ideation can save you so much time and money in the long run!
Refer to your Blueprint
Now is the easy part, implementing your established style into everything you do! Instagram, website, logo, packaging etc. Once you have a vision, muse, visual identity you have a solid branding blueprint to refer to again and again! Putting in the work planning out your branding style, enables unity and cohesiveness in your brand. Don’t forget to revisit this every once in a while to modify/make sure you are keeping up with your branding standard.
