Branding Process 101 > Chapter 1
A pain free introduction to the complete branding process. Branding made so simple, you can do it with your eyes closed. But maybe keep them open because following these steps will get your brand from zero to brand cult!
Introduction
Crafting a brand can seem more art than science. Whether you are creating a brand from scratch or rebranding an existing business, we all remember the McDonald’s signature yellow M or Twitter’s blue bird. If you’ve got a strong brand, your customers will not only trust you, but they will stay loyal¹. So how do you make the most intangible part of your business - your brand - so iconic, unique, and attractive that clients want to buy what you’re selling?
Bonus: it’ll cost you less than Pepsi’s $1 million logo design.²
Whether you are here to build an identifiable visual for your brand or are in the middle of recrafting your message, this is our 4-stage approach to visual identity design, perfected over ten years of helping businesses discover their brand.
1. Discovery2. Brand Strategy
3. Visual Identity
4. Project Delivery
1. Discovery
You are the starting point. Yes, you! Get to know yourself really, really well.
Think of it like questions you’d ask on a first date: Where did you grow up? What are you proudest of? Where do you see yourself in five years?
We developed a brand questionnaire to help you out, which you can download for free here. Print them out (or not, that’s totally up to you) and spend some time answering the questions. Then spend some more time noodling over your responses. These questions aren’t meant to be easy, but they’re meant to get to the core of what you envision your company to be.
88% of customers believe that authenticity is important when deciding what brands they like and support.³ So it’s essential that you are honest in taking on these questions so that your brand can accurately represent your vision. If your customers resonate with what you are putting out there, they will believe in you.
You don’t have to do this alone. If you’ve got business partners, invite them along for the ride. You might discover that you have varying answers to the questions, which will give you a range of responses that you can work with, or narrow down.
Once you have the answers, you can use them as building blocks for the next stages.
2. Brand Strategy
Your brand should truly and wholeheartedly represent your business.
If you are building a new business, this is your chance to make a great first impression to the world. Start with a bang, if you will. If you are rebranding, this can bridge the disconnect between your vision and your existing business. It’s the Queer Eye transformation that you’ve always wanted.
The first step to either branding or rebranding is to figure out where your business is when stacked against your peers, competitors, and other industry players. Unfortunately, none of us exist in a vacuum, and people tend to perceive the value of something by comparing it to some other thing they’re already familiar with.
If you’re doing a brand makeover, or rebranding, you could consider interviewing stakeholders such as clients and partnering organisations, too. This is formally known as a brand audit. The answers might scare you, but do take them with an open mind as best as you can. Unless they’re wrong, in which case you know that you need to course correct.
You could then take your answers from the first stage to solidify other elements of your business: Brand DNA, Positioning, Vision, Core Values, Personality, and Mission. (A 50-page strategy template can be purchased here).
Having a holistic view of your brand could help you pinpoint what about your company is so unique that you stand out from your competitors. It sounds cliche, but if you offer the same services as everyone else, your customers have no reason to stay loyal. For example, adding a personal touch to your services could convince 94% of your customers to stick with you.⁴ Whatever it may be, it’s imperative that you double-down on what makes you different and capitalise on that.
Your end goal is a fully formulated brand identity, which will then permeate throughout the rest of your business.
3. Visual Identity
Now it’s time for the most exciting bit: Designing your company logo, among other things that could represent your company, such as a distinct font, a unique colour palette, and other brand assets.
Stationery suite for Barker Partners
Your business’s visual identity is a vessel to translate your company’s purpose and mission to the world. No pressure! But because of its importance, we spend an immense amount of time in this stage to make sure that your brand’s purpose and personality translate across physical and digital brand touchpoints.
Narrowing down one visual identity concept is hard, so you should start with three. The more distinct they are from each other, the better. This is where you ideate and think out of the box! Put together moodboards for each of the concepts to get a better grasp of the vibe you are going for. Next, you could key off of your moodboards to develop your brand assets.
A distinct brand colour can help increase brand recognition by as much as 80%, so experiment away and explore what resonates.⁵
From this point on, it’s a reiteration process until you are satisfied. Dissect your visual identity ideas, discuss them with your partners and stakeholders, and go back to make the changes.
Tip: if you’d like to see how your logo would look in different settings, place them on mockups such as a social media profile, stationery, or signages.
This stage could take a while, so be patient with yourself. Take a break, walk around the park, get some sunlight, and come back to it with a fresh mind. You want a visual identity that you’re truly proud of and feels right for your business.
4. Project Delivery
Now that the sausage is made, it’s time to put your newly formed brand into action. Update your site logo, print out new name cards, launch your online shop. You did it! And you deserve to bask in your glory.
Most big corporations develop a 40-page deck known as the brand guidelines, but you could go for something smaller depending on your company’s needs. Essentially, this document should act as some sort of guidelines where your logos can be placed, your colour palette, your main font(s) in the languages you operate in, and other rules you may want to set. If you have employees, this would be extremely helpful to make sure that they don’t represent your company’s visual identity in a not-so-flattering way.
Brand Guidelines Example
Be sure to have your brand guidelines implemented well wherever you exist online, too. Websites, social media accounts are nowadays the first touchpoint a customer will have with your brand, and ideally they would be impressed in the first few seconds you have before they form an opinion about your company.
Now go on, show it off! We can’t wait to see your new brand.
Sources
1 Edelman
2 Business Insider
3 Stackla
4 Sales Force
5 Reboot
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MORE POSTS IN BRAND STRATEGY 101
Chapter 1 – Branding Process Overview
Chapter 2 – Discovery & Brand Strategy
Chapter 3 – Visual Identity & Delivery