In this blog we will be discussing the role of visual branding and how it shapes consumer perceptions about your brand. We will also be taking a look at the key elements and components that go into this as well as how you manage these efforts and elements.
What is Visual Branding?
Visual branding is bringing together your brand’s visual branding identity elements that compose your brand, your logo, color palette, imagery, photography, brand design features and packaging them into the brand look and feel. This can also be called visual branding design, but your visual brand also encompasses the content and copy and what your brand reads, stands for and communicates your voice and tone.
The Psychology Behind Visual Branding
This is the use of different uses of color, typography and imagery of your brand, and how the utilization of these elements are perceived by your customers and targets. Another aspect of visual identity branding is working with particular colors that are associated with feelings about your brand. For example, blue is associated with stability, trust and one that is professional.
Key Elements of Effective Visual Branding
Let go through some of the key elements of effective visual branding:
Visual branding strategy: A visual brand strategy is when you understand who your ideal client profile(s) looks like and we develop an intentional strategy of what would appeal to them. This is where you put this strategy into a document that would spell out what your brand, logo, color utilization, design elements, imagery, photography and how to package those into a brand that will appeal to your target customers.
Visual branding elements: As mentioned above part of your visual brand strategy is to spell out what the different design and content elements are going to be, and how to use them as part of your visual brand development.
How Visual Branding Shapes Consumer Perception
The whole goal of developing a visual brand strategy is to pro-actively craft your brand perceptions the way you want your customers and prospects to think and feel about your brand, let’s take a look at how: The utilization of your brand’s elements:
Your logo: the design of your logo can help and shape your brand, is it forward-thinking, modern, conservative, stable, innovative, etc. based on how your logo is designed and developed.
Color choice: Your color choice can greatly help you craft and create perceptions regarding your brand as well. Colors can portray strength, stability, passion, refreshing, innovative, etc. Choose how you want your brand to be perceived and choose accordingly.
Typography: Even the font that your brand uses matters. The type/font you select for your brand can communicate a feeling, an emotion regarding who you are and what you’re all about.
Brand design elements: Brand elements are things like backgrounds, pitch deck templates, social media templates. The utilization of these design elements also affect how consumers/ideal target profiles perceive your brand.
Imagery/Photography: Here is another great tool of the top branding agency’s. The utilization of imagery and photography is shaping perceptions regarding your brand, who you are, what you stand for, what your brand values are, etc.
Website: Your website has a great deal shaping and managing how consumers and your target audiences perceive your brand. Everything from your homepage design to, color, content, the layout and design and content elements, have a powerful impact on your brand’s perception.
Social media: Here is another medium that greatly affects your brand and how it’s perceived in the marketplace. We know that top brands so effectively utilize Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn to craft, create, interact, shape your brand’s perception.
Common Mistakes in Visual Branding
Going your own to develop your brand’s visual brand is very doable, and some people/companies do. I know it’s going to come as a shock, but as a top brand strategy agency, we highly recommend that you utilize a partner that’s developed many brands to guide you through this very important process when making your brand effective, on point and appealing to your consumers and ideal target profile.
Steps to Develop a Strong Visual Branding Strategy
Let’s take a look at the steps you need to take to build a strong visual brand strategy:
Outline your desired brand outcomes: We believe that brands are designed and built to help you and your company achieve your desired outcomes. Branding is about helping you achieve results, take charge of your brand and business’s results, create the brand that is going to help you achieve your goals and objectives.
Brand audit: We like to start with where is your current brand currently sitting at? Are you winning with your customers and target audience, is your brand and logo helping to appeal to these targets or not? We examine all your brand assets to determine what might need to be revised or re-positioned to get to where you want to be.
Understanding of desired brand: Whether that is looking at changes you need to make on your current brand or what you want your new brand to look like, you need to know what your brand wants to be when you are through this whole process.
Brand design: Once you’ve developed your brand strategy, you get into the brand design, crafting and creating your brand look and feel that is going to appeal to your customers.
Content creation: This is where you are developing your voice and tone and how you brand your brand to read and sound like and effectively communicate who you are and what you do in a clear and concise fashion.
Integrated brand creation: In this step you bring everything together from your logo, color palette, brand imagery and photography, content and how it’s all going to come together into the brand you have always wanted to have.
Brand implementation: This is where you start to roll your brand out into the marketplace and see how it’s received.
Visual branding guidelines: When you have finalized building your brand, you will document it and put it into guidelines on how to use your brand, logo, colors, content so your brand stays consistent and on brand. You may even develop a visual branding course on how your visual brand was developed and how to refine and effectively manage it.
Visual branding examples: We see this everyday, brands like the NFL, they have worked long and hard to develop the brand of the league itself as well as how you develop an individual team’s brand. From the NFL’s logo, to colors, to a team’s uniform are designed, utilized. The NFL controls its brand to effectively build and connect with you as a consumer.
The Future of Visual Branding
Like technology and how we have come to live these days, brands and branding is going to evolve and grow. We currently see how AI is shaping branding through design or content creation. One thing is for sure you have to evolve and grow your brand like technology to make sure it’s current, on point and leading your space. You may want to work with a branding company services to help you with this process to build your brand and with pitch deck experts to make sure your brand is the best it can be to drive your sales, raise capital or get acquired.
Conclusion
Since your visual brand is so important to how your brand is perceived, it is vital that you pro-actively manage your brand to shape how consumers perceive your brand. If you need help with these efforts, please reach out and let us know what we can do to help.
