What Is Branding Identity or Guidelines?
What is branding in graphic design this is one of the most misunderstood subjects and I want to help show you how vital this is for you as a graphic designer as well as for you to use these tools for your client's hi I'm Lauren with for the creatives where we help graphic designers with tips tools and tutorials to help you expand your business now first off what branding is not branding is not just a logo branding is not just a promise and branding is not just some colors or fonts thrown together branding is a result it is the gut feeling about a promised service or company it ends up in their heads and in their hearts a wise man named Marty new Meyer who helped create the brand identity for huge brands such as Apple Google and HP in their beginning stages says that brand is like a business reputation your brand isn't what you say it is its what they say it is brand identity is a part of this and pushes forward the overall branding of the company.
It is the visual side of the business and is what designers helped to formulate for companies often as a graphic designer you will work with the CEO or the head of marketing who has the information and research on whom that company's target audience is and will be a good jumping-off point for you as a designer to do the visual representation of this company brand awareness and recognition are aided by a visual identity that is timeless and easy to remember and the reason logos are used as the head of a brand is that symbols are the most rapid form of communication.
If you look at these symbols here you can immediately see what company they represent for an example of branding and brand identity let's look at Starbucks it is more than just coffee right perhaps a place to bring your laptop on a Wednesday afternoon to work away from everything a place to bring your girlfriend or boyfriend a place to meet the smell the atmosphere the feeling every time they call your name when your drink is ready it all works together to form the brand that has become.
Starbucks now think about their colors their logo their packaging their menu design and the designs on those little coffee cups that is the brand identity it is the visual representation of their brand the most successful brands are completely coherent every aspect of what they do and what they are reinforces everything else now applying this to you as a graphic designer have you thought about how your logo social media website presentations emails portfolio pieces and all interactions are perceived by clients and potential clients you as a graphic designer have to worry about not just the brand identity but the overall branding of yourself or your company
If you only have a logo but haven't really worked out anything else you will not 3:14 get very far branding is how we can stand out from other designers and yes it comes back to your own target audience and what will resonate with them who are you designing for prestigious Fortune 500 companies or tech startups everything about your,s.
Brand needs to communicate and resonate with that audience and don't try to be someone else you have a unique style a personality and a visual way that you communicate be yourself a great quote by coco chanel is in order to be irreplaceable one must always be different branding will get you more customer loyalty and it will allow you to charge a higher price if you just have a PDF of a portfolio and have a random logo and then you use a bunch of different fonts and colors in each one of your promos your perception by customers is not going to be as high as if you were in to ensure every message that you put out had your well-designed look uniquely crafted to your ideal clients they feel consistency.
It doesn't mean it would have to be boring but it needs to have a uniformity and a recognizable look and feel you're going to then have customer engagement well they will come back no question they will feel emotionally involved and they will become a part of your brand rather than thinking they're just buying from you a great quote is this one if you think that good design is expensive you should look at the cost of bad design that's from the CEO of Jaguar.
Land Rover and then from the other side of branding you have this as an offering that you are giving to service the clients that you there have been so many times I've encountered an e-commerce brand or some other type of brand or company that wanted a package design or some promotion designed and all they had was a logo that was created by some designer a while back but there was no cohesive brand identity or guide that indicated how this brand should be perceived so instead of just designing a package or some flyer at that point I have to figure out their entire look and how they will be perceived visually if we understand more about how things work in the marketplace and how to properly market things.
We can offer a lot more and it can have massive impacts in a company giving more value than just a logo the more value that you provide the happier the client will be the happier the client will be the more referrals they will give back to you and then the more referrals the more business you will get which means you can charge higher prices it's a win-win now there are several books
I highly recommend you read to understand the subject in greater detail the first one is designing brand identity by Alina wheeler which is a great guide with some awesome visual examples of how branding works then there is the brand gap by Martin Meyer which gives an awesome explanation of the importance of branding it's a must-read for any graphic designer and then there's the marketing classic called positioning by Al Raise and Jack trout which gives tons and tons of examples of the importance of positioning a company in the overall marketplace well thanks for sticking around to the end and be sure to subscribe for future tips tools and tutorials to help expand your graphic design skills in business I will see you next time.
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