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In today’s episode, we’re focusing on a key aspect of your brand: visual branding. While branding encompasses much more than just visuals – think messaging, customer experience, and the way people talk about your company, this episode narrows in on the visual side. We’ll explore how the look and feel of your brand can impact your business and identify common mistakes to avoid when it comes to your brand’s visual identity. If you’re ready to refine your brand’s presence, this one’s for you!
#1- Inconsistent Branding
- Using a variety of colors, fonts and imagery style that doesn’t feel cohesive.
- If you’re constantly mixing these up, you wont be recognized as being the same brand
- INSTEAD: Intentionally create a set of brand colors, fonts and a photo style that you use consistently everywhere to boost brand recognition
#2- Having brand colors that don’t match the vibe you intend to create for your business
- The colors may be too bright or saturated, or are just not the right colors in general for the feeling you want your business to convey
- Ex: A high-end company using primary colors (red, blue and yellow- in their truest form) will feel very elementary because it reminds us of kid’s toys
- Ex: A company that wants to create a peaceful and relaxing feeling using really saturated colors
- INSTEAD: Focus first on the feeling you want your business to give off and the first impression you want to make. Then choose colors aimed in that direction.
#3- Choosing brand colors that don’t layer well together
- You may like your brand colors, but are they legible when you layer them together?
- If most of your colors are of similar value (mostly light, or medium or dark value) it will be difficult to layer text on the background color and be able to read what it says
- INSTEAD: Have a mixture of light, medium and darker tone colors so they can effectively layer well together
#4- Having an illegible logo
- The point of your logo is for people to know your business name!
- Avoid your main logo having really small text paired with a really large illustration graphic
- Our logos are rarely displayed large, and so by the time you scale down the logo to fit it where it needs to go, if the proportions of the graphic and text are off, you will barely be able to read the actual name
- You can always have a version of the logo like this, but do not use it as your main logo
- Also avoid using fonts or your logo that are not very easy to read – especially if you have a unique and/or longer business name
- INSTEAD: Choose legible fonts for your logo and make sure the size of the text in your logo is large enough to be seen when the logo is sized small.
#5- Using fonts that go against how you want the brand to feel
- This is a very overlooked thing to focus on, and most people don’t know what to look out for when choosing fonts!
- Different style fonts can convey different impressions (casual, timeless, luxury, playful, boho etc)
- INSTEAD: Start with the feeling you want your business to have, and then choose fonts that are aligned with that.
- Ex: Certain serif fonts will feel more sophisticated and high end – while some sans serif fonts are more modern and casual.
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