Brand Identity Essentials Your Small Business Needs
Your brand’s identity is more than a logo or specific colour choices. Your brand’s online identity is the combination of all visual elements that work cohesively to inform the first impression of your business. The truth is, the visuals of your brand inform how individuals will feel about you, which in most cases is more important than what they think of you.
Whether you are looking to completely rebrand your business this year, or are wondering what elements your business is missing to make your brand’s identity more well rounded, here are my recommendations:
Logo Variations
It is crucial to not only have a primary logo, but have secondary logos & icons. Each of these fulfill different purposes for your online identity, and unfortunately no matter how amazing the logo is, no logo will suit all places.
I often use a horizontal logo variation for website navigation, while using an icon for social media display photos.
See more from this 365 Day Group Rebrand project ➞
Colour Scheme
Brand colours are extremely important and tell us more than we realize about a brand’s personality and who they attract. Different colours have different “meanings”, cultural associations, and evoke different emotions. Assuring your colours are not only leaving the right impression of your business, but are complementary to each other is extremely important.
Make sure you not only know your brand colours, but understand how to use them effectively to create graphics and any visuals you are posting online.
Typography
It is just as important to be consistent with your font choices, as it is with colours. Be intentional with which fonts best represent your brand, and know their intended uses.
High Quality Visuals
While I know sometimes it can feel easy to ignore, high quality images for your business are a difference maker when it comes to a successful brand identity. High resolution photographs, illustrations, and graphic elements work together to showcase your business to your target demographic.
When possible, I highly recommend hiring a photographer to capture images of your space, your team, or your products. This is an investment in the first impression of your business. We live in a visual world, and unfortunately we are drawn to small businesses with visuals that are attractive and inspire us!
If you are unable to hire a photographer and require the use of stock images, I would encourage you to spend a lot of time searching for images that fit with your brand’s aesthetic and appear more casual.
Social Media Templates
Today, Social Media is arguably as important as your website. People will form an opinion of your business based off the aesthetics of your most recent 9 Instagram photos before they’ll go read your website’s “About” page. For this reason, I like to recommend using social media templates for both your feed posts & your stories to give a more cohesive look. This doesn’t mean you’re swapping out one title and repetitively posting the same graphic. Rather, you have a set of templates that compliment each other and use similar graphic elements. Don’t worry if Photoshop or Illustrator feel too intimidating, Canva is a great place to create your social media graphics.
If you aren’t sure where to get started, I love working with clients to create Canva templates they can work from that are customized to the types of content their business promotes.
Brand Style Guide
My final tip, whether you are creating your brand identity yourself from scratch or you are working with a designer, is to make sure you have a Brand Style Guide. For Small Businesses, this can be a 1-3 page cheat sheet that shows you the visual elements of your brand and how to use them! While it may feel like enough to have a designer give you the individual elements, often if they are used differently than the designer intended, your online presence will end up looking visually disconnected. Think of it like Ikea handing you all the pieces for your dresser, without the instructions.
Need help narrowing down your brand’s identity?