The Ultimate Guide to Creating Your Brand Identity
There are many important components to consider when it comes to creating an effective brand identity. From brand names to logos, we’ve written a lot of blogs in the past to help you nail these various elements. Now, we’re putting together the ultimate guide to creating your brand identity, where you can get support for these processes all in one place
Why is Branding so Important?
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of brand identity, let’s find out why an effective brand identity is so important to your business. This blog details only the most interesting branding statistics, from data showing how colours can impact brand recognition to how many Fortune 500 brands use stand-alone, wordmark-less icons for their logos (spoiler: it’s just Nike and Apple).
I mean, did you know consumers will generally only give you 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression when visiting your website? That’s less than 1/20th of a second!
Check it out here:
Naming Your Brand
So, say you’re starting from scratch. You’ve got a great idea and the will to make it happen, but what you need before you do anything else is a memorable, unique brand name which is both representative of your brand’s offerings, and its values. Most of the time, this is far easier said than done (and it’s not even that easy to say)!
There are some glaring mistakes that a lot of brands have made in the past when it has come to bestowing upon themselves an impactful brand name. Your brand’s name should always align with your brand’s values, mission, and culture - and though you should certainly take SEO into consideration, don’t lose your creativity or individuality.
Choosing the right brand name goes a lot deeper than that, however. Even the most seemingly harmless, effective, fantastic names might not work for a variety of reasons, which is why you need to carry out plenty of research before getting it registered.
Have you ever heard of American baby food brand Gerber, with its iconic Gerber Baby? Well, in French, ‘gerber’ means ‘to vomit’. There’s no prizes for guessing that Gerber didn’t find much success in France.
Discover how to avoid even more brand naming errors here:
The Biggest Mistakes You Can Make When Naming Your Brand (And How To Avoid Them)
Crafting a Tagline
Many of the most well-known brands in the world have equally famous taglines. Just Do It, I’m Lovin’ It, Taste the Rainbow. Not all brands need taglines to be successful (Starbucks and Facebook for example), but if you are going to have one, you’ve got to do it right.
The key to an effective brand tagline lies in simplicity. No one’s going to remember a tagline if it’s more than just a short, simple phrase. And that’s another thing: a tagline is only as useful as it is memorable!
So, how do you create a tagline which is simple, memorable, relevant, timeless, AND unique? This can be a tricky process, and requires a good amount of creativity and collaboration to be successful. You’ll need to start off by gathering lots of inspiration, before diving into what your own brand is all about…
Find some inspiration and get started on creating your own tagline here:
Choosing Brand Colours
In all honesty, if it were down to me, all brands would be pink. But a pink bank? A pink supermarket? A pink insurance provider? Sheilas’ Wheels aside, colour has a huge impact on peoples’ perception of brands, whether they know it or not, and pink is usually used by brands wishing to evoke feelings of playfulness, romance and femininity.
For companies operating in the finance sector, blue is often the colour of choice, as it portrays trustworthiness and professionalism. Black conveys a sense of authority and formality, whilst green gives us feelings of calm, nature and hope.
Colour psychology goes far deeper than what we learned at school, where red meant anger and blue meant sadness.
Check out this blog to figure out which colours you should choose for your brand:
Colour Psychology: How Different Colours Have Different Meanings (With Examples!)
Logo Design
Logos are undoubtedly another fundamental part of an effective brand identity. It can be tough to both create something beautiful and impactful, and have it accurately represent your brand - but it’s well worth it.
Before you get started on your logo design, it’s a good idea to think about what you actually want. And by that, I mean: do you want an icon, like Apple? Or a wordmark like Dyson? How about a letter mark, à la the BBC? Maybe you fancy creating a fun mascot like Pringles?
If I might as well be speaking Spanish right now, it’s worth checking out this blog:
7 Types of Logos to Consider for Your Brand (With Examples)
There are a few things you should avoid when designing your logo. Some are more obvious, like choosing Comic Sans for your font, or saving your design as a 50px JPEG. So, what should you do instead? And what other mistakes should you be keeping an eye out for during the process?
Find out here:
Five Common Logo Design Mistakes, And How To Fix Them
That’s not all, however. I want you to picture someone in 2009 who has used concealer in lieu of lipstick. And I need you to understand how cool they looked back then.
Do you see where I’m going with this? Following the current trends can be great in the short term, but if you do this with your logo design, it won’t be long before it looks outdated and just not cool anymore.
It’s not just about the coolness factor, though. Even though some logo design trends are beautiful and impactful, sometimes they’re just not practical. Mixed typography logos, for example, tend to include small or even dainty text elements, which are challenging to effectively scale down for things like business cards.
It can be hard to decipher which popular design choices are short-lived trends and which are timeless, so check out our blog:
You only get one shot at creating the perfect logo, unless you decide to go through the expensive process of rebranding. Speaking of which…
Rebranding
Consumers are notoriously hard to please, especially when it comes to a rebrand of a well-known brand, whether it’s a high street staple or a worldwide icon. We took a look at 5 rebranding successes, to help you to gather some inspiration in case you’re thinking of undertaking a rebrand of your own.
Because rebranding can be so expensive, especially if you have a lot of merchandise to replace or physical storefronts to remodel, it’s very important to get it right.
So, here’s 5 brands that did:
At UNBXD, we have a team of design experts on hand to create recognisable, distinctive logos in line with your brand’s identity. Our brand identity services also include brand naming, brand guideline design, brochure design, signage design, packaging design and brand consultancy.