Creating a strong brand for your business doesn’t have to mean reinventing your business identity. There are plenty of small steps you can take to strengthen your existing brand. Simple changes, such as always maintaining a unified color palette, can lead to subconsciously recognizing your business, and having an emotional response to it. For example, many people could recognize an advertisement for Disney without even seeing the Disney logo. Whether it’s the animation style, fonts, or just the overall aesthetic, maintaining a high level on consistency is an easy way to improve your brand identity.
While most people don’t pay attention to the fonts in use around them, they still hold a lot of power. Determining what font is right for your brand is an important step. Luckily there are websites available, such as Google Fonts, where you can browse and download various typefaces. It even helps you pair fonts with others that match stylistically. Whether you pick a bold sans serif font for a strong and modern vibe or a serif font to imply a traditional and sophisticated appearance, choosing the right font will further strengthen your existing brand.
In addition to font selection, color palettes are one of the most important steps in strengthening a brand identity. Not only do familiar color schemes help subconsciously recognize the brand, but the colors themselves have meaning as well. Using reds suggests power and passion, while blue tones imply a sense of calmness and neutrality. Every color can evoke an emotional reaction, and when used in combination with the brand fonts it creates an identity that is personal to that business.
Logos are what people primarily identify businesses by, and it can be very risky to completely redesign a logo. However, utilizing aspects of the existing logo helps retain brand recognition, while cleaning up and tweaking other aspects allows for new refreshed look. Redesigning a logo serves a great conversation topic, and an effective way to market a business as new and improved.
The combination of the logo, fonts, and colors all come together to create a memorable brand. These should all be laid out in a style guide that states the particular colors and fonts. This is an essential part of the brand ensures consistency within the brand. While style guides all consist of detailed specifications for the logo, fonts, and colors, there is much more that can be included. Photography, icons, and rules for how to implement everything can often be helpful in creating a strong brand as well. Just remember that consistency is key!