How to Make the Most of Your Branding

Maximising the potential of your brand and your new brand identity might seem like a mammoth task initially, but once you get to grips with the basics of branding, you'll be able to effortlessly present a compelling and engaging brand to potential customers. If you had an amazing new hair cut that you loved, you wouldn’t immediately cover it with a hat. The same principle goes for branding - this guide details five fundamentals of branding, and how you can use them to grow your brand’s visual identity.

Being Consistent With Your Logos

Your logo serves as the face of your brand, the one visual flagpole for you and your business. When you work with a brand designer, like me, you’ll usually receive a number of logo variations as part of your branding package. They’re all designed to work seamlessly together, but you’ll want to use different variants in different scenarios - while your primary logo should take centre stage in most scenarios, its appropriateness may vary.

In the top left corner of this page, you’ll se my own primary logo. I also utilise a secondary logomark, wordmarks and various brand assets like stickers and digital pennants, both of which you can see in my footer. However, I use the same font throughout, maintaining brand equity (the ability for you to recognise it as being WDCO). This gives me versatility when it comes to use of my logos. I usually opt for the primary logo mark, as it’s highly legible, easily recognisable, and stands out. I have eight different colour variations of my primary logo mark, but 90% of the time, you’ll see either the all black version (like above) or the sand colour way you’ll see at the top of my website. The sand colour way is used on my website because a lot of my headers are off-black, and therefore it stands out well. The all-black version is really versatile and can be used across a lot of backgrounds. Having various colour versions of the logo, also means I can apply a specific colour version to a specific part of my business - for example, I can use my “clementine” orange version alongside my fonts, and I can maintain brand equity whilst mixing it up a bit.

However, sometimes, I want to use the word marks, and for this reason, I have a portrait layout word mark, and a landscape layout word mark. This gives me the ability to apply my word mark regardless of the layout of the document or design it’s going on.

Key lesson

Have a wide, but carefully-curated selection of logo marks and word marks that all work together -- this gives you the flexibility and versatility to apply your brand assets in a variety of different whilst ensuring your customers know it’s you.

Using Your Brand Colours Correctly

When working with me, or with most brand designers, you’ll receive your logo in full colour versions, as well as monochrome versions (black and white). Your brand guidelines should comprehensively cover your brand colours and their respective codes, whether in RGB, CMYK, HEX, or Pantone - it’s a good idea to memorise these and ensure you have them saved. You should know when to use each full colour version and when to use a monochrome version, and this should be outlined in your brand guidelines as well.

If you’re not sure when to use RGB, CMYK etc, ask your designer - for example, you’ll need to use CMYK when printing, not RGB, to avoid the colours looking washed out. Applying colours correctly is equally vital; you should know your primary colour/s and secondary colour/s and therefore how frequently to use them.

Key lesson

Understand your colours and their specific roles.

Using Your Brand Typefaces Correctly

Typefaces (or fonts) are one of the key visual identifiers of a brand, and significantly impact your brand perception. Your brand guidelines will detail your brand fonts and how they should be used.

For example, I use Expressway, a bold, easily legible typeface based on US road signs for my headings, and New Spirit, a curvy, retro serif font for my body text (like this). This combination of fonts conveys my brand message through a balance of the new and old - vintage branding with a modern twist.

Key lesson

Think of typography is an extension of your brand, reflecting its personality and character, and should be designed carefully to work with (not against) your logo and other visual assets.

Using Your Visual Assets

Another key area of your visual identity, photography and art direction is something that a lot of brands overlook, but should form a key part of your branding. Photography is just as powerful at conveying your brand story and personality, and should be used in conjunction with your logos, typography and brand colours. Whether you use a professional photographer and have a library of brand images, or you use stock photography from websites like Unsplash and Pexels, you should clearly understand how you select images, stylise them, and share them on social media, your website and other channels.

Key lesson

Try and maintain cohesion between your brand shots or stock photography and the broader visual identity to avoid confusing your audience.

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All these facets of your visual identity will be carefully considered and worked when you partner with a brand designer like me. But designing your branding, colours, typography and photography is one thing - the key is to consistently use them correctly. This is why it’s crucial that you’re involved in the design process with the designer - so you can work together to build the visual identity around how and where it’ll be used. By using your branding correctly and consistently, you can build an engaged and loyal customer base that know your brand and what it stands for, and will pick your business out when looking for your products or services.