How to: Create a Powerful Brand Identity for Your Small Business
Your brand identity is how your product or service is perceived by the marketplace. Therefore, you will be using different elements to present your product to your target audience and establish your business as well known. We wanted to share how this is achieved, as an Ottawa-based web designer.
As a business owner, you need to recognise and understand the value that your products carry and how you would like them to be perceived by your potential customers. The next step is to create the message that you want to communicate to your target audience and identify what the best way to do that is.
What Elements Are Important to Your Small Business?
Logo
- Sets your business apart
- Represents your company’s values
- Needs to be comprehensively designed
Packaging
- Protects the product
- Give info about the product
- Attracts customers
Business Cards
- Provides basic info about your business
- Recommended in a size that fits in your pocket
- Reflects the qualities of your business
Uniforms
- Give your business a professional look
- Easily recognisable
- Create trustworthiness
What Should You Keep in Mind When Designing Brand Elements?
Your business’ target audience and the niche that your business operates indirectly affects the design of your brand identity elements. When designing the elements of your brand identity, it is always advisable that you try different combinations of shapes, colours and fonts before settling on the one that best suits the image you want to portray your brand.
Let’s break down the importance of each of these elements.
Fonts
- If you want to give the impression of trustworthiness and tradition, then simple and classic fonts like Times New Roman and Garamond are a perfect choice. These are the fonts that are mostly utilised by lawyers and accounting agencies, as those qualities are what is expected from companies in those industries.
- However, if you want to portray a more playful and modern brand, then fonts like Allura and Pacifico are must more suited to showing this to your audience. If you run a business in the entertainment or beauty industries, these fonts are much more popular choices.
Colour
- GREEN is normally associated with nature and health industries, so it is perfectly suited to companies that are selling natural cosmetic products.
- ORANGE has much more energetic and cheerful connotations and is usually used by companies in the sports, art and food industries.
- YELLOW is a very optimistic and warm colour and as such is normally used by companies in the food and transportation industries.
- BLUE represents trustworthiness and professionalism and is most often seen being used by companies in the medical and high-tech industries.
- PINK is usually associated with beauty and femininity, so it’s no wonder that it’s most popular in the fashion and beauty industries.
- RED represents excitement, power and love and it is usually used in the entertainment and food industries and is usually used as the main colour of a brand.
- BLACK is much more luxurious and elegant and therefore companies in the luxury segment usually use it because its lack of colour exudes affluence.
Shape
- Circular shapes like circles and ovals are used to create the impression of unity and evoke warm and positive feelings from customers. So, they are most suitable for brands that are trying to create those feelings in their customers.
- More straight-edged shapes like rectangles and squares, on the other hand, create the impression of trustworthiness and professionalism and are used by companies who work in the professional sector, like lawyers and solicitors, to promote the strength of their brand.
Source: Custom Labels
