A Graphic Designer’s Guide to Branding for Your Business

When thinking about branding for business, a graphic designer might not be the first hire that comes to mind. However, graphics have a lot to do with branding. For starters, when you hire a graphic designer for branding your business, you can work with them to ensure that your images, colors, and graphics have a cohesive feel.

Branding is defined as “the promotion of a particular product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design.” People getting to know your business come to know you by the aesthetic and feel of your business

With that in mind, we thought it would be a good idea to round up some of our best branding tips for both online businesses as well as brick and mortar businesses.

Branding for Business Do’s and Don’ts in Marketing

These days, it doesn’t take much for an ad to go viral for all the wrong reasons (just ask Peloton), and Starbucks® is one company that has had its fair share of marketing blunders, especially around the holidays. In this post, we’re going to outline a few rules of thumb for marketing, based on the successes and failures of the largest coffee house chain in the world.

Do’s

Let’s start with the positives. When crafting your campaigns and messaging, do:

  • Be authentic
  • Be “on-brand”
  • Honor tradition
  • Listen to your customers
  • Be unique
  • Be consistent

Communicating in an authentic way, keeping your branding consistent, and listening to your customers are keys to any successful marketing campaign.

Take the December holidays for example. They are all about traditions, and it’s important to remember to honor yours! For many years, Starbucks® was known for its festive holiday cups and seasonal “Christmas blend” coffee.

This tradition began back in 1997 when designer Sandy Nelson created the very first Starbucks® holiday cup. The controversy surrounding cup designs in recent years is evidence of how invested coffee drinkers had become in this Starbucks® tradition.

Rather than trying to switch things up, Starbucks® should have continued on its merry way, creating the Christmas-inspired holiday cups that its customers were clearly (and loudly) demanding.

What does it mean to be consistent when branding for business?

It means using the same messaging for your entire audience. For example, some brands make the mistake of changing the way they talk based on which sector of their audience the message is geared towards. Remember when your 70 something grandmother tried to use your lingo to relate to you and it felt forced? Yeah – it’s kind of like that, and it’s a horrible idea if you want to be consistent in branding. Saying something like YOLO to a younger crowd might make sense for some brands, but if your business is more sophisticated and/or regularly uses a professional or “grown-up” tone, a YOLO message will fall flat.

Consistency goes beyond messaging though.

To be consistent with your branding also means using the same logo for a long period of time. Sure, it’s normal to upgrade or freshen up your logo once in a while, but the goal should be to have one that lasts so people can get to know it and recognize it.

Consistency can also mean using the same filters or styles with your images. Some of the best brands on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest do this very well. All of their images look as though they were processed with the same Lightroom Presets or Photoshop filtering.

Let’s say your website is very clean with minimalist design, and a healthy use of white space. It wouldn’t make sense then for your social media pages to be cluttered and splattered with, for lack of a better phrase, junk.

Remember, everything you put out online or in print is a reflection of your brand. To that end, if your brand is aiming for a lighthearted tone, your imagery, color choices, and even the use of fonts should be lighthearted as well.

Let’s explore the idea of being unique for a moment

One of the best quotes in personal development is “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” But, this quote is also fabulous in relation to branding for business.

The best brands are not copies of other brands – they are beautifully different from everyone else. Even those brands selling the same things, have their own vibe, color scheme, and messaging. Pepsi and Coke, or McDonald’s and Burger King, anyone?

While it’s perfectly fine to mimic and take cues from competitors, it’s always best to be unique. This is even more true in the age of the internet because it’s easier than ever to call out someone for being a copycat.

Don’ts

If you want to avoid backlash over your marketing, then don’t:

  • Be “too clever”
  • Buck tradition
  • Be political
  • Break promises

Year-round, but especially during the holidays, it is particularly important to maintain consistency in your marketing. Many people look forward to the December holidays time of year because of the comfort and familiarity that time-worn traditions bring them. If your brand has created its own tradition during the holidays, then stick to it!

Trying to be “too clever” or creative can come across the wrong way. Take 2019’s “Merry Coffee” slogan for example. Starbucks® attempted to cleverly avoid the phrase “Merry Christmas” in order to be more inclusive, but in doing so, it alienated the rabid fans of its traditional holiday messaging.

Though this next tip should go without saying, if you want to keep your clients happy, you’ll also want to avoid politics in your marketing campaigns. This is true even if your brand decides to endorse a candidate with a donation. Instead, for the sake of your bottom line, stick with the same messaging and marketing style your clients have become used to. Otherwise, you may find yourself in the same position Starbucks® did when it released its “unity” cup ahead of the 2016 election: a contentious one.

We mentioned breaking promises too. But, what does that have to do with branding?

Again, it goes back to messaging. Let’s take Facebook for example. For years their brand has touted the slogan “It’s free and it always will be” on their sign-up page. Then, suddenly, one day their sign-up page messaging changed to “It’s quick and easy.”

This was a huge blunder because people immediately began questioning whether or not the platform was going to start charging users to be on Facebook. In effect, the slogan change felt like they had broken their promise to users. While it’s likely that they changed it because they wanted advertisers to pay to play on their platform, it caused several users to fear how they as individuals would pay for the right to use Facebook going forward.

If you don’t feel as though you can keep a promise, it’s better to err on the side of caution and never make it in the first place. When you change course or even flip sides entirely, you can destroy your “know, like and trust” factor.

Done Just Right

Our hearts were captured by Chick-fil-A: “The Time Shop” holiday commercial. This is a great example of a brand that took themselves out of the big picture and created something memorable. This commercial was great for brand awareness and served as a reminder to enjoy quality time with family, unplug from technology, and not let time pass us by – the true meaning of the holidays.

Even though the brand wasn’t mentioned until the very end of this commercial, it was actually still “on-brand” for Chick-fil-A. Their founder S. Truett Cathy said, “We should be about more than just selling chicken. We should be a part of our customers’ lives and the communities in which we serve.”

Sure, we’re used to seeing misspelled signs about eating chicken held by cows from the brand, but Chick-fil-A’s underlying brand messaging has always been about family, faith, and community. That’s what made their holiday commercial so great.

Blanding: a Hot Trend and a Bad Idea

We’ve discussed branding for business blunders on this blog before, but let’s shift gears slightly and take a moment to talk about blanding specifically. Blanding was the 2019 trend of taking a brand and making it… bland. When it comes to branding, the last thing you want is for your company identity to look just like everyone else’s. So why has blanding become so ubiquitous? We’ll explore the answer to that question and further define the blanding trend a little more below.

What Is Blanding?

Blanding is all around us. It’s most recognizable in stripped-down, sans-serif logos that lack even an iota of personality. For some, the most offensive cases of blanding are the transformations that many classic logos have undergone in order to become “bulletproof.” See the Yves Saint Laurent logo controversy in 2012 and the more recent update of the Burberry logo in 2018, which has been bitterly referred to as “Blahberry.”

Why Bland?

Bland logos are considered bulletproof by their advocates; they are made for the varied platforms of the digital age. They are bold and bland on purpose because it allows for greater cross-compatibility with small screens and big billboards alike. There’s no worry that minute details will be lost or obscured when a logo has been reduced to nothing more than a wordmark set in a standard font.

Another reason many brands are choosing to go bland is that they believe that it will make them appear younger, fresher, more forward-thinking, or even more legitimate. Young brands believe that by emulating the minimalism of large companies such as Apple and Google, consumers will see them as being just as trustworthy and authoritative. Established brands hope that jumping on the trendy blanding bandwagon will prevent consumers from viewing them as staid and outdated.

Avoid the Bland

Although minimalism is a hallmark of modern luxury and tech brands alike, it’s not the only option. Personality still reigns supreme when it comes to brand trust and loyalty. That’s true even in the beer industry and across the world in Tehran. It’s nearly impossible to convey personality without details, quirks, and eccentricities. So embrace them! Ditch the blanding trend and run fast in the other direction. You’ll stand out from your competitors, gain more brand recognition, and inspire brand loyalty.

Not sure how to avoid the bland? We can help you. The Diace Designs creative team specializes in brand development based on custom strategies designed especially for your business in your market. If you’re ready to ditch the trends in favor of an authentic brand identity, let us know.

Critical Brand Assets Every Business Needs

There are a handful of critical brand assets every business needs to have to be successful. These assets reinforce your brand identity to develop brand awareness. They also ensure that your company is represented in the best way possible to your ideal client. At Diace Designs, we’ve created brand assets for businesses of all sizes in many different industries. This experience has shown us which assets are the most important, and in this post, we would like to share that information with you.

Critical Brand Assets for Every Business

Let’s start with the basics. At a minimum, your business needs to have a:

These four assets apply to every business you can think of and in today’s modern age, they are absolutely necessary. Your logo is the first brand asset you will need to have. It’s also the one you will use the most. Your logo should be incorporated into every other asset you create.

Brand guidelines keep your branding consistent across the myriad platforms and media used in marketing and commerce today. They define the rules for logo usage, color palettes, font selections, and more. A website is often the first place where a new customer will interact with your business. Make sure that it features your logo in a prominent place and adheres to your brand guidelines.

Lastly, you need an email signature. Because more and more of our client interactions are happening online, it is becoming increasingly more important to include a branded signature at the end of our emails. Your signature shouldn’t have too much information nor too little. It should include your business logo, your name and title, and a link to your website at a minimum. You can also include a phone number, physical or mailing address, and social media links. Just make sure it doesn’t look too “busy” and that it is properly formatted.

Critical Brand Assets for Specific Businesses

There are, of course, additional brand assets that are necessary for specific businesses. For example, a law office will need custom stationery (envelopes and letterhead), and a B2B business that attends trade shows will need at least basic trade show materials (banner stand, table drape, rack cards).

Knowing which brand assets your business requires will depend on how you interact with your customers. Our team of designers can help you identify the assets you need to ensure that every customer touchpoint creates a branded experience. Contact us to learn more.

Why You Should Hire a Graphic Designer for Branding

There are lots of moving parts to your business’s brand. Hiring a graphic designer to guide you in your journey of branding for business ensures continuity and professionalism. We’ve helped countless businesses create a cohesive identity for their online and brick and mortar establishments. We’d be honored to do the same for you. Reach out to us today to learn about our branding packages.