Here’s why branding is more than just your small business logo
Many small business owners think a logo is the only branding component they need; however, it’s actually a bit more complex.
If I was given a cookie every time a new small business owner thought a logo was the complete branding of their business, then I would need a bigger cookie jar. Figuring out your small business’s branding can be outright exhausting. You can spend hours on the internet looking at inspiration, create multiple mood boards, and read a zillion resources about DIY branding only to emerge even more confused.
As a small business owner, it is important to properly understand the relationship between your branding and your logo so you can make informed decisions throughout the branding process.
So what is the connection between your small business’s logo and branding?
Your logo is the visual representation of your business. It acts as the ‘face’ of your brand and can be in the form of a graphic, symbol, wordmark, monogram, emblem, or mascot. Due to the importance of your logo, it is necessary that you carefully consider its longevity and appropriateness for your industry and target market. For example, if you were a mechanic who specialises in vintage vehicles and your target market was primarily male, over 60s, and interested in collectable cars, you would not design a logo with a beautiful script font, bright pink, or cartoon ponies.
Branding is a word which is thrown around like confetti and is often confused with brand and brand identity. Each of these terms are interconnected and important for your small business, so let’s break them down from a design perspective so we are all on the same page.
Branding is the process of creating and maintaining your small business’s identity. Branding consists of the actions you undertake to cultivate your brand’s visual identity and contributes to your small business being recognised and remembered by your target market. Each branding design element – such as colour, font, word choice, and imagery – influences how your target market perceives your business, hence why it is so important that you finalise your branding prior to launching the marketing for your small business.
Once your small business is launched, your brand is the meaning your customers associate with your small business and its products or services. This meaning may consist of emotions, expectations, or reactions towards your brand when they recognise your small business and its associated products and services.
Finally, brand identity is anything your customers use to identify your brand – including your logo, other branding elements, and/or business name. A bit like how you identify your favourite barista at your local café – their smile, hairstyle, name, and signature greeting.
It is worth investing in your small business’s branding at the start as it assists with customer recognition, builds credibility, cultivates confidence, and fosters customer loyalty. Finalising your branding prior to launching your small business also ensures consistency in your marketing decisions, which further promotes your small business’s professionalism.
For example, consider the evolution of Pepsi’s font choices. Initially, their logo featured script fonts and the original name (Pepsi-Cola). Pepsi majorly refreshed their logo in 1962 by embracing a bold, sans serif font. Since then, Pepsi created their own on-trend sans serif font (1987) and incorporated timely design elements to represent the modern and energetic vibe associated with the brand. Pepsi have continued to evolve their logo design elements throughout the decades, but their font choices always preserve the dynamic feel of the brand.
To help demystify your small business branding, let’s take a look at the essential branding design elements you need to kickstart your small business’s branding.
COLOUR
The power of colour should not be underestimated when establishing your small business’s branding. When selecting the primary colours (1-3) for your small business’s branding, you need to consider how the colours will influence how customers feel about – and react to – your small business. For example, fast food companies use red and yellow to evoke hunger, while plant-based brands often feature green to promote an eco-friendly vibe. You can further influence customers’ feelings towards your small business by adjusting the tone of the colour, such as how vibrant colours evoke excitement and are used to promote products to teenagers and adults, while pale colours are seen as gentle and soothing hence used for baby products.
Additionally, your secondary colours (1-4) should support the primary colours and offer extra design options for marketing materials, such as seasonal advertisements, social media posts, and EDMs. One brand which uses secondary colours well is Wintec Saddles, with each secondary colour being assigned to a specific discipline or seasonal advertisement. The secondary colours complement the brand’s primary colours (yellow and blue) and assist customers to differentiate between advertisements.
Finally, remember the importance of contrast when choosing your branding colours! High contrast is when your colours are noticeably different hence it is easier to read text or identify objects, while low contrast is when it becomes more difficult to distinguish different design components. For example, red text on an orange background is more difficult to read than yellow text on a blue background. You must also remember that design needs to be accessible for people who are vision-impaired or colour blind, so choose your colours wisely.
FONT
The right font’s ability to elevate your branding cannot be underestimated. When exploring font options, you need to ponder what feelings your preferred fonts incite and whether they align with your overall branding vision. Keep in mind that fonts can age quicker than a banana in a kid’s schoolbag, so consider whether you want the fonts in your branding to be timeless or trendy. If you settle on trendy, be aware you may need to refresh your logo sooner than later.
Other major considerations when choosing a font are legibility and readability. Legibility refers to whether your target market will be able to distinguish each of the font glyphs when viewing your logo or marketing materials. Readability relates to how you arrange your font’s glyphs, such as size, case, spacing, colour, and length. Without legibility and readability, you risk your chosen font sabotaging your small business’s marketing.
Remember, your font choice needs to be appropriate for your small business’s industry and products. For example, industries which value tradition and trust tend to favour serif fonts in their branding – such as insurance, news, and law firms – while industries which aim for a modern, approachable look – such as social media, marketing, and fast fashion – prefer sans serif fonts.
Please avoid fonts that were popular during the 1990s/2000s era due to their availability on older computers. You know which ones I’m talking about.
WORD CHOICE
Word choice is especially important if your small business is stylising or spelling a word a certain way to attract attention or promote memorability. For example, consider how Apple have styled iPhone, iMac, and MacBook. Or how IKEA is styled in all capitals, while airbnb’s logo is in lower case.
When designing your small business’s logo and deciding on other branding elements, such as font, consider how your small business’s name will look in different cases in that particular font and what emotions are conveyed to customers through your word choices. If your internal grammar nerd is screaming at the thought of all lower or upper case letters, then it is, of course, acceptable to stick to traditional sentence case.
IMAGERY
Have you ever experienced Insta-grid envy? You know those business profiles which feature on-brand imagery which evokes a certain mood and encourages customers to embrace that aesthetic by purchasing their products?
Your small business’s choice of imagery speaks volumes about your brand and can make the difference between customers choosing your products over your competitors. You need to think carefully about how you want to represent your small business through the use of imagery and decide on your image tones, angles, focus, and studio/outdoor setting during the early branding stages. Will you commission custom imagery, DIY your images, or rely on stock images to promote your small business?
The quality of your brand imagery contributes to your small business’s branding as high-quality imagery indicates professionalism and increases customer confidence that your products are as fabulous as you know they are. In comparison, if consumers see a product advertised online with low-resolution imagery, poor lighting, bad composition, or an unprofessional background they are likely to think it is an inferior item or even a knock-off of the real deal. It is important you invest in high-quality imagery to build better brand association from the onset as low quality or unsuitable imagery can diminish your brand association and impact sales. It is also important to remember that if you feature any people in your brand imagery that their demeanour should complement the vibe of your products. For example, if you are promoting party products then you want the people featured in the images to look joyful – like they’re having the time of their lives!
All of these decisions contribute to your branding, so it is best to figure out which imagery style you want to embrace to ensure consistency prior to designing any marketing materials.
Just remember: Branding includes your logo as the representative of your small business, but your logo alone can’t be the only bit of branding you do as multiple design elements are required to create a professional-looking logo.
Now that we have discussed the decisions you will need to make to successfully brand your small business, I have some good news: You are not alone in your small business branding journey.
I help small business owners like yourself create your small business’s irresistible branding. Together, we will uncover your ultimate branding vision. Once the branding nitty-gritty has been decided, I will create an easy-to-follow brand style guide to ensure consistency throughout your small business’s marketing and design an awesome logo to be the face of your brand.
Sound great? Get in touch today to boost your small business’s branding.
Need a brand refresh? Great, let’s chat about how to lift your small business’s branding to level 2021.