A beginner’s guide to create a brand identity.
Experience unveiled from my first project.
What is the first thought that pops up in your mind when you think of the word Brand Identity? In most of the cases, it is assumed to be focusing on visuals, more likely on a logo. For your information, it’s partially correct. Yes, you read it right. That’s what I learned when I completed my first project of creating and designing a brand identity (for a sneaker manufacturing brand called Stride).
Creating a brand identity is far more than just designing the appealing visual lookout of the brand. It involves extensive amount of research considering different parameters. Generally, people get confused with the use of 2 words - brand identity and branding. Both words are tend to be perceived the same but have slight differences in their meanings.
The word brand identity focuses on the visual aspects that represents the brand to its audience and portray it’s right image in front of the customers, on the other hand, branding stands for the internal research which supports the building of brand identity. Branding involves market study, analysis of the target audience, etc. which helps in shaping a distinct position of the brand in front of it’s targeted customers. Overall, it focuses on the marketing and sales perspective of a brand. In the same scenario, brand identity helps in establishing a look and feel of the brand which eventually leads to attracting it’s customers and getting them connected emotionally towards the brand.
Consider the word branding to be the manufacturer of the product (where product is the brand), while brand identity being the sales person of it.
Brand Identity is more like creating a experience of a brand for its customers. It is like showcasing the ethos or culture of the brand in the form of visual design. This is being done by big brands like Nike and Adidas. Nike has successfully cracked the formula of increasing their sales by increasing engagement in wonderful experiences which the target audience is most profoundly looking out for.
In my case, Stride was a fictional brand and had to be developed from scratch. In other cases, you might have some foundations built upon where you have to either make some iterations or redesign the brand. May it be anything, this article will help a beginner in every step of the process which is to be followed to create a brand identity that captivates audiences’ attention.
Create a brand identity of a brand as how a hero or villain is showcased in a movie, inside out.
How to start building a brand identity?
The answer is simple - getting started with a fundamental thing called Research. Start by forming (in my case) or getting to know the qualities or the key foundations on which the brand is built upon or has its core values attached to. This step is necessary because it will help you to understand how the brand should be shown up to the audience as well as how the values will play an important role in paving the path for the creation of brand identity. I had to come up with an idea of the brand with it’s naming as well, the fixated name, Stride, took me approx. half a day to get decided. It was chosen by clearing number of checks so that it’ll create a significant amount of impact on the audience.
Here, I’ll state some points through which you can get your thoughts cleared over the foundations. This research process will help you in drafting a suitable vibe or feel of the brand.
1. Target Audience
Identify your target audience at the initial stage of brand building. Through this, we get to know the niche or the differentiated part of the market which is to be considered while designing the brand identity. If the brand identity is made such that the thoughts of target audience get connected to your ethos and the experience created, the customer base is set to rise and in-turn will increase the loyalty towards the brand.
For Stride, a sneakers brand, it was acknowledged the youth and the Gen-Z segment to be the primary focus group to be catered.
2. USP (Unique Selling Point)
This isn’t necessarily required to be one. Your brand can have multiple USPs. USPs are those key elements which differentiate the brand from your competitors. Get to know the requirements or the demands of the Target Audience or the market which are not being answered in the current situation leading you to create your significant presence.
Stride had 3 major USPs which were lacking in the industry - Affordability, Sustainability and Advanced Technology used while manufacturing.
3. Vision or Goal of the brand
Set one or understand the goal of the brand from it’s depth. This thing will be the most prominent factor which is going to create a series of disruptions in the industry cracking the customer attracting formula for you. If the goal or the vision of the brand is clear, it can be showcased through branding in a enticing way to grab users. Your vision will tell the users what your brand is ought to do or the reason for which the brand has come up in the industry or the changes it wants to implement eliminating the requirements.
‘Own your Move’ - respect the gait which you have and follow it confidently was the vision for Stride to be followed by it’s customers.
4. Competitor Analysis
Study the existing brands fostering the increasing market demand. Analyze what they lack in providing the customers and find a way through which you can overcome this and make your brand a significant player bridging the market gap. Competitor Analysis will give you a clear idea of areas or fields which you need to either eliminate thinking upon or focus. Note down the unsatisfied demands and cater them.
In my case, I analyzed a lot of big players in the sneaker manufacturing industry like Nike, Adidas, Puma, etc.
5. Brand Statement
A catchy tagline or a slogan associated with the brand. This is the primary mode for the users to understand the foundations of your brand and the cause it is solving. A tagline should not be a long one which turns down the user. It should be short and crisp to make it rememberable for the users. For example, the brand tagline of Adidas was “Impossible is Nothing”.
The brand statement for Stride being “Be Your Own”. This clearly states the audience to follow their unique gait which they carry elegantly in their own way.
6. Vibe or Personality of the Brand
This will help connect the customers with your brand emotionally. A particular personality set by the brand tends to keep the customers loyal while convincingly following and engaging in the experiences created.
What’s Ahead?
These fields or areas of research are important to get clarified and help you to know the approach on how you want to present your brand in front of the audience. The extracts or insights gathered from this data is inevitable to be presented while designing the brand identity and are those various forms of content which people should see when they open your brand.
While conducting research for Stride, I had no clue as how a sneaker industry works (myself not being a sneakerhead). It took a lot of time (approximately 3 to 4 months) to research upon this topic and understand how the market is progressing. During the instances related to rebranding, you generally have this raw data prepared which helps you go quickly (in a short time) towards the final phase of creating a brand identity - Visual Design. Below are some visual aspects which are important to cover.
1. Logo Design
Now that you have your research completed and the content to be incorporated prepared, it’s time to go ahead and start with designing part involving creation and fixation of visual components like Logo, Color Palette, Typography, etc.
Logo is like the nose and eyes of a person upon which the brand is initially judged upon.
Design a logo with extreme care and importance while keeping the insights from the research in mind. Logo is that aspect of branding which is remembered most by the customers. Create a logo resonating with the users to make it memorable in-turn increasing the sales.
Logo does not always necessarily be a funky one or complicated. A logo can always be simple.
2. Color Palette
Keep in mind the point of Brand Personality while selecting the colors. Colors create an enriching experience of the brand attaching the users emotionally. This imbibement has helped a number of brands to achieve success in their sales.
Selecting colors can be a time taking task where you might not consider them to be finalized. I’ll say to keep exploring while implementing a number of permutations and combinations. At a time you’ll feel stuck, in such cases, take that color combination which is best among the other and go ahead with it. In some software, you can create styles and change them later so that the whole brand deck gets accustomed to the newly changed color palette.
Pick at least 2 colors for a brand and do not try to increase them more than 4 for almost every case. This is because more colors cause more confusion in deciding their use cases.
For Stride, I used Black and White as primary colors. The reason being, black depicting boldness of every unique gait and white portraying sustainable and eco friendly manufacturing.
3. Typography
Fonts play a vital role in shaping the approach of the users. Fonts must be wisely chosen which suits the styling and vibe of the brand. Fonts generally convey the functioning aspect of the brand and become a conductor through which the brand’s ethos are communicated with users in a sensible manner so that they understand it.
Similar to the color palette, keep the number of fonts to 2 or 3. The font weight also matters at the same time, set them according to their hierarchy. Understand the anatomy followed and create a Typographical System helping to maintain the consistency when used in styling and printing purposes.
Most common typeface families include Serif and Sans-Serif. There are more available but these 2 families are most used considering their legibility.
Montserrat and Gotham were chosen, both belonging to the Sans-Serif typeface family acknowledging the brand being a sneaker manufacturer (informal) and youth as the target audience.
4. Imageries and Mockups
Images are an another important aspect of visual perceptions. Images are mostly used when posting on social media or in a website being able to market for the brand. Good quality images increase the credibility of your brand making it look more specialized.
If you have your brand product or services established, it’s best to use images of actual product use cases or scenarios when creating the brand identity. In case it doesn’t have any, there are good stock image sites like Unsplash, Freepik, etc.
In some cases like startup (or in my case of a fictional brand), you might not have those real products or services, try making mockups over here. There are multiple mockup assets providing sites which help you in creating the exact replica of your product in fictional terms.
These were the mood board images and the mockup I created to be used in the identity creation.
5. Website
A website is more like a experience than a website. Your website sells your brand service or product.
Website is the most accessible tool for the users to get to know about your brand. When a user opens your website, he/she is not your customer, but when you engage the user with the experience created on a website, they are tend to get attracted.
All of the components stated above are comprised together in a website to create a collaboration which in turn leads to crafting enriching experiences which help in involving the user to surf smoothly.
6. Mascots, Illustrations and more.
If you are planning to design a mascot, it’ll surely help you in marketing purposes. The same applies for illustrations. Try to maintain consistent styling across all the forms and create a system to be implemented.
Designing other marketing elements like Social Media Covers, Templates, Leaflets, Cards, etc. shall also be done by including the above given elements.
One of the great examples I really liked which portrays the immense importance of mascots in creating a brand identity is Dunzo.
Conclusion
Creating a brand identity requires patience, not only in terms of time-taking but also in remaining calm throughout the process. It is a journey of empathizing, understanding and implementing.
It takes time to build a brand identity while inputting a lot of efforts to create one. Users might require time to trust upon your brand. You need to take a number of approvals and opinions in each step of progress from seniors to get it granted. In continuation, you might need to rework on it and go through some redoes. Be prepared for it and understand the perspective of the other person. Try to make them understand the insights and results, but take their thoughts into consideration as well. At some times, it might get boring, but try to get inspired by other great works.
Good luck on your next sail on this voyage. Hope you found this guide just the way a captain is to the ship.
