If you want to brand yourself, your company or your offering you must have clarity on what your brand represents.

Learn 3 SIMPLE STEPS to help you gain that clarity and turn your frustrated attempts into a solid design that will represent your brand successfully.

When you’re starting out, there’s a lot to do.

•What will my name be?

•Is the domain available?

•Where do I register it?

•What type of company should it be?

•Should I get hosting for three years or one?

 

 

The key to leveraging emotions is to identify your brand promise + personality, along with the features and benefits of the products and/or services you offer.

 

Then determine how these features and benefits relate to your client’s Emotions. Don’t make unrealistic promises!  (you may not become the heavy weight champ)

•How do I want  my ideal customer to feel when they’re about to purchase my product or service?

Thinking about all of these things will help you to identify which EMOTION or DESIRE your brand will represent. Although we think that decision-making about brands depends strongly on functional benefits, it all comes down to one question:

HOW WILL THIS MAKE ME FEEL?

Once you identify the emotion or desire VS. THE STATS that your brand will represent, this will inform all other decisions

Decisions like:

• Coming up with a name for your company or offering.

• Where to start experimenting with colors and fonts.

• What type of photography you should look for.

• What type of design you want to create for your site.

• What your clients should feel when they visit your site.

THESE DECISIONS AND MANY MORE WILL BE MADE EASIER ALL BECAUSE YOU HAVE CLARITY AND CLARITY GIVES YOU DIRECTION!

step two.

DO YOUR RESEARCH

Research is about engaging in a conversation with a brand. Matthew Rhodes

One of the most important things I do when I’m preparing to brand a company, offering or person is RESEARCH.

In this day and age and for this task, I can safely say: GOOGLE WILL BE YOUR BEST FRIEND, USE IT!

DON’T BE JELLY we will help you create the look that’s best for your brand and targeted audience. Start looking for companies/people that do the same thing you do. What are they doing with their brands? What do you like about what they’re doing?

What do you think you could do better?

IT’S IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT THIS TYPE OF RESEARCH DOESN’T MEAN THAT YOU’RE COPYING ANYONE.

Copying is NOT something you want to do, and reinventing the wheel isn’t necessary either. It’s good to seewhat’s out there. Think about whathas been done already so you can do your own take on it, improve upon what’s been done or change it and adapt it to what you’re doing.

It’s always a good idea to be informed and not lock yourself up in a bubble. Chances are, you’ll end up creating something very similar to what’s out there anyway.

When you deliberately make the choice to have a look, you’re looking with a different eye.

You’re looking at what’s been done, how it can relate to what you’re doing and how you can improve upon it for your own offer.

step three.

CREATE A MOOD BOARD

The mood board is intentionally casual; it lets the designer start with broad strokes and get feedback before too much time is invested in the wrong direction. WebdesignerDepot

A mood board is a great way to start to visualize your brand. I usually make my mood boards in illustrator but a great place for mood boards is obviously, Pinterest. This is a private board I’ve created with some of the imagery I’ve saved that’s in line with how I see my brand.

In your mood board, you can also include logos that you think evoke the same emotions you’d like for your brand.

REMEMBER, THIS IS ALL ABOUT EMOTION! AND DESIGNING YOUR EMOTION.

Grab swatches of colors put fonts in there that you enjoy and imagery that calls out to you and evokes your EMOTION.

Remember that not all of the imagery, colors, fonts, etc. that you like are going to be in line with your EMOTION and your brand. Make sure you’re only putting in things that are inline not only with what you are attracted to but align with your brand and represent that EMOTION you’re trying to portray.

This process is how you begin to DESIGN!

Once you’ve gotten your mood board to a place that feels good, you can keep going back to it for inspiration.

Now go through each step and think carefully about your BRAND. Spend time thinking about these steps as defining your brand in these initial stages will make it much easier to design it later on.

NOW WHAT…you have the insights on what is involved in the creative, research and development process of branding. Hopefully this was of benefit to allow you to perceive the benefit of hiring a professional which ultimately will  save you time and money!   And or you have a great foundation to design your own brand.

PS. Please check us out for references.