Brand Identity Tips

New Brand Logo

You’ve got your company name. Now you need a pretty logo. Make me one! – STOP, draw breath and think carefully before proceeding. The reason is that you want your brand identity to endure and work in all kinds of different applications. 

Before diving into the logo itself, you have a good idea of your brand values. That defines what the brand stands for, who it is targeting and market aspirations. We can help with this process, which may sound quite involved. However, it will be the foundation stones for your business and brand. 

Define your Brand

Once you have defined your brand, a process that should be part of a more extensive business planning exercise, it’s time to think about the look and appearance you wish to develop.

As much as thinking about what you want it to look like, you’ll also need to consider what you don’t want it to be. Again, be careful to review the competition, as you won’t want to create brand confusion with a similar design and colour scheme as your competitors. 

You can start to think about ideas of fonts, colours, and icons that you may wish to see developed at this stage. Don’t worry too much if you are unsure as us, or your designer can make suggestions. It is helpful to provide any ideas or similar examples that you like.

Ideally, when evaluating potential designs, you will have a few to choose between. It’s tempting to jump straight in with what you emotionally like and dislike. Whilst this is part of the process, you need to think strategically. 

Evaluate a Logo

Some things to consider as part of your evaluation:

1)         Does it encapsulate what our brand is? Whilst it won’t do the whole job, it needs to have some logical connection; otherwise, you may as well use something generic

2)         Is it timeless, i.e., will it still be relevant and not outdated in a decade? 

3)         Can it be used in many different applications? E.g., on the side of vehicles, on a website, social media, leaflets etc. 

Once you’ve seen initial designs, you can provide detailed feedback on changes you’d like to see. If you hate them all, you need to articulate why you don’t want them and what you would like to see instead.  

Your New Brand Identity

Having agreed on a final logo design the next stage is to create some brand guidelines, which your designer or we can do. The guidelines will explain how the logos should be used and not used, plus detail the colour scheme, fonts etc. Also, ensure you have all the digital logo files in PNG, EPS and JPG files, with different versions and transparent ones as appropriate. This process will make it easy to commission any branded item from either a supplier or in-house. 

About

Based in Loch Lomond, Paul Saunders Marketing works with clients throughout Scotland, providing marketing consultancy and creative digital media for businesses, charities and organisations of all sizes.

Services include marketing, commercial photography, brand design, website design, video production and social media, events & PR. Call Paul on 01360 661029 or get in touch via the contact page to find out more.

I hope you have found this Brand Identity Tips article helpful, If we can help in any way please get in touch.