6 tips for consistent branding
Why is brand and design consistency is important?
Branding is one of the first and lasting impressions your business make to new and existing customers. It often takes a number of impressions for people to remember your brand. If your brand is meant to be the platform that helps you connect with your audience, that’s a lot of times to make a positive interaction with an individual.
There is so much visual information online and the standards and expectations for good design are high. Using visual communications inconsistently makes it harder for others to recognise and understand your brand. Doing so can even make you appear less trustworthy or transparent – creating barriers to people engaging with your organisation. Consistently portraying your brand, product or organisation will help you create memorable content, projects and experiences that build trust with your audience and make a lasting impression.
Here are some areas to explore and take into consideration when designing your website, marketing materials, processes, social media assets, and anything else your audience sees...
1. Use your logo consistently
The most valuable asset of your brand identity
Your logo is the most important recognisable feature of your brand and should be treated with care and consistently on all communications. Things like using the wrong colours for a logo can completely change the viewer’s perception of your brand and further confuse your audience.
It is important that a logo is flexible enough to be displayed in different sizes and formats, so when designing a logo consider that it must be legible and recognisable when used on anything from a 2 metre printed banner to a 20px square image online. A squashed or stretched logo is very noticeable and off-putting.
Whatever the size of logo, the proportions should always remain consistent – it’s ok to have a favicon or simplified version of your logo for social media profiles or website icons, just make sure you always use it in the same way and have a criteria for when a simplified version of your logo is used.
2. Keep your brand’s tone and personality clear
How you behave and talk forms your brand personality
When communicating your brand (on or offline) via your website or on different social media profiles and channels, it’s important to be consistent in your tone and personality. If your brand is fun and friendly, it should have a similar tone on Facebook and in your emails or printed materials.
It can be helpful to create a character or persona for your tone or personality - how would you want your brand to be seen if it was a person? Then you can imagine speaking through that persona when creating content and in all communications. In the same way that there are dimensions to your own personality (home/work/rest life) your brand personality should have depth and clarity. Your messaging may be a bit more professional at times, but it shouldn’t sound like it’s coming from a different ‘person’ altogether.
You can even explore what communications channels your character and audiences would or would not use … have a think through what personality and tone you want to build and show and make it consistent.
3. Uniform typography
Your most common form of communication.
Crafting the way that text is displayed or formatted is almost as important as the words themselves and can make a difference to how your message is perceived… just think about the last time someone sent a message with caps lock on unintentionally! You can use this to build hierarchy with typography. Think about tone when formatting – have set case styles for different modes of communicating. Information like urls and dates stand out more in all caps and feels directive, where as lowercase type can be warm and personal.
Always use the same set of fonts for your marketing materials, using a limited amount of font sizes and weights. If your company branding uses a purchased/personalised font, make sure it is installed on each computer or device where it will be use. Whenever your font cannot be displayed (emails are the most prominent example), always use the same system font to replace it. Choosing a font compatible for PC and OS is essential, as is with ensuring it can be used online and in print. Pick a Google Font to ensure you can use online versions of the font.
4. Use a standardised colour palette
The most distinctive way to differentiate your brand identity
Colour improves brand recognition by up to 80% and can be a very powerful element to differentiate your brand identity and can make you immediately recognisable amongst other brands or whilst your audience is scrolling through their social media streams.
Consistently using one colour palette on your logo, resources, digital content, and promotional material can increase brand recognition by as much as 80% [Forbes]. Distinctive colour ownership can only be achieved through meticulous consistency.
5. Branded image stylings
Photography that reflects your values and vision.
•With an increasing number of charities, churches, businesses and organisations using the same media, you need to create a distinctive visual tone that makes your brand recognisable and conveys your vision and values. It is important that your images look as if they belong to the same family. Aspects like the overall theme, the type of shot (i.e. front view, detail macro, aerial shots, etc.) and colour tones that harmonise with your brand’s colour palette are all important to create the idea of consistency. You could consider using a standardised filter to add that extra amount of differentiation and you can utilise filter tools on instagram and other social media platforms to help.
Audiences have woken up to the over-used clichés of stock imagery libraries. Whilst there are many good quality free stock image sites out there, there is nothing more compelling than commissioning photography and documenting the life of your organisation and it’s activities. When taking, commissioning or sourcing photography, consider the appropriate framing or cropping for its intended use. Allow additional space which can later be used for text and messaging. You may find it helpful to apply the rule of thirds to your subject or image composition which gives consistency to layouts.
Here are a few suggested and contemporary websites for those occasions when you don’t have suitable imagery and are looking for that all important supporting image:
pexels.com
stock.adobe.com
freelyphotos.com
unsplash.com
join.deathtothestockphoto.com
picjumbo.com
thepatternlibrary.com
getrefe.tumblr.com
jaymantri.com
publicdomainarchive.com
6. Brand guidelines and champions
Singing from the same song sheet
When defining all the above, compile them in a document that is easy to access and understand. Brand guidelines should convey the style and tone of your organisation and clearly describe how to use your brand identity. Branded document templates help guide the process of creating new materials. Letterhead or presentation examples will help everyone be consistent. Guides particularly help when materials aren’t created in-house and enable you to give direction to those outside of your organisation.
Empower brand guardians. A brand guardian is someone who is fully aware of what the brand stands for and its style. Find those in your organisation and ask them to champion the brand and check if it is being applied correctly.