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How to Create Great Branding in 13 Short Steps

Branding is everything. It’s your first point of contact with all potential clients or customers. It’s your shop window.

If branding is everything, you should do everything you can to get it right. Luckily, we’ve broken down “everything” into 13 easy-to-follow steps towards establishing great branding for your business.

These steps are accompanied by visual examples of how we followed the same process as an agency, with great success.

Those steps are as follows…

What Makes a Good Logo?

Step #1: Be conceptual not literal

Your logo doesn’t have to look exactly like what you do. Be creative and think outside the box for your design.

Step #2: Be creative with how you use space

Using space differently can change the look and feel of your logo. Mix things up and the results may surprise you.

Step #3: Use background for contrast

Create a stronger brand presence by incorporating a different colour background to add contrast to your logo.

Step #4: Let your logo breathe

When using your logo inside a frame, create negative space to stop things feeling cramped.

Choosing Your Colour

Step #5: Establish brand identity

Brand colours are a reflection of your brand’s identity. Identify your personality and consider it throughout the following steps…

Step #6: Explore colour meanings

Choose colour that reflects your values. It’s worth looking into some colour psychology principles for common colour meanings.

Step #7: Search for inspiration

Browse your competitor’s colour choices, and try to understand why they work well – or why they don’t! Think of ways you can differentiate your brand from the competition.

Step #8: Pick primary colour

Pick a single colour to represent your business. Pick something that completely embodies everything your brand is about.

Step #9: Stick to your colours

Once you’ve chosen your brand colours, try not to deviate from them. Utilise your chosen colour palette across all content and promotional material. Set Brand Guidelines can help with this.

Choosing a Great Typeface

Step #10: Use families

Every great typeface has a family. Rather than having different fonts for headings and subheadings, find one font that has different weights. This allows you to create smooth layouts of matching copy.

Step #11: Use grids

Great type designers use grids to align all of their work effectively. It allows your design to be more aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Step #12: Use space

Don’t have your type touch the edges of your design. Think about readability and your design as a whole.

Step #13: Skip a weight

Great type should be easy to read but also playful. Experiment with weights to give your type hierarchy. It looks and reads great.

 

If you follow all of the above steps, you should come out the other end with branding that represents your product or service in a dynamic, unforgettable way.

Should you need assistance with this, check out our Creative services, led by branding experts who know what works.

This post is part of a series of shorter pieces we’re posting over on our Twitter, providing you with actionable tips and advice for your brand or business. Keep an eye out for more coming soon…