Brand Identity: What it is & Tips for Developing a Great One

Your brand is just like your personality: it’s what makes you unique and sets you apart from the rest of the pack. But often, for many businesses, this can be easier said than done. That’s why understanding precisely what brand identity is and developing an action plan is key to your success.

As a top brand identity agency in Toronto, Ravyn Design has helped many create lasting brands that truly resonate with consumers, and here we’ve collected some insight into how we do that!

What Exactly is Brand Identity?

Although it’s a frequent term used among businesses and digital marketers, it isn’t always easy to understand precisely what the term “brand identity” actually means.

In the simplest terms, brand identity is a collection of different things that help you portray your ideal image to consumers. Although often used interchangeably, the term brand identity is distinctly different from “branding” and “brand image.” The former refers to the actual marketing of a particular brand whereas the latter is the perception of a particular company among consumers.

Your brand identity is what directly communicates with your audience and makes you stand out to consumers, forging a connection between your products and services and the vision you’re trying to foster as a company.

Creating a Strong Brand Identity

There are many different factors to creating a strong brand identity, one of the foremost being knowing who you are as a brand. When developing a clear idea of what you want your brand to look like and creating a successful branding strategy, ask yourself:

• How would your brand communicate with others if it was a person rather than a company? What type of personality do you think it would have? Take our brand personality test to find out.
  

• What are your unique selling points and how do you intend to differentiate yourself from the competition?
  

• Do you have any particular values or core beliefs that are a driving force behind your company?
  

• What is the overall mission of your brand?
  

All of these components help define your brand identity and it’s important to have a clear answer to each of the questions above. For those struggling to find the right answers, consider why you chose to start your company in the first place and what you believe makes it so special.

Creating a Strong Foundation through Brand Design

To develop a strong brand identity, the design will be one of the most important factors. Design elements help catch the attention of your audience and determine how it’s perceived by consumers. This will include key elements such as social media graphics, logos, product packaging, your website design, and even the uniforms your staff wears if you own a retail establishment.

Key Components in Developing a Unique Brand Design

Piggybacking off of some of the things mentioned above, you’ll need to start from scratch and create a strong foundation for your brand identity. Some of the most important building blocks at this point will include:

Choosing a Color Palette

Believe it or not, choosing the right colors is one of the best ways to truly resonate with an audience and has a lot to do with the psychology of the audience you’re trying to capture. For example, brighter and more forceful colors like red, orange, and yellow can portray a feeling of youthfulness, excitement, and friendliness. Colors such as green and blue can elicit feelings of nature, and black the idea of luxury and sleekness.

Picking the Right Typography

The font type or typography your choose for your brand can portray a variety of messages, everything from professionalism to modernism, depending on what type of audience you’re trying to attract. There are four major varieties of commonly-used typography including:

1. Script: This brings to mind cursive writing and can provide a more feminine or sleek feel to your brand.

2. Serif Fonts: More classic fonts, such as serif fonts, have anchors or little feet (serifs) on each letter and can give a more professional look. However, they are becoming slightly passé.

3. Sans Serif Fonts: As the name implies, these are fonts without serifs that provide a much more modern look to brands.

4. Display Fonts: These types of fonts stand apart from the ones mentioned above in the sense that they have more unique design features such as shadowing, bolding, and in many cases are even hand-drawn to be more customized.

Shape & Form

Shape and form also play an important role in developing your brand design, especially when it comes to your logo. Round shapes will elicit a more relaxing feeling that could represent anything from unity to love. Straight lines imply strength while horizontal lines offer a sense of tranquility. Geometric or straight-edged shapes and forms are often most associated with trustworthiness and stability. However, it’s important to always create a balance between more geometric or rigid forms.

Creating Your Brand Identity

After taking all of the above into careful consideration, you can use these points to finally create the vision you have for your brand through logo design, web design, and other things. Big-ticket components of developing your brand identity also include creating business cards and curating emails for current or potential customers. At this step, it’s always important to keep a consistent quality and message across all platforms.

Developing a Style Guide for Your Brand

Last, but certainly not least, if you’re working with a brand identity agency or an in-house design team, you’ll need a branding style guide that will reflect all of the things mentioned above to give your web developers, design team, social media managers, and copywriters a clear idea of what to work toward.

Contact our Toronto brand identity agency today!

At Ravyn Design, we’re committed to developing premium brands that help businesses attract the right audience and thrive! Contact us online to schedule a 15-minute discovery meeting or email hello@rayvn.io.