Your Brand is More Than Your Logo

When doing a little research for this blog, I came across a cartoon on the differences between marketing, advertising, and branding.

The marketing person said, “I have great products!”

The advertising person said, “I have great products! I have great products! I have great products!”

However, with the branding person, another person appeared and said “I hear you have great products.”

Building a BRAND, is so much more than a logo.

A brand is a person’s gut instinct when it comes to looking at your product, service, or organization.

What are you trying to convey to people when they look at your brand? It won’t just be represented in your logo, but in your entire essence online. This stems from the copy on your website, photos you choose, fonts, colors, etc. This also carries over to your social media branding.

You can’t be one way on social media and not the same on your website, in your print marketing material, promotional products, videos and so on.

So while branding includes your logo, your brand is so much more than that.

Branding gives your business a personality!

Aside from your logo, your brand should include the following elements:

• Color Palette

Color plays such an important psychological factor in representing your brand to customers. Three to five brand colors are enough to work with, too many may cause confusion as make your brand unrecognizable. Using specific colors can create brand association and leave a lasting impression for your customers and potential customers. You’ll also want to be sure your colors match your product, service, or organization. For example, you’ll never come across a hardware store using pink in their brand colors. 😉

• Fonts

Just like colors, fonts have a personality of their own. Trying to demonstrate authority and trustworthiness? Then you won’t be using script and handwritten fonts. And on the other hand, if you are trying to convey a fun, vibrant brand you’ll want those those fun types of fonts. Choose wisely at what matches your branding AKA your brand’s personality, and stick with it! One decorative font and one clean font for copywriting will help you save time on deciding what font to use where.

• Photography/Images

You’ll also want to stay consistent in the types of images you use. If your brand is about the outdoors, then you’ll need mainly outdoor photos or photos of outdoor/cabin/camping looking equipment. Try to use the same type of overlays, layouts, and filters when posting to social media as well. Keeping a consistent look and feel to your images will help people recognize your brand even without the additions of your color palette or fonts.

• Patterns

A few select patterns you and your designer decide on can give even more of a recognizable branded look. This finishing touch can bring everything together and keep branding cohesive across the board.

• Icons

Most websites and marketing material include the use of icons. Whether you decide to keep it simple with line icons or embed gold overlaid glam icons, be sure the icons match your brand’s aesthetic. The use of specific icons can really reinforce your brand’s personality, so do not neglect the use of these illustrations in your branding and marketing.

And there you have it, five branding elements that prove your brand is more than just your logo. While the logo is such an important and memorable piece to your brand, customers and the public in general will also associate these design queues to your brand as well.

Need more convincing that your brand is more than just your logo? Check out my services page for branding packages and let me know what you think in the comments below!