Branding Basics: For Any New Online Endeavour – Part 2

This is the second part of a two part series on branding basics. This series explores the concept of branding for your new website, business, and you. The first part is here, but also be sure to Subscribe to the RSS feed and be the first to get more tutorials and tips for DIY entrepreneurs.

Picking Your Values

You values are the backbone of everything you do.

If you haven’t worked out what your values are, you really need to do this as soon as possible. Everything will happen from here.

I suggest writing down 5 values that you think should really matter to yourself, your company, or your blog.

Your values should describe what you believe in and how you do it. It defines the approach you or your business takes to your customers, partners and suppliers. But mostly, it’s a public record of who you are.

A lot of companies condense this into a set of core values, or even just one mantra. Google, for example, chose to exemplify this by using the mantra “Don’t be evil.” It’s public, and it’s held them accountable and kept their course true over the years. I’m sure the founders of Google have looked to it many times.

Values matter to branding because they help shape the imagery, colours, and other elements that make up the brand. They become the reason for the brand, and they should show via the elements you choose to represent you.

A good brand is able to link their brand choices back to the values they believe in.

Initial Elements of Branding To Focus On

Once you have chosen your values, here are just a few elements I think make a good starting point for any new startup to focus on. Get these locked in and you’re definitely on the right track to creating a strong brand.

Logo

Your logo is a defining piece of your branding puzzle. It is your first line of representation, and the single most viewed object in your branding arsenal.

As such, it’s important to devote some time to lovingly creating it. It should stand out, be sharp, easy to read and simple.

You don’t see too many successful companies that have complex, hard to read logo designs. It makes for bad reproducibility and if people can’t read it straight away, they’ll skip you entirely.

Your logo is a reflection of your values and what you stand for. Make sure you choose a design that reflects this.

Colour Palette

The colours you choose for your overall colour scheme should be reflected in every part of your brand in some way.

They need to once again be complementary to your branding values and help reinforce what you stand for.

Think about what colours might be appealing to your audience. Do some research on what subtle meanings your chosen colours have and make sure they match your message.

Typeface

Legibility should be the key focus here. Don’t worry about the fancy font faces, just use something that works.

Think about what message you want to convey. Fonts can help you be more serious, more light hearted, more funny. Make sure you’re using the correct font for your message.

As I mentioned before, don’t go overboard with this, typeface is better kept readable and legible. Don’t use hard to read fonts unless the purpose absolutely calls for it.

Imagery

Brands are expressed powerfully through imagery.

You’ll notice big companies often choose a small selection of images and repeat their use throughout all their campaigns.

You can also achieve this same effect with image style. For example professional looking images, fun imagery, scenery, etc.

What ever you do, the imagery you choose should reflect your core values. If you’re values are having fun, make sure the people in your images look like their having fun. A suit and tie affair would not give your message the boost it deserves from your images.

Tone of voice

Tone of voice is hard one to categorise and pin down. But, much like finding your writer’s voice, it’s something that is important to do to ensure long term success.

Altering your tone of voice can help your brand develop it’s own unique presence. Serious tones would suit serious business’ that don’t much around (like law firms, accounting practices, etc) and fun tones would suit the opposite.

I find using expressive adjectives enhances whatever tone you’re working toward.

Make sure you humanize your text and reduce the amount of jargon. Keep in mind who you’re writing for. Their perspective might not be as involved as you are when you’re writing.

Finally, simplify the message so that what you’re communicating comes across nice and clear.

Do What I Say, Not What I Do

It might seem ironic for me to give advice when I too don’t even follow some of the maxims I’ve laid out above.

Branding is unique and it’s as strong as you want to make it. Find the time to work on it (as I am trying to) and improve on it all the time (as I’m slowly doing).

Conclusion

Now, go get your brand out there! Spread it far and wide!

Once you’ve locked in your branding, the next step is to work on getting it in front of as many eyeballs as possible. Repetition is the key here if you want your brand to be instantly recognisable.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series on branding basics. In case you missed it, here’s the first part: Branding Basics: For Any New Online Endeavour – Part 1

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