Designers are mediators, existing between two worlds: companies and customers. When designing brands, designers must understand both sides. To find the best solution for the brand and successfully convey corporate identity, they have to be willing to step outside of their comfort zone.
Today, branding is essential for all companies on the market. No matter what your business objectives are or which audience you’re targeting, if you don’t stand out among your competitors, you will go unnoticed. This is why it’s best to find and hire a reputable and experienced branding agency that understands your business and can implement effective techniques to communicate your brand’s message to your audience.
If you are still unfamiliar with the concept of branding design, keep reading to find out more about the fundamental principles of this particular kind of design.
Defining Branding
Branding is the identification process consumers go through when they engage with your company. Using different brand management techniques, brands send messages by creating a unique name, logo, tagline or slogan, graphics, shapes, colors, sounds, scents, tastes, movements, and more. These components work together and form brand awareness and, in many cases, a fraction of prestige on the market.
When designing for brand purposes, designers need to keep many things in mind, such as brand history, mission, and vision. Each component must be incorporated into the overall brand identity, including a logo, business card, social media branding, packaging design, and other aspects of your business that communicate your brand.
Key Branding Design Principles
The art of branding follows some essential principles. Take your time and sift through some of these principles described below. =
1 – Design Defines the Brand
This sentence has never been more exact than now. Today, given the presence large brands have on social media, branding, and design have become inseparable. If you want to be noticed, you are going to need a smart design that unifies all branding features and incorporates them into a unique branding strategy across every channel – print, digital, and social.
#2 – Integration Is a Must
Even though they emerged as two different disciplines, design and branding need to be integrated to be effective. A product cannot do well without its brand image, and brand image is nothing without design. Good companies can still flourish without proper design – BUT – without design, the company lacks personality, a mechanism that attracts people. This part is critical.
#3 – Brand Comprehension Is Essential
The more you know, the better you are as an expert. This is true when it comes to the design process. If a designer does not understand your company’s core values, origins, and mission, then the design process and end-product might fall short in articulating the great story behind it. Outstanding designers can make majestic things, as long as they have all the pieces connected into a beautiful image.
#4 – Strategy Is Crucial
What many startups and small companies do not realize is that they need to employ a branding strategy early on, from the founding of the company onwards. They usually believe that this item is another thing they cannot afford to spend time on, so they neglect it instead of planning it thoroughly in advance.
If one wants to make breakthroughs in the 21st-century market, one needs to design with brand purposes in mind and maintain a clear vision of the future at all times. The strategy can always be subject to change, but it still needs to exist.
#5 – Relationships Matter
People respond to emotions. If they cannot connect or develop a relationship with a brand, it will not work for either side. It is a designer’s responsibility to make an emotion-evoking design, similar to what Apple has done with its products. And users feel a deep connection with this brand. People are devoted to their iPhones, and this would not be without a proper branding design.
#6 – Applying Innovative Solutions
In a world where almost every product and service are indistinguishable, it is hard to come up with unique ideas. Designers, however, need to be there to make things different from one another and offer innovative design solutions that will leave the competition behind.
#7 – Brand Reinvention
Many companies reinvent their brand regularly; however, in the eyes of their audience, everything looks the same as before. Google is the prime example of reinvention – they use their homepage to draw attention to important events, both globally and locally, via Google logo sketches, such as today’s announcement of spring solstice in the Northern hemisphere.
#8 – No Overdesigning
When starting the creative process, it’s easy to get carried away and do more than required, even to the point of ruining an entire concept. This can happen if one thinks of the process only as a competition, but still, one must always know how to evaluate when to stop.
#9 – Stand Out from the Crowd
Many people forget about it, but this principle relies on being different than everyone else. No matter if you work on the local or global market, you have got to have what it takes to step out and say: look at my brand, it’s designed differently, and it’s fantastic! Do better, use fun concepts, inspire people, and the results will come.
The Bottom Line
Since design reaches many end-users and hopefully future consumers, it needs to satisfy the needs of many people, including the appearance and feel of the company selling it. So, you should ask yourself: does your brand have what it takes to make a difference in the modern market? Get a hold of a trusted branding design agency and let its team take care of your brand so that you can enjoy your business’s success.
