Branding: Where Do You Begin?

You decided start your company. Amazing! You know what you want to sell, you've done product research and you know it's going to be a hit in the market, but there's just one problem. You don't know what you want your brand to look like; Or you do know what you want it to look like, but you don't know where to start to get it to look the way it does in your head. Regardless of where you are, don't worry, I'm here to help.

Logo design and brand identity are key components in the foundation of your business. Yes, you are selling your products, but you need to be recognizable to the public and your cliental. So where do you start? At the beginning with the creation of your logo. Your logo says a lot about who you are as a seller, as a business, and how much time you really put into creating your image. Creating a strong logo family is the starting point. Having a primary, secondary, sub-mark, and icon logo options creates variety, but it still has a continuity to it.

Your primary logo is your bread and butter. This logo is what represents the entire business, organization, website, etc. It's the first thing people see, and first impressions matter. Your secondary logo is what helps create a little variety. Usually, the second logo is identical to the first, but with your slogan below it. This is great to use in presentations, letters to customers, signage, etc. to show the first impression with the logo, but also what the business stands for. The primary should always try to be used the most, but the secondary is perfectly fine as an alternate. The sub-mark logo isn't necessary, but a lot of people like having it. This logo can made to change up the logo just a little. If your primary logo is horizontal, the sub-mark logo can be made to make a square option. sub-mark logos are favored most of the time for apparel. Finally, the last option for the logo family is the icon logo. The icon logo is the primary logo in its most simple form. It's a stand alone piece that is typically only used when it's clear that the company identity has been established. an iconic stand alone symbol is the Nike Swoosh. The Nike Swoosh doesn't need the word like with it for consumers to know that they are looking at something Nike.

Creating your logo family should take time. You need to look at each piece individually, preferably in black and white before you add color, and criticize every aspect of it. How do the fonts work together? How does a bold appearance look compared to a sleeker appearance? Is there too much going on, or not enough? Does the logo create an emotion to someone who isn't close to it? How does a test group respond to the logo? Is it creating the right type of eye movement, or is something throwing it off? Once you have absolutely torn it apart constructively, you can take your findings and build a finalized form. Not only do you, the owner of the business, need to be happy, but so do your consumers. If you create something completely based off of what you like, and don't take into account trends, styles that are popular, consumer reaction, people who aren't in your market, etc. then you are creating a biased logo. That biased logo might fail, or it might do okay. Just know that no matter what, your opinion isn't truly the one that matters. It's the people who are going to look at that logo, and decide based off of that if they want to look any further into it.

So, this article isn't going to cover the FULL scope of branding. Simply because that would be too much. This was to focus on the brain storming of logo creation, the mindset you should be in when creating and critiquing the logo, and the potential family that logo can be in. Did you think that branding was so easy that it could be covered in one article? If you did, you still have a lot to learn. But that's okay! I'm here to help you, one post at a time.

Sincerely,

Just Your Average Graphic Designer in totally Digital World

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