Brand Identity and How to make it Timeless
If I were to ask you right now, ‘What defines your identity as an individual?’, what would your answer be?
For most of us, our name defines us as a person, and it is our appearance that makes us stand distinct from others in a crowd full of ironically similar folks. But is that really what our identity as an individual is all about? Not really, and I’m sure most of you agree with me.
Barring the very prominent factors of names and appearance much more comes into play to define someone’s identity. Speech, moralistic values, life stories, achievements, and many more facets drop into the mixing bowl and are whipped up together to make the essence of every individual’s identity.
Much like a person, a brand as an entity must entail a unique essence of its own that can be captured by bringing together various elements.
what, hence, is brand identity?
If you think that a catchy logo and unique name make a brand identity, you are partially correct!
However, it is crucial to know that brand identity doesn’t only come from a logo and name. Every brand tells a story, and the successful conveyance of this story to the audience that your brand aims to target calls for various elements to come into play.
All these elements come together to create a memorable and distinguishable brand identity. The logo, typography, colour palette, illustrations, iconography, photography, patterns & textures, etc., are a few components that enable your brand identity to thrive and develop a good brand recall over time.
how to create a successful brand identity?
Typing out this question in any web browser will make a plethora of insightful results pop up on the search engine result pages. Each link provides you with its own guide of step-by-step processes, which shall guarantee that you ultimately design a triumphant brand identity.
We are not here to offer you another guide to follow (since there’s already one too many you can find online). Instead, we are here to educate you on a multitude of supplementing factors that will help you:
1. Understand your client’s vision better.
2. Make better decisions while designing the identity.
3. Convey the brand story effectively to the audience through your brand elements and visuals.
Let’s get right into it!
Here are things you need to look out for while creating or re-designing a brand identity:
Ask the right questions:
It is of utmost importance that you – as the creator of the identity – leave no loopholes in your understanding and perception of the brand story and sentiment, and reflect the same in the brand identity flawlessly. Ask your client all the right questions that will enable you to better connect with the brand and become familiar with it inside and out. These questions can be centered around the brand’s goals (like what is the brand’s ideal target audience) or related to the design aspect of the creation (like does the client have specific fonts or colours in mind that they would like to have incorporated in the brand identity)
Analyse your market competitors well:
You, as the designer, bear the brunt of creating an identity that the audience would recall well and also would allow the brand to stand out in the market as a distinct entity. Thoroughly research your competitors, make notes of things that worked out for them and things that didn’t, and learn from the mistakes they made.
Aim to please the Target Audience:
Studying your brand’s target audience is as important, if not even more, as carrying out a competitor analysis. The ultimate goal of the brand identity you create is to become timeless and easily recallable for the target audience, and hence a critical assessment of what appeases the target audience is absolutely necessary.
Master the Contrast - design for cohesiveness and extension:
Expansion and Adaptability are two parameters that a brand identity should always be able to pass the test of time on. As a designer, it is paramount that elements of the identity you create form a beautiful harmony with each other and readily lend themselves to brand extensions whenever the time and opportunities call for it.
Keep it simple, soothing, and scalable:
This 3-S mantra is always a winner. A ‘simple and soothing to the eye’ identity is one that will stay with the audience forever. Its simplicity will also allow the brand identity to become scalable in the future for any new avenues the brand would like to explore (like a hospital aiming to open its own training wing in the near future)
With all these points set in mind, be sure to always know your worth and never sell yourself for less. A project emerges with a successful outcome when the team pours their heart and soul into it. The quality of your work cannot be downplayed, so it is essential of you to give yourself that incentive and drive to provide your clients with the best results for their vision.
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