Hey Guys! Welcome to our channel, the No 1 place for
people who love Design, Art and everything Creative! You are watching Dantier and Balogh’s
channel, my name is Laszlo and, in this video, I wanna go through 7 brand building tips you
need to know before you start your business. I think, Branding is one of those overly mystified
subjects, which designers such as myself tend to give some confusing definitions to, whenever
you ask them what is branding all about really? Brand designers either give you an overwhelming
answer to this question, noting that brand design depends on the technical assets, like
your logo, secondary logo, font choices, colour palette, tone of voice, motion graphics, photographic
style, copywriting, videography…. Or they give you an underwhelming answer n
be like: Branding is a feeling. its a state of mind. Branding is an invitation to a journey
Nike just do it - think different ---- Because you’re worth it.. You know what I mean?
I think its actually much simpler than that. Imagine your brand like a jigsaw puzzle – the
middle bits are the actual brand – what you are selling – goods or services, and
these pieces on the sides, these are your branding elements. Their role is to keep the
brand in place, and help your customers get an idea of what your brand is all about. Once
you have these borders set up, it helps you as well as others to get the whole picture.
Yeah? Now that we have all this covered, let me
give you my brand building tips:
Tip no 1 SELF-AWARENESS. What is your brand all about? Who are you?
What are you selling, and who are you selling to? You need to be able to justify your brands
existence and explain to people what is it really that you are bringing to the table
– what is your brand mission and Why should we care?
Ideally you have a set of answers on the ready which can summarize ALLL of this in the form
of an elevator pitch – Something like this: Hi Im Laszlo from Dantier and Balogh – we
are an interior and brand design team who believe that the synergy between branding
and interiors is what makes a client’s business succeed. Having consistent design through
interiors and branding is something your customers will pick up on, and it will help you provide
a fun, distinctive and memorable experience to them.
Try doing something like this for your own business. And Practice it. if you want, you
can type it out n leave it down in the comments under this video, for others to see.
Ok tip number two is CONSISTENCY Whatever you do within your brand you need
to do it in a consistent manner. I mean this from the brand design poinnnt of view – like
having the same logos, fonts, colours in every element of your brand, whether that be your
website, business cards, Instagram page, - everything should resemble each other –
But I also mean this from a brand promise point of view. Deliver the same quality whatever
the project. Set your standards high, and abide by them – as an example we tend to
post two new videos onto this YouTube channel every week – Why? Because by trial and error
we have discovered that this is how often we can deliver videos which are up to our
standards in terms of the quality and message. I say trial and error, because you will only
know how consistent you can be once you do have a proper workflow. Obviously sometimes
you cants provide the same quality to Everything you doing, but still you should set this as
your goal. Don’t overpromise though, which leads me to my next point:
AUTHENTICITY Staying true to yourself as well as the audience.
As time went on, I believe we have become experts at spotting the imposters, and pretenders
of the world - Cutting through people’s BS basically- I mean most people my age are
so sceptical and so accustomed to being lied to, that we don’t even answer phone calls
from unknown numbers anymore. I know we all feel the societal pressure to
fake it till you make it – we all do that to some extent – but at the same time make
sure you are not you know… full of it, because people WILL call you out on your bluff.
As D+B we started an Instagram page back in 2019, and the content on that page was always
absolutely pristine, high standard quality work – as it should be- but at times, we
definitely acted like it has been made by some massive team of designers, pretending
that Dantier and Balogh is already a household name in the field, and you - YOU are the weird
one is you haven’t heard of us yet. Then we started making youtube videos, and
the thing is while making pretty pictures for Instagram is not THAT hard, on youtube,
there is nowhere to hide, the content has to be authentic These days We have about 5
times more followers on this channel, than on our Instagram page – n I think its simply
down to the fact, that here we are showing our true selves. We are trying to, anyway.
TIP number 4 ADAPTABILITY Is your business idea future -proof? Can your
brand change, grow and evolve as time goes on? What happens if plan A doesn’t work
out? Things beyond your control can massively affect your new found business – maybe your
partner steps out, or you can’t get the funding you were hoping for, or maybe JUST
MAYBE a worldwide pandemic unfolds itself putting most of your ideal clients and projects
on hold – It CAN HAPPEN YOU KNOW – are you prepared for something like this?
These strange times obviously have changed OUR brand vision at D+B, and now we are focusing
on digital content instead of waiting around until we get back to what we used to call
NORMAL. So now we are a design duo who are making
content for likeminded designers, artists and creatives who are just about to embark
on their creative careers. – the content is aimed at students as well as young professionals,
as its mostly creative tutorials insights and beginner level advice, with the occasional
entertaining video thrown into the mix, which can be enjoyed by anyone with casual creative
interests. See? PLAN B elevator Pitch! Of course, adaptability
doesn’t have to be as dramatic as this, like if you own an artisan bakery, would you
be willing to bake savoury stuff instead of teacakes if you see that the demand is there?
Keep that box open is all im saying.
OK - Tip no 5; MINIMALISM How else can you brand your business? I gotta
admit I think the term Minimalism is very much overused these days, but I dunno what
else to call this section – less is more when it comes to branding. what I mean by
that is don’t waste time and energy building brand assets you don’t need. Like, if you
are a yoga instructor, you don’t really need a custom font do you. You know one of
my biggest pet peeves is seeing very nicely animated motion graphic logos, which I know
the brand won’t use, cause they don’t make video content..
– Don’t get me wrong – having interactive, custom designed assets are very cool, and
as your business grows you SHOULD incorporate them, but they are not necessary to begin
with. Building a start-up is tons of work, and you constantly have to keep yourself in
check, making sure that you are working the smart way.
Same goes for social media. Don’t spread yourself too thin by trying to be active on
ALL the trendy social media platforms, cause im telling you its impossible – especially
if you do all this on your own. Two, maybe three platforms are enough to take care of
– Like, we are very active on youtube obviously, and I also manage an Instagram account. These
are the only two we are taking good care of. We also have a linkedin page…Haven’t posted
anything there in like 4 months though – just don’t have the time. N I think having these
empty, ghost accounts won’t do any good for your brand. Having an inactive account
is WORSE than having no account at all. And yeah, you can upload the same posts to multiple
platform, but I DUNNO – when you see a square image with 30 hashtags on twitter, you DO
know, that they just took an insta post n put it on twitter dontcha? I mean that’s
not gonna feel authentic is it?---. So Use the platforms which make sense to use as a
brand and you are actually like using, because social media management WILL take up more
time than you’d think. In fact ALL of this stuff will take more time
than you think which leads me to my next point 6 PASSION
You gotta be Obsessed, borderline crazy about your brand idea to make it work, because initially,
chances are you are not gonna break the bank for the first couple months, maybe years.
Overnight success stories do happen, but they are incredibly rare, so counting on that is
naïve in my opinion – prepare yourself for the long game!
Like, we just got monetized on YouTube, which is amazing, but it took us around a YEAR to
get to this point – which basically means we have worked really hard for nothing for
a whole year. You need to have a source of motivation other than money, because initially
the hours and the wages – they just wont add up – and you have to be okay with that.
I think, Artists and creators are people who have to work 2 or three times harder than
everyone else, just to stay afloat – dreams don’t come easy.
And my Last point 7 ORIGINALITY To stand out from the crowd, you gonna have
to be unconventional. You will have to do things and find things which others don’t
do, to fit yourself comfortably into a gap in your desired market. And I believe the
best way to go on about this is just to learn things by doing them – don’t listen to
anyone especially those who aren’t doing what you are doing, and don’t be afraid
to straight up go against the flow sometimes. Don’t even listen to these videos you are
watching, if they are against your gut feeling. I mean we rebelled against trends to some
extent when we named our business Dantier and Balogh – I knew it full-well that English
speakers will have trouble spelling and pronouncing these names, but to tell you the truth I just
don’t care! Im sure lots of Overly smart PR people have tried to convince this guy
to change his name, ‘cause it just doesn’t sound American enough. Just get really good
in your field, and they’ll learn your name! take a leap of faith and if you fail, just
try again – rebrand – reinvent, until you get where you wanna be. Because one day
you will look back n think – it was all worth it!
Guys I hope you get something out of this video, if you enjoyed it, please give it big
a thumbs up, to keep the algorithm happy And While you are here, join our design tribe
so you don’t miss out on the upcoming content. We aim to give you Two videos every week about
art, graphic design, interiors, architecture, illustration, and everything in between!
Take care guys, and I’ll see you this time next week! Bye!