When you look at your brand's marketing materials, what do you see?
Consistent themes and styles that feel cohesive or a variety of color schemes, typefaces,
and images that don't feel like they come from the same brand?
Hey, it's Noni from Printful!
Visual brand identity is the combination of visual elements like logo, color palette,
typefaces, imagery, and layout that aim to evoke a specific emotion from your customers.
The combination of these elements should create a feel that is trustworthy, memorable, and
full of personality.
Visual identity is the face of your company and the first thing your customers notice
when they see your brand.
To figure out how best make use of these elements for your brand, you first need to identify
your brand identity.
The first step in determining your brand identity is to understand your audience.
You need to know who your audience is and what they're looking for, so you can appeal
to their wants and needs.
This will help you figure out how to best communicate with your customers through visuals.
If your customers are lumberjacks, your style will need to be different than if your customers
are hair stylists.
You can learn about your audience by finding out:
The age, gender, profession, and interests of your audience
Their lifestyles What problems they have and how your brand
can help What other brands they like
Then, you'll need to craft your brand story.
To better create your visual brand identity, you need a good grasp on what you offer your
customers and why.
A small clothing brand with scrappy beginnings will likely need a different visual style
than a massive well-funded tech brand.
When crafting your brand story, ask yourself:
Why do we provide these services and products?
How does my product help customers?
How can we improve their lives?
Why do we think it’s important to do this?
Next, you'll have to define your brand personality.
Your brand personality is all about how you want your audience to feel when they see your
marketing materials.
A more serious brand will have a visual style that contrasts with a more playful brand.
To build your brand personality, figure out:
How would you describe your brand?
How would a consumer summarize your brand?
How do you want people to experience your product or service?
What kind of emotions do you want your brand images to evoke?
Now let's get more into what elements make up visual brand identity and how you can use
these elements to better form your visual style.
The first element of visual brand identity is your brand mark or logo.
Your brand mark is a signifier that's unique to your brand.
A brand mark is your brand identity in its purest form and should immediately make people
think of your company.
Your brand mark should match your company's goal: If you sell products for gamers, your
brand mark should be video game related.
Whether your brand's identity is light and airy or dark and brooding, be sure to let
your brand's personality shine through your logo!
A successful logo should be simple, unique, memorable, and used frequently.
The more often you use it, the easier it'll be for people to associate it with your company.
Design tools like Canva and Pablo can help you easily create a logo, but avoid just putting
your company name on an existing template—spice it up so your logo stands out!
Also, be sure to have different versions of your logo like black, white, and color so
it can offset any background.
Just make sure to do your research about existing brand marks so you're not infringing on anyone's
trademark.
And once you have a logo that's distinct and unique, remember to legally register it to
protect your brand identity.
The next element of visual brand identity is color palette.
According to studies, having a distinct color palette can increase brand recognition by
up to 80%, so be mindful when choosing your colors!
You don't need a broad color palette to have a distinct visual brand identity—just choose
2–4 colors and apply them across all your marketing materials like brand mark, text,
imagery, and other graphic elements.
Be sure to choose primary, secondary, and complementary colors, and write down your
Hex codes so you can use them again later.
Your colors should look good together and be able to go with anything and everything!
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Remember that your brand identity should be reflected in your colors—a brand geared
toward plant people might use brighter colors than a brand geared toward scene people.
On top of that, keep the connotations of different colors in mind: Yellow generally signals cheerfulness
and fun while black is more classy and sophisticated.
Whichever one you choose, make sure it represents what you want your brand to stand for.
To learn more about color in design, check out our video on that!
The link is in the description below.
Another aspect of visual brand identity is typography.
Typography is how your brand communicates its identity through the shape and style of
your text.
Your font choice should reflect your brand's personality and the way your audience perceives
you: A brand targeted toward kids might use a fun, bubbly script font while a brand targeted
toward bookish adults might use a serious serif font.
I will add: There are exceptions to font choice rules but your best bet is to pay attention
to the connotations of different fonts.
Choose two different fonts that complement each other well to use across all platforms—one
primary font to use for headings and one secondary font to use for body text.
When you choose your font, be sure to note the size and specific style of your fonts
like italic, bold, or narrow.
And always consider readability: script fonts and all-caps fonts are harder to get through
when it comes to body text in particular.
For more information about font choice in design, take a look at our video on that!
Link in the description below.
The next element of visual brand identity is imagery.
Imagery is all about the consistent style and treatment of images.
As with all other elements of visual brand identity, they should fit your brand personality.
An inexpensive brand might have more down-to-earth imagery while a more expensive brand might
have more high concept imagery.
You'll need to think about this when choosing your source of photos, whether it's mockup
photos, stock photos, photoshoots, or user-generated photos.
Imagery also includes other visual forms like illustrations, gifs, and infographics so keep
those in mind when defining what kind of imagery you'd like to use.
Will your graphics be light and accessible or more serious and scientific?
Beyond photos and graphics, imagery is also about how you treat or edit the photos.
Contrast, saturation, vibrancy, blurring, and tinting should all be taken into consideration
as editing and filters create a specific look and feel.
Decide on which treatments you want to use and use them consistently, and make sure to
write down which ones you use so you can easily come back to them.
Finally, the last part of visual brand identity to take into account is layout.
The general layout of your marketing materials like the position of your logo, text, and
imagery, all encompass visual brand identity.
The more static your layouts, the more cohesive and recognizable your imagery will be.
As mentioned before, Canva and Pablo are great design tools.
You can pick one of the templates they offer, and customize it for your brand.
Keep these templates saved and just edit them slightly whenever you create new visual content.
Doing this will ensure that your visual elements such as your logo and templates are stored
in the same place and used at the same size each time.
Defining your visual brand identity will include some research, testing, and regular maintenance,
but once you have it set, writing everything down in a branding guide will help you create
visuals with ease.
How have you refined your visual brand identity?
Any other tips for other store owners?
Let us know in the comments below!
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