There seems to be a misunderstanding when it comes to branding for your business. When someone says branding our minds jump straight to your business aesthetic. I know, I was guilty of it too. It wasn’t until I started exploring what I could do for self employment that I understood what goes into branding.
Your brand is how people perceive you and your business. Part of that has to do with your colors and logo, but most of it actually starts before you even decide on any of that. If you want a warm, welcoming environment for your customers you probably shouldn’t do dark colors, your logo should be easy to recognize; if you want to be “welcoming” you should focus on creating a space people want to be whether that’s virtually or in a store front.
WHEN CREATING A BRAND
I have created many brands over the past several years, again deciding what I wanted to do with my life. Each idea got a brand board even if it didn’t come to anything. I felt creating a brand board seemed to make the idea a win or lose in my mind…maybe that’s just the ADHD lol.
Creating a brand board helps you to visualize what you are creating throughout the whole process to help tweak in the early stages before too much time has passed. When doing so, think about how you want to come off at first glance to your audience. You can add depth later but being able to draw in the right people is crucial.
TIPS FOR CREATING YOUR BRANDING FROM SCRATCH
- Write a STRONG client snapshot of your ideal client and keep it handy, you will likely look back at it as you establish yourself. (pro tip: do this one first)
- Explore color theory
- Create multiple different logos, different fonts, colors, everything. Don’t sit to create just one. My current logo was my third design, I found what I liked and what I didn’t from each. And no, I didn’t stop at three.
- Determine what your modality will be. You don’t have to do everything but pinterest looks different than facebook – where is your ideal client?
- Write down a list of adjectives you would like your ideal client to think of your business
- Hire help – I don’t mean that to say hire me (I mean you could) but not everyone is good at everything, if this isn’t your genius, pass it off to someone else. If money is tight, make a deal working off of each other’s genius model. No shame in that!
All of these tips are things I have done at some point in my process. I plan to revisit it all as I pivot and my business shifts over the years, but I never want to lose sight of what I was after when I created The Unpolished Edit.
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