What Is Brand Identity? And How to Develop a Great One

Just like the identity of each individual, Brand Identity is what makes a brand different, and unique among a variety of other competing brands. But what exactly is brand identity? And how do you shape a strong brand identity that contributes to taking your business to the next level? Learn more about Brand Identity and what makes a brand identity stand out and impress customers in the following article!

What is brand identity?

Brand identity is the set of elements that articulate who your brand is, what values your company creates, how it communicates with consumers, and how it wants customers to feel when interacting with its business.

Basically, brand identity is all the elements that a company creates to portray the right image for consumers. Usually, a brand identity will include the brand name, slogan, logo, design, brand voice,...

Coca-Cola is a good example of Brand Identity when customers can easily identify the brand s products through the font Spencerian script with two main white and red tones. In addition to the logo, Coca-Cola uses a unique, exclusive bottle shape that does not overlap with any beverage brand. This helps customers know that they are not buying a counterfeit and can recognize the brand's products even if they do not have an external label...

> > > Read more: Shopify vs Etsy: Which is the right platform for POD Sellers

How to develop a strong brand identity

Brand identity plays an important role in brand development and affirming the position of the brand with customers. Here are some methods to help business owners develop and build themselves a prominent and distinct Brand Identity.

Know who you are

Before building their brand identity, entrepreneurs need to know who they are as a brand. According to 99design, there are some questions that each person needs to ask before starting to build a brand:

• What is the mission of the brand?
• Brand Values (What beliefs drive the business to grow)
• Brand personality (if your brand were a person, what would it be?)
• Product USP
• Brand voice (If a brand is a person, how does it communicate?)
• These factors are what define your brand, before you start building your brand identity, you need to understand all these factors. Once you fully understand what your brand is about, it s time to build the characteristics and identity that make your brand more alive and special in the eyes of your customers.

Focusing on design

Besides elements such as brand voice, brand story, or brand values, design is an important criterion to create a unique brand identity.

Design content through logo, packaging, website design, card visit,...will be the factors that shape the way the brand is perceived. In other words, the design will be associated with the brand identity, reflecting exactly what the brand wants to convey to customers. Here are some factors that you should consider when building a brand identity:

Typography

Typography is the typeface or type of font that you choose to use for your brand. There are 4 main typefaces with the ability to convey different messages. Among them are fonts:

• Serif: Serif is a type of font with legs such as Times New Roman or Garamond. This classic font style is suitable for brands that want to convey the values of trust, and tradition,.....
• Sans Serif ( Font without legs) such as Arial, Helvetica, Franklin Gothic are legless typefaces with clean, modern style designs. Compared to other fonts, Sans Serif emphasizes readability, ease of view, and neatness and is suitable for modern, new-oriented brands...
• Script: Script is a type of font that contains shapes and characters such as handwriting. Examples of Script fonts are Allura or Pacifico. Script fonts often have soft, interconnected strokes and study elegance, creativity, femininity,...
• Display font: This is the type of font with a unique design, eccentric design, and strange transformation compared to simple, easy-to-see typefaces. Due to its properties, this font is often used to make logos.

Color Palette

Color is the most important factor in the brand identity system with the ability to affect the psychology of potential customers. The strategic use of color will have a great impact on how they see your brand.

• Here are some of the meanings of color that businesses can take advantage of to support brand identity:
• Red: Symbolizes passion, and excitement, suitable for brands that want to go in a dynamic, youthful direction,. For example: Coca-Cola, Netflix, Marvel,..
• Orange: Symbols for energetic colors with a playful, friendly atmosphere. For example: Mcdonalds, Fanta, JBL,...
• Yellow: Yellow is considered the color of happy, vibrant, and cheerful. This is a good color choice if traders shape their brand in a close, fun style,. For example: Snapchat, Chupa Chups, Pringles,...
• Blue: Blue gives a sense of stability, reliability, safety, responsibility, etc. For example, Intel, Nasa, Ford, Oral-B,...
• Green: Symbolizes growth, and innovation, in line with the environmental and financial sectors, etc. Examples: Animal Planet, Hess, Whole Foods, Starbucks, etc...
• Black: In line with modern, sophisticated brands, this is a classic and effective color for any brand.

Shape

When it comes to design, one element that cannot be ignored is the shape, according to some studies, different shapes will associate with the human brain and create different emotions. Therefore, traders can fully use the shape design to convey different messages to customers.

Circle: Create a sense of community, unity, and softness. For example, Pepsi, Nivea,..

Angular shapes such as rectangles, triangles, and rectangles, create a sense of reliability, power, and efficiency,... For example: Microsoft, Adidas,

Straight lines: the vertical design evokes masculinity and robustness, while the horizontal lines evoke femininity and a feeling of tenderness

Create your own brand identity

The brand identity needs to be implemented throughout and expressed consistently on designs such as Logo, Website, Product Packaging, etc...

Logo: Need to show who the brand is and have visual appeal (simple, beautiful, easy to remember), creating a lasting impression for the audience,..

Website: Visual design, showing the color throughout the brand,...

Packaging: In addition to physical products, packaging is seen as the key to attracting customers, so do not forget to optimize packaging design to improve customer experience, increase loyalty and encourage customers to buy back products.

Email: Email is a great method to attract customers and promote business. Don't forget to design emails with colors, and brand logos to increase customer experience.

In addition to the above factors, to complete a brand identity, traders need to complete a checklist that includes the following elements:

• Overview of the brand, vision, goals,...
• Logo parameters, usage
• Type of font
• Brand color palette
• Writing style, brand voice
• Brochure guidelines
• Social media guidelines
• Perspective

Create your brand guideline

After completing the brand identity, do not forget to create a Brand Guideline to ensure that the elements are used uniformly. This brand Guideline will provide guidelines and regulations on the use of elements in the media in accordance with the specifications.

Creating brand guidelines not only helps create consistency, and express brand identity, but also helps customers easily remember and recognize the brand. In addition, Brand Guidelines also help save time, and increase the effectiveness of the work process of each unit.

Here is some information about what brand identity is, and the methods of implementing Brand Identity... You can start building a branding kit based on the suggestions above. You succeed!

Source: 99 design