To discover the many elements of establishing a strong brand identity, simply perform an online search for branding advice and you will find a multitude of agencies and analysts providing many general pieces of advice.
Most such articles provide terms like "use colours to create emotion" or "create your brand voice" that are extremely general in nature and do not include any real values.
For example, very few people will inform you that the average cost of an agency's total implementation of an entire brand identity is approximately $150,000.
Or that the average time frame for deploying an agency-created brand identity can be extended by three months if the organisation does not ensure full stakeholder participation in the process.
Branding is not an art, but a business strategy.
A well-constructed brand identity will identify target users, maximize the potential of pricing power, and drive revenue growth.
Statistical analysis shows that maintaining consistency in the way that a brand is presented will increase the revenue generated by that brand by up to 23%.
However, many companies fail to effectively roll out their brand identity to users and create a negative impact.
Many times, a company will create a logo or logo design without defining what its brand stands for.
Other times, the company will ignore the WCAG accessibility guidelines and use colours with very low contrast which can make it impossible for many users to view their products.
Lastly, many companies have failed with their redesign of their brand due to not developing a risk mitigation framework prior to bringing their redesigned product to market.
This guide removes the large number of unscientific and ineffective branding "advice" that exists today.
In this document, we have defined in detail the steps, costs, timelines and psychological patterns that will lead to developing an effective brand identity.
Timelines and core principles
A quick route to establish your business presence is with a template, while an experienced freelancer will need up to 8 weeks or more to create a brand from scratch.
In addition, an agency will generally take 24 weeks plus to study the market, perform interviews with customers, test branding options, and gather feedback from multiple iterations of their designs before launching.
Among other things, the visual identity comes last.
Thus, if you decide the HEX color codes to use before determining the best method for differentiating your brand from competitors and deciding your own company’s value statement; your project will fail.
Brand identifications failing at launch
The many redesigns of brands such as Tropicana and Gap are excellent examples of why it's important to establish your foundational strategy prior to finalizing your brand identity.
Tropicana lost more than 20% of their sales ($35 million) within one year of changing their packaging from their signature orange with a straw logo to a sterile, minimalistic design.
Why did this occur?
Because they literally removed all brand equity at one time and replaced it with a “new” brand image.
The creation of a successful brand identity is not about how trendy your design is; rather it is the outward representation of your strategic goals.
Therefore, when a company is too focused on the creative process before creating a strategic foundation, all brand images will fail to stand out from one another.
All your competitors use blue to represent “trust.”
If you also use blue, then you are going to be perceived as “not different” or worse, as part of the generic “blue” community.
Therefore, to develop a successful brand image, you must audit the market and identify the visual gaps that your competitors are not filling, and you must aggressively claim those gaps.
Step One: Establish your foundation before starting on design
The use of design software in the early stages of developing your brand identity will only serve to distract you from creating your foundational strategy.
Therefore, all major branding projects should be completed using text documents and spreadsheets during the first one to three weeks of your project.
Mission, vision, and values
The mission of a company is its current function; the vision defines what it will become; and the values establish the ethical framework that governs its actions as it evolves.
All the above factors influence all visual design decisions.
For example, a fintech startup communicating "radical transparency" should avoid a dark, heavy serif typeface and dark, heavy imagery associated with the brand.
Instead, the company should opt for the use of clear, readable, sans-serif typefaces along with bright, clearly lit photographs that allow for open tracking.
The wording used will ultimately determine how the brand is defined visually.
Competitor audit and market positioning
Do not create a design in isolation.
To set up the audit, you start with identifying your five closest competitors, extracting their respective color palettes, typefaces, and tone of messages.
Then, you create a visual matrix that visually represents this information to allow for determining any possible white space between competitors.
Every SaaS type company within the same industry tends to have similar corporate tech blue as their assigned color.
Therefore, it is important to identify that as an opportunity to create a unique differentiator for your service.
An electric green or a warm organic terracotta will immediately provide a distinct presence on either the shelf or search engine results for your service.
Developing your voice
Your brand identity includes more than just what your brand appears as visually, but also how you communicate.
For an example, Duolingo created a language learning app that is considered culturally relevant, and the company utilized the creation of a very unhinged, aggressive, and somewhat comedic, "evil owl" personality to help it gain traction in the market through social media channels.
Utilizing a voice that is outside of the expected mold helps to create a level of emotional engagement with the audience.
Your brand guidelines need to provide your brand voice with clear examples. Simply stating "we are professional, yet casual" is not enough.
You should create a table that outlines how you communicate compared to how you do not communicate.
You will also want to establish your grammatical rules. Do you use emoji's? Do you capitalize every word? Do you use sentence or title case when writing?
Dictating the rules on how to communicate as a business stops junior copywriters from producing overly generic-sounding corporate content.
Step Two: Establishing the seven core visual features
The first part of the brand identity process is the foundation. The next phase is creating the visual representation of the brand identity.
The complete brand identity will consist of seven mandatory elements.
Logo designs & variances
In a multi-channel digital world, creating only a primary logo is useless. You must develop a responsive logo system that will be used in all digital channels.
This should include your primary logo, a secondary layout (stacked or horizontal), a simplified icon or logomark for social media avatars and a single colour reverse version for dark backgrounds.
Your logo must remain legible regardless of how it is used (e.g., on a billboard or as a 16-pixel favicon).
Colour palette creation
When creating a brand colour palette, you must not just select the colours you like; you must create your colour palette using strategic psychology mapping.
Your colour palette will have a primary brand colour and secondary supporting colours, as well as distinct functional colours (red for error, green for success and yellow for warning).
A lot of amateur identities fail at this step because they do not have enough contrast with digital interface colours.
Your colours must work digitally as well as in print.
Typography & font hierarchy
A business can convey tone through mountains of text without saying anything; this is done primarily through the use of typography.
A typical font system will have three distinct parts: a primary display font for large headings, a good legibility font for the body of the text and a utility typeface for small labels or tables of data.
When creating a typographic pairing, the design must have some tension as well as balance.
Using a sharp, brutalist display serif paired with a neutral Swiss sans-serif body font is a great way to create visual interest immediately.
Limiting the number of typefaces to two or three ensures consistency in style.
Imagery guidelines
Imagery refers to the treatment of images within your brand identity. These guidelines dictate the types of images you will use for your brand.
For example, will the brand's core imagery be a combination of user-generated content, black and white photography, and illustration?
Similarly, will the iconography of your brand have the same weight in lines and corners? All icons must have consistent line weight and corner radius.
Patterns and graphic devices
Patterns and graphic devices serve as a visual link between your slide decks and social media posts.
For physical products, the packaging will provide a way to translate your digital identity into a real-world, tactile experience.
How much will it cost?
Understanding how to build a brand identity is equivalent to knowing the market price for all of the various services that will be needed to build that identity.
The difference between the cost of a $500 template and a $50,000 agency retainer is determined by the amount of custom research, stakeholder management, and custom asset creation.
Routes to brand identity
There are primary routes to creating a brand identity, and they differ in costs and timelines.
DIY template option
Budget: $50 - $1,000.
Timeline: 1 - 2 weeks.
Newly formed company owners and bootstrappers start with this route most of the time.
Purchasing a high-quality UI kit or subscribing to Canva Pro allows you to create a nice looking identity quickly.
The disadvantage is that you do not own the core assets, and another company could purchase the exact same template.
The DIY option allows you to solve the problem of launching, but it does not typically build long-term brand equity.
Hiring a freelance designer
Budget: $5,000 - $25,000.
Timeline: 4 - 8 weeks.
Mid-market companies and start-ups that have secured funding generally hire freelance brand designers for specialized services.
A $10,000 engagement with a freelance designer will typically involve one week of discovery, two weeks of logo and color ideation, and two weeks of creating the final guiding documents and collateral.
Capacity is the primary limitation.
Since one person is responsible for the process, any time that person's resources are devoted to another client's project, it can extend the timeline to revise the project.
Working with an agency
Fees: $30,000 to $150,000+.
Timeline: 8 to 24 weeks.
One of the main reasons you will need to hire an agency to develop your brand identity or assist you with your Series A funding is that an agency offers a multi-disciplinary approach to the creation of a new brand.
In addition to a creative team that includes strategists, copywriters, graphic designers, and account managers, an agency will conduct many focus groups and trademark clearance searches for you.
They will produce lengthy, up to 100-page brand guidelines, which will contain detailed information about everything from how to design your office interiors to how to wrap your fleet vehicles.
How to develop your brand identity without experience in design
Not everyone has the budget to spend $10,000 or more to develop their brand identity.
If you are developing your brand internally and you don’t have formal training in design, then you need to be strategic about the tools you use, and you need to avoid common pitfalls.
While Canva is a great tool for quickly creating social media visuals, it isn’t an ideal option for designing custom, trademarkable vector logos.
Although algorithm-based logo generators such as Looka can provide you with quick brand name ideas, the logos created by these companies often appear to be similar to other companies’ logos.
Figma is the industry leader for designing user interfaces and brand systems; however, Figma has a very steep learning curve.
Days 1 to 7
Review competitor brands and define a brand voice.
Days 8 to 14
Find and purchase a high-quality font-family set. Spending $100 on a good typeface will produce more significant results than spending money on a difficult-to-read logo.
Days 15 to 21
Choose a color palette using an accessible color palette generator.
Days 22 to 30
Put together one sheet of brand guidelines.
The role of artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence tools are excellent for generating ideas and creating visual “mood boards” from large amounts of design inspiration in a matter of seconds.
However, AI cannot create a cohesive, vector-based, multi-platform brand identity system based on your market strategy.
Use AI as a collaborative partner for brainstorming creative concepts, but not as the lead designer in charge of building your entire brand identity system.
Accessibility standards (New WCAG 2.2 Standards)
Neglecting to provide equal access to visually impaired individuals is a significant business liability that could also have substantial legal repercussions.
Minimum contrast ratios & minimum typography sizes
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 require designers to apply strict mathematical standards when developing websites.
For standard text, a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 should be maintained between the text colour and background. For larger text, usually 18pt or 14pt bold, the contrast ratio requirement is 3:1.
For example, if the primary brand colour is light, sunny yellow, it cannot be used for body paragraph text on a white background. It would instantly fail accessibility testing.
Typography minimum sizes are similarly strict. For body text to be legible, it must never be less than 16px tall. The line spacing (leading) should be 1.5 times the font size.
Color blindness testing
About 8% of men and 0.5% of women experience some form of colour vision deficiency.
If the primary way your brand communicates is through colour, you are actively confusing millions of potential customers.
You should always conduct comprehensive colour blindness tests on proposed colour palettes using tools such as Stark, Coolors, and Coblis prior to finalising any colour choices.
Ensure that the visual elements on your user interface are based on images and words, in addition to colour, when displaying or conveying information.
Design is not a bottleneck
In a branding project where time is often wasted, design is usually not the bottleneck.
People are.
If you do not manage your people, including executives, marketing management, and founders, who have ultimate control of what they want and do not want in a branding project, the project will never be completed on time.
A project slated for 6 weeks will end up taking 6 months or longer. Customer feedback will be taken seriously when you ask for a collective response to the design.
When you ask, "What do you think about the design?", you invite subjective feedback which is not helpful. You might get feedback such as "Make it pop!" or "I don't like purple".
Strategic feedback workflows
To collect the best possible feedback from your stakeholders, show the design against your company’s original brand strategy and ask: "Does this type of visual communicate our core value of radical transparency?"
Create a feedback matrix on day one of the project.
Establish who will have authority to make changes and who will approve the changes for final approval.
Limit logo revisions to three separations and set a strict deadline for your budget; unlimited revisions will use up the budget and will also slow down the progress of the project.
Mitigating the risk of a rebranding launch
A fear of receiving backlash from customers due to a company’s rebranding can cause the company to lose momentum, but this fear can be mitigated.
Before you undertake a major rebranding, run a closed beta test for a small, high-value group of customers that will provide you with their feedback on the new design.
Establish a detailed checklist of all steps and necessary changes associated with a company’s rebranding.
Rebranding means changing the website, social media handles, emails, invoices, physical packaging, and third-party directories.
Any mistakes will create a fracture in the original brand and create an unprofessional image for your company.
A real-life example of a successful B2B technology startup's rebranding project
We may examine actual data related to the successful deployment of a B2B technology startup in the middle-market segment.
Prior to proceeding with Series A funding, a B2B SaaS startup recognised the need to abandon its old-fashioned, cookie-cutter website and branding style.
The company decided not to use large agencies but instead to hire a small team of freelance branding experts.
There was a total budget of $12,000 for all rebranding efforts, and the amount that would be paid over 10 weeks was fixed.
The first three weeks were dedicated to identifying the positioning for this company.
During this time period, the audit showed that virtually every competitor used standard-style images of technical products with cool blue colour schemes.
The next four weeks were utilised to create the visual design of the new brand identity.
The freelancers shifted the visual direction of the brand identity towards a more human-centric and warm style.
The primary colour used in the branding was a deep terracotta hue.
They utilised editorial-type serif font for the brand name and changed the abstract vector graphics to actual, high-quality, real-life images of individuals working in the company.
The final three weeks of the project included developing the guidelines for the new brand identity, redesigning the website assets, and running the gauntlet of approvals from all stakeholders.
Measurable results of the rebranding included a 35% increase in branded search queries three months post-launch.
It also drove an 18-point increase in the company's Net Promoter Score.
During their successful Series A funding round, investors perceived that the new branding gave the company a premium appearance.
The Founders and other stakeholders no longer appeared to be in the "scrappy startup" stage but instead were viewed as a leading company in their marketplace.
Final conclusion: Stop making art and start making financial assets
When you learn to create your company's financial asset, you are creating a financial asset.
Creating a financial asset requires discipline and strategy over aesthetics.
A strong brand strategy helps you analyze your market, identify what's missing from it, and create an advantage by providing customers with exactly what they want.
Gone are the days of massive 120-page brand manuals.
Today's teams need flexible guidelines that express the necessary elements to define a brand’s voice, follow strict WCAG accessibility guidelines and provide elements that can be mixed and matched to create a custom look and feel.
Whether you pay $500 for template designs or $50,000 for a professional design agency, at the end of the day the aim is the same: create a consistent look that builds trust.
The greater the level of trust the more likely it is that you will get conversions. The more conversions you have the greater your revenue will be.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are the typical timelines to a complete brand identity?
Time to build a brand identity can vary widely depending on the resources available to you.
If you are using a DIY template approach it may be done in as little as 1 to 2 weeks.
If you are working with a dedicated freelance designer they may require 4 to 8 weeks for research and custom asset creation.
A fully managed project through an agency involving extensive stakeholder management and a deep level of market research usually involves an 8 to 24 week timeframe.
Can AI design a brand?
No.
While AI technologies are very good for generating ideas quickly, collecting mood boards and eliminating the blank page syndrome, it doesn’t currently offer the ability to build a complete identity system that creates a position against a competitor’s marketplace while also ensuring compliance with WCAG accessibility guidelines.
Think of AI as a brainstorming partner but not a replacement for strategic design thinking.
How can I eliminate customer backlash during a brand overhaul?
Customer backlash is caused when you remove too much existing brand equity from your audience without explanation.
To avoid this scenario, keep recognizable pieces of your brand’s identity intact, such as the use of brand color or familiar type treatment, while modernizing and redesigning other pieces.
Prior to launch, conduct pre-launch perception testing with a small group of loyal customers.
When communicating the new identity with customers be clear on the “why” behind the change and emphasize the benefits for their experience.
What are the most important elements of a brand guideline?
The most important element of a brand guideline is the consistency rules. The most critical of which are the usage rules that indicate what not to do.
Specifying the amount of clear space required around your logo, identifying the exact hex codes that pass the contrast tests, and providing examples of incorrect brand voice usage, will help to protect the integrity of your logo as your company grows.