5 Common Branding Mistakes to Avoid When Building Your Visual Brand
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Does your brand's visual identity truly reflect your mission, values, and target audience? In this episode of The Branding Business School podcast, we dissect the five most common mistakes entrepreneurs make when crafting their visual brand. From the strategic pitfalls of overlooking psychological impacts in color selection to the dangers of choosing logos and fonts based on personal biases, we provide actionable insights to ensure your brand resonates powerfully with your audience. Let’s break down why a deep understanding of your brand’s foundation is crucial before you leap into design, and how avoiding these common blunders can align your visual identity with your business goals.
We also shine a spotlight on the importance of investing in professional branding and the timeless effectiveness of simplicity in logos, drawing inspiration from iconic brands like Coca-Cola and Nike. Discover why a versatile brand suite is essential for maintaining consistency across various platforms and how thoughtful font selection can evoke the right emotions to match your brand’s ethos. Whether you’re launching a new venture or contemplating a rebrand, this episode equips you with the knowledge to build a cohesive and impactful visual brand without misplacing your priorities. Join us for a robust discussion that promises to elevate your branding strategy to new heights.
Visual Brand Definition [00:18]
Visual brand is primarily referring to your logos, your colors, and the fonts that make up your visual brand.
5 Mistakes to Avoid When Building Your Visual Brand
Skipping Strategy and Jumping Straight Into Design [01:36]
The truth is, your visual brand needs to reflect your business goals and values and the message that you want to communicate to your audience. If you don’t have a roadmap for where your brand is headed, how can you expect your visuals to guide people in the right direction? Your logo, color palette, and even your fonts should all be rooted in the bigger picture of what your brand represents and how you want it to be perceived by your audience. Before you do anything, take the time to define your brand’s mission, your target audience and your unique differentiators. When you do this, the design process actually becomes so much more intentional and therefore the designs have more impact. Remember, you don’t get a second chance at a first impression. When you mess this up, there are going to be people who don’t work with you, even when you get it right years down the road, because of the first impression you put in their minds.
Choosing Colors Based On Personal Preferences [03:23]
It’s often when people are choosing colors based on colors they naturally navigate towards, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best choice for your brand. Sometimes, it’s not. Colors carry meaning and they evoke different emotions, so your brand color should be chosen with that in mind. One of the most important things to remember here is that your visual brand is for your audience, not for you. Make sure that the colors that you pick resonate with your target market and the message that you’re trying to communicate, and don't let personal bias cloud your decision making. It would actually be better to choose the color palette for your brand, and then let that influence your personal style.
Inconsistency Across Platforms [06:26]
This is a killer for brand recognition, yet it’s common for entrepreneurs to use one set of colors or fonts on their website, and then another on social media, and then something totally different in their email marketing. Consistency builds trust. The same logo, the same colors, and the same general style across all of your platforms. They will begin to recognize you and then they remember your brand, and this is crucial because it takes multiple touch points for a potential customer to start to trust your brand and to consider buying from you. Once you’ve established your brand identity, you apply it consistently everywhere, because consistency equals credibility.
Overcomplicating Your Logo [09:18]
Your logo feels like the representation of your entire business, so it can be tempting to try to fit everything that you do into that one small graphic, but that’s just not necessary. Simple logos are far more effective than overly detailed ones, and they’re probably going to last you longer. They’re probably going to serve you longer. If you look at the big brands of our time: Coca-Cola, Nike, Amazon, Tesla, Vogue, Chanel, etc. They are all simple, but they are strategic, and simple is often more memorable than busy. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have a logo that’s full of personality, this is part of why having a full brand suite instead of just one logo is almost always in your best interest. Never is a logo a one size fits all anymore. There are too many touch points, too many mediums to market your business on to try and make one logo fit in all of those different areas. At BrandWell, they create a brand suite for all their clients which includes a primary logo, a secondary logo, a submark, and a brand pattern. So, if your primary logo is busier, just make sure that you have a stripped down version of the busier logo to use when the busy one doesn’t, because your logo does need to be scalable, and sometimes those more intricate details are not very scalable.
Ignoring the Importance of Typography [10:53]
Typography is a fancy word for your font choice. Fonts may seem like a small detail, but they can have a huge impact on how your brand is perceived. Similarly to colors, a lot of people pick fonts based on personal preference and not based on strategy, but that can make or break the perception of your brand. Just like colors, fonts evoke certain emotions. A really bold, heavyweight font, will make someone feel differently than a thin stroke italicized font. So each of the fonts that are chosen for your brand kit will represent your business and determine how someone will perceive your brand. Using different fonts all the time can confuse your audience and dilute your brand. Stick to two or three fonts at most, one for headings, one for body text, and then maybe a decorative one for accents. You do not have to use the font that is in your logo in your marketing as one of your brand fonts, and sometimes it’s actually discouraged. If you have a decorative unique font used for your logo and let’s say it’s not a very long business name, then it’s probably best to not use that font anywhere else in your branding. Let your logo be unique, let your logo stand alone and capture somebody’s attention. It’s more important that you actually pick a font that’s complementary to the font in your logo, not necessarily one that matches it.
Final thoughts [14:43]
Victoria could probably go on and list another 15 mistakes that she commonly sees people making when it comes to branding, so let us know if you want a part two of this episode! (You can DM The Branding Business School or BrandWell Designs on Instagram!) These are the five most common mistakes that she sees a lot of entrepreneurs making when they’re DIYing their brand, and it’s skipping strategy and jumping straight into design, choosing colors based off of personal preference rather than strategy, having an inconsistent presence across platforms, overcomplicating their logo and ignoring the importance of typography. If you find yourself in any of these categories, don’t worry, you’re truly not alone. And now that you listened to this episode, you can go and implement what you’ve learned. Remember your visual brand is often the first impression someone has of your business and first impressions matter because you can’t get them back. So take the time to be intentional with every element, from your colors and your logos, to your fonts and just overall consistency.
Key Quotes
“One of the most important things to remember here is that your visual brand is for your audience, not for you.”
Victoria Marcouillier
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