What does it mean to create a brand identity for your company? And how do you go about doing it? Creating a brand is crucial in today’s congested selling environment. With so many companies competing for a consumer’s attention and business, creating a memorable, strong brand is more important than ever.

What is a brand identity?  

According to the American Marketing Association, a brand is defined as the “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.”

Therefore, your brand identity is how you present yourself to your current and potential clients. It is also:

• The look and feel of your company.
• The name, design, logo, colors, and typography that you use to communicate your company’s mission.
• The impression that you leave with your current and potential clients. 

How do you develop a brand identity?

The foundation piece for creating a strong brand is working with a graphic designer to create a logo. A logo is so much more than your company name and a symbol. A well-designed logo should effectively communicate your company’s message, voice and stand out among your competition. Your logo is the foundation of your brand identity. 

In order to design an attractive and effective logo, your graphic designer should go through a multi-step project that includes:

1. Interviewing you to discuss your company’s services, offerings, and mission.
2. Researching your competitors and their logos. here is nothing worse than working with a designer that does not do their research only to find your logo looks way too much like your competitors.
3. Hitting the artboard and sketching ideas.
4. Working with a vector-based software program such as Adobe Illustrator to create several logo concepts to include:
   1. Finding the right colors that will make your brand stand out but also fit with your company’s message.
   2. Finding the right typography that works with your brand and is also practical to use on all applications; web and print.
   3. Creating a distinct “mark” that helps you to stand out and share your brand.
5. Presenting the logo ideas to you and any other stakeholders and talking through the ideas to come up with the direction for the final logo design.
6. Delivering the final logo design, typography and brand colors to you.
7. Creating a branding guide for you and your staff to use so that your new logo is used in a consistent manner.
8. Creating and sharing all the appropriate files that were created of your logo and logo icon for print and web use.

Branding is all about being consistent. Once you have your logo designed, your branding guide and all of your files, you are ready to roll! Remember to keep your brand identity consistent when you are creating posts for social media, blog posts and all communication that your company shares with the world. As you can see by looking at the Money Mentor Group’s Instagram account, all of the images created for their Instagram account have a consistent look and feel. It’s important to keep the brand colors consistent and use typography that works with your brand.

Another part of your brand identity is the language that you use, which helps create the “personality” of your brand. Your language, such as professional or casual, should match the visual brand identity that you’ve created. 

Branding is all about letting others know who you are, resonating with your ideal customers and helping them to remember you when they are in need of your goods or services. You want to communicate your company’s personality, style, mission, and purpose in a way that stands out and keeps you top of mind.