How to Create a Consistent Brand Identity

Building a strong brand image and creating a consistent visual identity is so much more than choosing a nice logo and sticking it on all of your ads. There are many more aspects of your visual identity that need to be considered and it can often feel overwhelming just thinking about where to start.

In our recent blog about branding for small businesses, we covered why having a strong brand identity is so important.. but here, we’re going to discuss how! 

Years of working with clients and creating brand identities has given us a wealth of knowledge and expertise, so we’re going to share our key thoughts on how you can create a consistent visual identity. 

Why is it important in the first place?

Firstly, let’s have a quick recap on why creating a consistent visual identity is so important. 

Consistency is KEY. 

Consistent communication is important because every single touchpoint in your brand communicates something to your audience. If the visual components of your brand are communicating different things, your message is going to get lost in translation. So, let’s get into how to achieve it…

Develop your brand guidelines.

To ensure consistency in all aspects of your branding, it’s crucial to have a set of brand guidelines that you can refer back to. These guidelines will include elements such as your brand tone of voice, your colour palette, your typography, logo and imagery.

Having all your brand assets documented in one place that you can constantly refer to means you can use them across your different marketing platforms consistently, displaying a cohesive brand image.

If you’re just starting out, don’t panic! Guidelines don’t need to rival War & Peace, they can be a few pages that define your colour codes, what fonts you use and how to use them and other key brand components.

Top tip: Don’t forget to make sure that your team is trained to follow these guidelines too. Whether it’s the way they sign off their emails or how they manage your social media, ensuring that any employees know how to present themselves and the brand also strengthens your brand identity.

Use templates and style guides.

Using templates and style guides is a simple but effective way to make sure you’re remaining consistent with your visual identity, as well as being easy for your team members to access and follow. 

You can set up lots of different types of templates, for example your social media posts, your email newsletters or your presentation decks. Setting up Instagram templates that are simple to edit will help your grid look clean and consistent in no time. By sticking to these templates, all the different content you post will work in harmony with each other and present a clear brand image to your audience. Having this visual fluency is important, as it will make you look professional and considered whenever your audience scrolls through your content.

Make sure your messaging is on the mark, consistently.

When we discuss brand identity, it’s tempting to think this just refers to the way your brand looks, but in reality it’s a lot more holistic than that. We like to think of brands as people, and while how a person presents themselves through their clothes and make-up contributes to their overall personality, how they speak and express themselves is an undeniably big part of their overall personality too. 

Your brand’s tone of voice, the way it speaks and engages with customers is so important, and having a strong grasp on it will help you be consistent in your communication.

Let’s look at Patagonia. They have a clear, solid commitment to the environment that comes through strongly in their brand voice.

One of the company's most well-known campaigns, "Don't Buy This Jacket," advised customers against purchasing their best-selling jacket at the time. Instead, the campaign encouraged eco-friendly alternatives such as reducing consumption, repairing garments, reusing materials, or recycling. Now that’s how you use your messaging to showcase what you stand for! You can create powerful marketing campaigns that align perfectly with the rest of your brand image just by using your own unique tone of voice and ideas.

If in doubt, remember your brand purpose.

Every good branding brief should begin with self-reflection. At Freckle, we know that this is the best place to start when constructing your brand identity. 

We use Simon Sinek’s model, The Golden Circle, to help establish a brand's what, how and why. This model is based on the theory that the most successful brands in the world all have something in common - they go far beyond just selling the practical offerings of their business by connecting with their audience through sharing their values and beliefs. 

Sinek say’s “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”, which prompts the question “why are we in this business?”. Through using this model, we uncover your businesses' deeper purpose and reason for existing. This helps us to establish a brand that has deep roots and the ability to connect with people.

Patagonia is a great example of a brand that uses The Golden Circle model. They are an outdoor clothing company that puts sustainability and conservation at the heart of everything they do. Their brand mission is to “build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis”. This purposeful mission is a part of every decision they make.

By staying true to your own brand purpose, your marketing messages will remain consistent and so will your brand image.

Align your brand with like-minded partners.

It’s no secret that influencer marketing is a key marketing strategy for brands online right now. Going back to thinking of your brand as a person, ask yourself, who would they hang out with?

This can work for brand partnerships, collaborative competitions or influencer content. Whoever you choose to partner with, you’ll want to ensure that they represent your brand in the best way possible.

Ask yourself questions like, ‘Do they appeal to the same target audience as my business?’, ‘Do they have similar interests to our customers?’, ‘Do they have a similar personality to our brand?’.

Much like with people, who we associate ourselves with becomes a major part of our visual identity, so it’s important not to rush into collaborations or working with influencers just because they have a large following. Make sure you’re surrounding yourself with the appropriate partnerships.

Monitor your brand and get feedback.

After following all of the stages above, make sure to check back in and review how your brand identity is looking. Check everything from your social media to your email sign offs, has it all remained consistent? Is the language and tone of voice uniform? Are your team following the guidelines? You can also ask for honest feedback from your audience, friends or family. It can be difficult to see your brand identity from an outsider's perspective after you have put lots of thought and effort into building it, so keep checking with those around you and always monitor if you need to change anything.

By following all of these key points, you will not only create a consistent visual identity, you will also be ten steps ahead of your competitors.

Any questions? 

Get in touch with us today to see how we can help you build your dream brand!