Showing posts with label New branding. Show all posts

Building Your Brand

If you remember, I did a rebranding in September this year. In this post I talked about why I decided to do a full makeover of my brand design. I also promised in that blog post that I would do some more blog posts on the topic of branding for you, so today we're taking a closer look at what branding is... and isn't.

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What does "branding" mean?

The Business Dictionary defines branding as:

The process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers' mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers.

Branding is what makes people think of you. It's not just the visual, but we'll go into that in a minute.

More than a logo

Of course, your logo is part of your branding. It's your symbol, and is generally placed on your marketing material. A logo doesn't have to be complicated or even have an image. In fact, a simple text logo can actually be better.

For my new logo I decided to go with simple text. Depending on the logo you choose you might want to have an alternative logo too. For example I have two.

Logo:

Alternative logo:

The alternative logo is just a simplified version of the logo. This is in case I need a transparent version to use (without the background colouring).

Colour scheme

Whilst your logo is something people will immediately identify with your brand, your colour scheme also plays a role.

This is my main colour palette for my brand:

Using the same colours helps people identify your brand, and gives consistency.

Fonts

I use BEBAS NEUE, Aileron Thin, and Verdana as my main text fonts. Using the same fonts across the board is also a visual part of your branding. Again consistency.

What about the non visual part?

This is the most important part of your brand. This is what people think of when they think of you. What words do people use to describe you, and therefore ultimately, your brand?

What personality adjectives describe you?

adaptable, adorable, agreeable, alert, alluring, ambitious, amusing, boundless, brave, bright, calm, capable, charming, cheerful, coherent, confident, cooperative, courageous, credible,cultured,dashing, dazzling, debonair, decisive, decorous, delightful, determined, diligent, discreet, dynamic, eager, efficient, enchanting, encouraging, enduring, energetic, entertaining, enthusiastic, excellent, excitable, exuberant, fabulous, fair, faithful, fantastic, fearless, frank, friendly, funny, generous, gentle, good, happy, harmonious, helpful, hilarious, honorable, impartial, industrious, instinctive, jolly, joyous, kind, kind-hearted, knowledgeable, likable, lively, lovely, loving, lucky, mature, modern, nice, obedient, painstaking, peaceful, perfect, placid, plausible, pleasant, plucky, productive, protective, proud, punctual, quiet, receptive, reflective, relieved, resolute, responsible, righteous, romantic, sedate, selective, self-assured, sensitive, shrewd, silly, sincere, skillful, splendid, steadfast, stimulating, talented, thoughtful, thrifty, tough, trustworthy, unbiased, unusual, upbeat, vigorous, vivacious, warm, willing, wise, witty, wonderful, zany, zealous.

So when you're thinking about your branding make sure you take into consideration all the above elements to ensure a professional look, and most importantly, more effective branding.

In this post we've looked at branding in general. This is the basic stuff that you can use on your website, blog, marketing materials, etc...

For the authors amongst you, branding can be used for your books too. Maybe you use the same fonts on all your book covers, or a certain style, or elements. For example, author Nicholas Sparks often has an image of a couple almost kissing on his romance covers. Again, using the same fonts across your books can help brand them. I'm happy to change the fonts on any of my available premade book cover designs should you require it. As well as my premades, I also offer custom cover designs too, and so can definitely help you brand your books.

You might also like: Tips for a Successful Brand Photo Shoot

How would you describe your brand? Do you have consistent visual branding? Let me know in the comments below. Also feel free to ask questions. I love a good discussion 😉

You may have noticed a slight change around here over the past few days...

I decided to give my branding a full makeover. I wanted something that was simple, but also a bit special, and of course, professional looking. Given that I'm a wearer of any hats it also needed to be generic. I love the result and hope you do too.

Jo Linsdell - Author, Graphic Designer, Illustrator

There's still a few small bits and pieces to update, and I'll be getting to those over the next few weeks. For the most part though, I'm ready.

I've also now updated all my social media sites with the new branding too so that I'm recognizable across the board.

So why the change?

Well, this is something I've been wanting to do for a while but just didn't have the time until now. The old branding style was simple and did the job, but I felt it was lacking personality. It was time to freshen up. With the kids going back to school again this month I finally have some time to work on my to do list of projects.

Another reason for the change happening now is that I've been working on putting together my portfolio of premade book cover designs, and will be doing a big launch for the service in October. It seemed like a good idea to get all the new branding in place beforehand ;)

Some of you that have been around here for a while may be asking "but didn't you start doing book covers a while ago?" You are correct. I started this new venture earlier this year but have only been in beta phase until now. The past few months have been about discovering how I wanted to do things, researching pricing, sales channels to try, etc... I now have a clear idea of how I want to do things so that I can offer you the best service and products.

For those of you interested in knowing more about branding, brand mood boards, etc... I'll be doing some blog posts soon on the topic as I think it's something fellow creatives might find useful. In the meantime if you have any specific questions please feel free to post them below in the comments section.