The Importance (and Difference) of Branding & Graphic Design
People are busy.
Nobody is really looking for something “new”, or more to do. So, how do you make something that’s compelling enough that they’d want to make a change in their lives to try?
The answer is: from the beginning, you find a way to engineer trust into transactions. So how does that happen? Through great graphic design and smart branding, of course.
People choose brands in the same way they choose their friends. It’s a gut feeling you get about a product, service or company. It’s communal, personal and emotional. It makes you feel something. To clear things up, the first thing you might be thinking about is a company’s logo. This is NOT A BRAND, people! It’s a logo – deriving from the word “Logos” which in Greek means “Word”. A trademark is not the brand itself. It’s merely a symbol that represents it.
Today, there are many things your brand can have and be. Here are some things to think about when building:
CORE PURPOSE
What’s the reason your company exists? What do you value? This should be a reasoning beyond profit and is crucial to developing something real.
(EMOTIONAL) DESIGN
In brand-building, designing is the planning or shaping of your product, services, environments or communications to create a visually positive experience. Emotional branding differs from this by aiming at customers’ feelings, through sensory experiences. Hit ’em in the feels. But how? When we feel and care for something, we’re much more willing to act. Here are four ways to appeal to someone’s emotional side:
- Focus on an Individual – We feel more for an actual picture of a starving kid than a “100 kids die from starvation daily” statistic thrown at us.
- Establish an Association – Allow people to associate something they do with something you want them to care about.
- Appeal to one’s Self-interest – Tell customers what they stand to gain, not the features your product has.
- Relate to one’s Identity – We buy things that appeal to our identity: who we are, and what we value.
Think about how your product can appeal to your customer’s emotions, and you can begin to build true brand loyalty. And drive customers to talk about you with their friends. Which leads me to our next point:
SOCIAL NETWORKING
What attitude do you convey to your followers? Whether it’s fierce or friendly, the mood of your online presence is what also sets the tone of your brand. If you have someone grumpy behind the wheel of your social accounts, chances are that’s the way your brand is coming off (commenting back on Instagram posts, the captions of your content, etc.) This too is branding. Again, not just a logo put on multiple materials.
With this comes consistency. What message are you sending if your brand only posts once every month? People are more inclined to subscribe to your essence if they’re reminded on a healthy, regular basis. This does NOT mean sending 7 emails a day. This can be something small, like a tweet. But, make sure if you’re posting something on Twitter, there should be parallel content on your Instagram, too.
The bottom line here: The link between design and branding is important, and that having a top design team is to crucial to having a winning brand. If you have a product or company that you feel is life-changing, it only makes sense that your customers should feel the same – and that’s where we step in. We make your brand and design process easier than ever. A one stop shop.
Start your project with us and you won’t regret it. Promise. ; )