46 – Visual Branding Podcast

Podcasts - ArtVersion

Show Notes:

Welcome to the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast presented by ArtVersion Creative Agency. Tune into Podcast 46 for more on visual branding. We are going to discuss:

• What visual branding is
• Why we should be utilizing
• Brand consistency
• How visual branding can help your business

Transcript:

You are listening to Rediscover Your Brand Podcasts brought to you by ArtVersion Interactive Agency.

Welcome to the Rediscover Your Brand Podcasts! I’m your host Mike McCormick and, you know, for the past couple of weeks we catch strictly on an Internet focus. We’ve gone down many steps talking about the nitty gritty small items that really cover a lot of specs.

But then we’ve gone into simple. You know, more kind of tools and marketing strategies that the Internet offers. We’ve talked about different mobile platforms we’ve gone pretty far. We’ve covered, responsive in and out on both angles. And the Internet has done us what it should. It has brought us to this point where we need to be.

Especially last week when I brought up email promotions with the holiday season and SBC every year. The internet is progressing more for our businesses to use more strategies. Especially in this time of year since it is the holiday season. So, with that in mind, I wanna talk about a little different type of focus today. I know the internet has been kind of our main focus for a while now for a little bit over a month and we’ve done a lot of ins and outs. We’ve given a lot of great strategies and tools, and we’ve talked about SEO. We’ve talked about content and we talked about responsive web design. We talked about ecommerce sites and now you can improve them. Then we went all the way to email promotional, you know, marketing strategies on how you can promote your email marketing strategies.

I really like the Internet and I like where it’s taking us and where we’re going. And there are a ton of topics for us to be talking about. In the next upcoming weeks, there’s going to be a lot more topics that we can keep pushing with the Internet. But today I kind of wanted to talk about a little different topic, and this topic can be reflected to the Internet because aspects of this topic are brought already into the Internet and they’re used in the Internet. But this topic covers your whole strategy plan altogether. So today I really wanted to discuss visual branding.

And you know when it comes to visual branding, there’s a lot of different aspects that you can do, and there’s a lot of things out there that you can do. So I’m going to go over some quick stuff, some easy facts and easy things that you should implement. I’m not telling you how you should design your visual aspects, that is completely up to you. You’re the ones you create your own brand, and then you should go out there and figure out what works best for you.

But I am going to give you some quick insights on why we should really be utilizing it, what visual branding and brand consistency is. Why we need to be consistent and how visual branding can really help your business. And I’m going to always leave that door open like I always do.

And I’m going to go with it from there, but the one thing about visual branding is it does reflect on every aspect that you do. So when I said we’re kind of leaving the Internet, everything that I said today is going to reflect back to the Internet because the Internet is sort of that focus.

That really needs to be out there with a lot of these visual branding things so you know, reflecting back visual branding will reflect back on that. Since we’re drifting away from the Internet, don’t be a little too, you know, pushed away from it. We will come back to it, but this does technically reflect on it, so let’s get started. Let’s get this ball rolling right now.

What do we want to talk about today? Let’s start with the topic of what is visual branding.

A lot of people get this mixed up compared to what is branding. Visual branding and branding are pretty different when your branding is kind of this bigger topic, but visual branding is like a smaller aspect in it when it comes down to all the visual elements in the design elements that you implement into your brand.

Visual branding is kind of like, you know, your visual logo, your brand mascot, just the different things that are utilized to show your brand visually to the public. And it’s kind of a little different because it doesn’t really go into how you’re going to present slogans. Now you’re going to present your content strategies with it. This is more kind of just the visual aspect of your logo. What’s your brand mascot? What visual aspects of the design elements are really out there today that are being utilized to show your brand?

So that’s visual branding. Now branding as a whole is a completely different subject that you know we could take awhile on and it’s just a lot easier if that was set aside to have its own podcast. Because today we only want to discuss visual branding and the different elements that go with it. So to move on there, we all want to know why should we use visual branding? What about visual branding is going to keep me on-board? Is it going to keep me on track, is it going to keep me wanting to use it when there are so many other things that could do so many other marketing strategies? But when it comes down to it, visual branding affects a lot of your other marketing strategies in general.

But you should utilize it because you gotta create that face. You gotta create that logo that people you know can side with when you look at larger businesses and it comes down to like their visual branding in their logos. You see certain logos that when you see it and it doesn’t even have the organization’s name or the business of the company or the corporate name across it. But you see the logo, and all of a sudden it just clicks. You say you know that logo goes with that company no matter what.

You know we want to try and build that within our visual brands. That’s really why we should be utilizing that. We want to build that consistency where people know they can visually see who we are and what we do without having to really pull it apart and think about what is going on with inside our brand. And that’s the visual branding aspect that comes to it. You know you see a lot of large brands and when it comes to their logo, people understand the logo before they even understand anything else that comes with the business because they know the logo. They see the logo design.

So and that’s what they go with it and it goes with the color schemes and it goes with everything. So this is kind of really why we should be utilizing visual branding right there. It’s really simple. Straight to the point. And you’re creating that visual gap. That element between your target audience in yourself, and it comes down to knowing your target audience. And knowing what they’re looking for. If it hasn’t been working, your visual plan hasn’t been working now you know what your target audience is looking for. You know, give them those visual elements and we’ve seen in the past with other organizations.

They had one complete logo and this is who they were forever and they decided they were going to change it within. You know, as short as a week I’ve seen it with some companies, but you know some other companies it took up to a good. You know two or three months or they decide to jump back to the old logo because people you know saw that. So always remember.

Thinking about the reasons why and where your company is going and on the visual aspects that you have always think about, you know your target audience and I’ve said it so many times it all my other podcasts. But it really comes down to knowing your target audience. Knowing what they’re looking for and you can go there from there.

Brand consistency is the next topic. I really wanted to talk about it, and this is huge with visual branding because we have many times where you know there are larger organizations, even some smaller ones where you have different departments who you know they’re using different stuff with the logo with your visual aspects and they’re not communicating. So you get people who have this file, which is a huge logo and they want to put in an email and it smashed down really small and crumpled up and it just doesn’t look right. We see that a lot.

You know, sometimes the logo just doesn’t look good in black and white, or people are trying to make t-shirts and they’re trying to blow the logo up. And this and that. So we really gotta figure out brand consistency and figure out a way that we have a dynamic logo that looks good in any setting and you really gotta stand out with that, especially with black and white because things are going to get a photocopy. Things are going to look different all the time.

If you’re creating an intricate design that has you know too much gradients in it, and the second you put it in black and white’s not gonna look as good as it could. So when it comes to building consistency, remember all your department’s with inside your organization who are probably going to be utilizing that for letterheads, emails, envelopes. When you’re making stuff across different medias, if it’s going to be in black and white, it’s going to be in color. If it’s going to be 1000 different colors. Because there are organizations out there who change the colors little logo, sometimes you see it in red. Sometimes you see it in green. Sometimes it’s in blue, yellow, pink, black. You know it’s in all different colors, so you gotta remember you had to create a logo that’s diverse to handle.

The amount of colors that are out there and was really where it comes with brand consistency. To think about, you know how it’s going to consistently flow across and you should be able to. You gotta start thinking about creating templates. If you have an email template everyone’s emails gotta have the same signature at the bottom with this team logo.

Instead of people trying to figure out how to make that themselves in the office, create an email template if you’re sending out certain letters. Create a template for a letterhead template. You know if it’s envelopes you know, make sure you print enough envelopes that are exactly the same. If it’s t-shirts, make sure that the logo is placed right. Create these templates out there that create the brand consistency. Make sure it’s available and it will last in different colors, especially black and white. So you want to have a solid design that’s you know represents who your brand is, but is not that intricate.

So you can have an awesome logo because if it’s really intricate, it’s not gonna look good. Especially in black and white. You’re going to see the lines in this nut and it’s just not gonna be what you can truly want it to be. So really think about you know how it’s going to look across all different medias, because this is your brand. This is your logo, and if it doesn’t look scaled down from a large photo or scaled up from smaller photo, it’s gotta look consistently exactly the same. You know when the different sizes and the different changes you don’t want things to look smashed or stretched out. You want them to look perfectly the same. So when designing your logo, create a logo that is diverse enough that you can be able to do that, and then you know have those templates on hand with your logo in it for the different medias. You know that you’re possibly going to be using so people don’t have to in your office. Try and create what they what they want out of their email or their letterheads envelopes. There you have to try and recreate that with your logo when it just doesn’t come out right because remember, your brand is what people the visual branding elements are. What people you know they connect your brand with, they see that they understand that they believe that it’s their thing.

So that’s kind of where you have to go with it. Let’s move on. Now, how can visual brand branding help your business? This is kind of this is simple straightforward topic. I’m going to briefly cover this because there’s so many elements that come into how we can help your business. I’m just going to give you an overview, let you adventure out and go find out what you really need. But like I’ve said throughout this whole podcast, visual branding is basically a way of connecting between your target audience.

If you’re business-to-customer, it’s that visual element that they’re going to remember you by. It’s the like a symbol that creates your identity. Say you have a mascot. People will remember your mascot, you know. Think about larger companies who have had mascots forever. When it comes to thinking about that company, we really think about the mask as being like the face. The leader of this cartoon type of mascot. This fictional unrealistic leader who was there and that’s their company. So bring that to people? Remember that people grow to love that they go to learn it. It becomes something that excites them and involves them in. With that in mind, that’s how you can build your business and build your target audience with it. Remember they’ll pass it on to other people, and your audience will just keep growing.

Those visual elements that they can see and remember. So that’s the simple way there. But when it comes to the how, there’s so many fun and amazing benefits that go along with it. It just really comes down to you venturing out, finding out how it fits for your organization and if it will help with your target audience. Because, remember, out of everything that visual branding reflects upon and how amazing it is, you always have to remember to know your target audience in what they’re looking for. Your target audience has to like your visual elements and it has to be appealing to them. It has to pull them in for the reasons why.

So really, start thinking about your target audience, who they are and what they can do for you. And then you know you could grow with your target audience. From there, if you just give them what they want because there’s so many other people out there who have the same desires as them, they just don’t know it. And you also don’t know it. Many of us don’t know it too, but our audiences can potentially be a lot larger than we think.

Visual branding. It’s just fun and exciting. But this does cover all things, especially like I said, we weren’t talking about the Internet before, but your logo has to go somewhere on your website. You have visual elements on your website design that reflects all of your print media and anything that you send out. Emails, newsletters, business cards. It’s that visual element. Visual branding does reflect a lot, so I always keep a lot of these tips in mind.

Go out, venture, and find out what really suits your company or organization. Embrace that, but keep it clean and keep it consistent. And have fun with it.

Well, that’s about it for episode 46 of the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast. I’m your host Mike McCormick and this has been brought to you by ArtVersion Interactive Agency. You may contact us on Facebook, Twitter, or our website. Thanks for listening!

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