If you’ve been around for a while you know that I’m totally obsessed with brand strategy and talk about it all of the time, and if you are new you can read more about my love for brand strategy here, here, and here.
But let’s be real, developing a brand strategy can be a lot of work and take a long time to perfect and establish.
While I find brand strategy as an integral part of a successful brand, I know that it doesn’t fit into everyone’s budget and sometimes you need something quick to start moving the needle in your business. Enter: Design VIP days (read more about all of the details here). These VIP days are a great way to work closely in a one-day sprint to get your brand launched. I reserve my whole day just for you, and by the end of the day, you will have the important elements of a brand identity needed for your business.
Unfortunately we can’t complete a full brand strategy in one day, I can only do so much. But we will waste no time! So dive in with me:
It is important that your brand has thought, intention, and some strategy behind it to ensure that it makes sense for your target audience. A good brand identity ensures that it will last long past current trends, and is true to your brand’s values and goals.
Before I start designing I’ll take a look at who you are and what your goals are for your brand and find ways to convey this through the design.
I’ll put together a mood-board illustrating ideas and elements we will use to reach your goals. I will also always put together a color pallet that uses color psychology to ensure your colors are evoking an appropriate emotion for your brand. Once the mood-board and color palette have been approved by you, we move onto the actual design of your brand.
For Park 21 Design it was important that the brand was neutral to showcase Emily’s interior portfolio while also providing a pop of color for interest and personality to create an appropriate mood for the audience.
After getting to know Emily, I had a good idea of who Emily is and who she wanted her brand to be, allowing me to begin designing!
“Refined. Timeless. Not trendy” were the words given by Emily that really guided my design decisions for the logo. I wanted the logo to be refined yet approachable and to have shapes with structure that would allude to interiors and architecture.
I noticed that Emily uses lots of natural and weave textures in her interior designs so I knew I wanted to incorporate that into her brand. Inspired by this I created a brand pattern that feels organic and mimics this use of texture that she commonly uses. This brand pattern can be blue and bold to draw attention to areas or can have a lower contrast to add a more subtle texture to the brand or website.
During our Design VIP day I also developed a color and typography system for Emily to use. I wanted to use an unexpected font system that was fun yet approachable. With this in mind, I established a system using multiple typefaces that are formatted so that they create hierarchy throughout the copy.
After the brand identity has been designed it doesn’t stop there. It’s important that you actually know how to properly use your brand elements to maintain its integrity to keep everything consistent and cohesive. Consistency makes your brand memorable and builds brand recognition. You want everything to be cohesive so that everything you put out looks on-brand and as if it came from the same place and making sure that it’s always communicating the same message.
The best way to do this is through brand guidelines. Brand guidelines can also be known as a brand manual, brand book, brand bible, or identity manual, etc. Although these guidelines are known by many different names they all do the same thing: share a set of rules or guidelines so that you or anyone on your team can keep your brand consistent and looking good.
For Park 21 Design we created a set of guidelines that included:
Overall a VIP day includes a lot of work to get done in one day, but is incredibly effective in providing a launching pad for your business. All of these elements work together to present an established brand that will showcase that you are professional and trustworthy. There is a lot that goes into brand strategy and simply having these elements isn’t enough. It is important that these elements are used in an effective way and used regularly.
Want to know more about VIP days? Check out this blog going into all the nitty gritty.
Already know that a VIP day is exactly what you need? Schedule your VIP day here!