Brand identity design blog header with graphic text

What is brand identity design? Amp up your brand knowledge.

What is a brand? Some may think it’s a logo, but it’s more than that … it’s the perception of a company, the feeling you get when you think of them.

A company’s brand identity is not a logo. It’s the who, why, how and what behind your company – it’s how you feel when you think of them.

Brand identity design is the visual and conceptual representation of a brand. It includes elements like logos, colours, typography, and design elements. These distinguish your brand from your competitors, and create a consistent and recognisable image. Having a strong brand identity is critical in the long-term success of a businesses. And brand identity design it’s about conveying the strategic essence of a business through design.

How does Brand Identity design fit into your brand?

Look at the diagram below. Here you’ll see the various elements that compile a brand. There are variations of this, but it will give you an idea how brand fits in with the rest of a marketing plan. Ultimately, brand identity design falls into your companye’s corporate identity.

You’d start with Brand Strategy first. Thereafter you will roll out your Brand Identity elements. From there on you’d look at your Communications. Here you’d pay attention to your company itself. This would cover Operational (think of all the Administrative and Operational brand requirements, Internal Communications, External Communications and Culture (people related).

From there on, we’d tackle looking at your Marketing collateral and how you go to market. From sales brochures, through to sector specific collateral. For example if you’re an Investment company, you’d focus on your investor relations materials. Whereas if you were in Property Development, you may focus on billboards. We’d also look at your Digital Marketing … from your website through to influencer advertising.

Without planning your brand, you are simply throwing elements and collateral in the air, hoping they will land in the right place. Our team works with you to research, identify, strategise and put thoughts into a meaningful action plan.

Let’s go through the elements that make up Brand Identity

Brand Strategy

A brand strategy is a process and outcome that defines a company’s reputation, core values and positioning in the marketplace. During a brand strategy we analyse:

  • Your purpose, vision, mission and values
  • Competitor audits
  • Customer persona
  • Differentiation and positioning
  • Brand personality, voice, language and attributes
  • Communication core messaging
  • Visual identity mood board

A brand strategy is a collaborative process and can range from a basic overview to a comprehensive strategy. Chat to us about our brand strategy options and which best suits your stage of business.


Company Naming

It’s exciting when you plan your new company or even rebrand an existing one. Finding the perfect name is an ideal way to connect with your target market and help you reach your vision.

Company naming used to be a simple process – there were fewer companies around! But now, the competition for a well-named company and to be easily found online means you need to put time into naming your business.

Halo Media will help you with this critical part of your brand identity by developing company name options which align with your target audience, tone and market positioning.


Logo design

Your brand’s visual identity is first seen in your logo. A professionally designed logo sets you apart from your competition and gives you a recognisable identity. It’s an important first step in your brand identity design.

The logo design process needs to be carefully considered as there are numerous factors that influence a successful logo design. For example, we look at how well it will reproduce from a tiny web banner advert, through to a billboard. If the contrast is high enough to pass web accessibility standards and simple enough to embroider on a uniform or on your company signage.

Often a company will look at their logo in the micro … not looking at the big picture of future growth. Strong brand identity design means your brand is designed for longevity.

As part of our standard logo package, we create a mood board showing mockups of how your logo will look and a logo spec sheet which gives you a base guide on how to use your logo in full colour, black and white in addition to supplying your colours in CMYK, RGB and HEX.

Brand identity design example of a visual identity system
Example of a brand identity design visual guide including brand tone and keywords

Brand Systems

What are brand systems? The brand system is a set of visual and verbal elements that represent all or part of your company’s brand. You can use it to convey your brand’s personality to your audience and tell them what it stands for. Although it emphasises visual elements, it also encompasses intangibles, such as tone.

Examples of these components are shown below:

  • Logo: A brand’s logo, along with its use and application
  • Typography: The typefaces you can use
  • Colour: The accepted colours that align with your brand’s visual identity and personality
  • Imagery: Your brand’s visual style and the kinds of visual imagery used to complement it
  • Iconography: The symbols that identify a brand
  • Language: The tone and language your brand uses to express itself.

Visual identity

The visual identity is the, well, visual side of your brand identity design. We’ll have covered a great deal of it in your brand systems, but whilst that instructs you what to do, the visual identity actually rolls it out. It includes:

Corporate stationery

  • Business card design
  • Letterhead design (digital and printed if you want)
  • Email signatures
  • PowerPoint templates

Signage

  • Internal
  • External
  • Directional

Branded elements

  • Uniforms
  • Fleet branding

Visual identity covers a myriad of elements (especially when we start adding marketing material and digital marketing) but this gives you the point.

There’s a lot to cover in brand identity design, but hopefully this gives you an idea of what it covers and helps you to spot what you need to speak time on.

Are you looking for a partner to help you with your brand identity design? Then let’s connect and chat further.