Photo by insung yoon on Unsplash
Long gone are the days when Internet interactions happened over text-only screens. In our increasingly visually driven digital landscape, image is – quite literally – everything. From video to photo, standing out in a crowded digital landscape is about making audiences see your brand and inspiring them to want to see more. This boils down to your visual branding: does it elevate your company’s appeal, and how does it impact the audience you’re trying to reach? It’s one thing to get your content in front of audiences – it’s another altogether to get audiences engaged. Today, we’re sharing our best tips to help you elevate the visual branding of your business, ensure brand cohesion, and attract new customers. Interested? Let’s dive in.
Be Careful with Color
Whether you’re happy with your current color scheme or are looking to revamp it, one of the most fundamental – and impactful – things you can do is to be consistent. Decide on your primary and secondary branding colors, and stick to those in every piece of content you put out, from your logo to your blog posts. Sticking to your color scheme is one of the easiest ways to make your brand easily recognizable to customers; color association is a very powerful way to build your reputation. Color identity alone is an exciting, complex aspect of your branding – we definitely recommend working with a creative team in order to fully flesh out your company’s color story.
Give Your Fonts Some Thought
Another critical part of brand recognizability is your choice of font. Too often, company leaders put a whole lot of thought into the font(s) used on their logo, but not nearly as much as the ones used on their website or content pieces. Just like your branding colors, your fonts are a building block of your brand identity. Determine which fonts will be used for your website (primary headers, subheaders, and body copy), as well as smaller content pieces. Between consistent colors and fonts, you’ll have laid the foundation for a cohesive and recognizable brand.
Leverage the Power of Photo Editing
With photo and video being the two of most impactful forms of content online, it’s important that your brand’s consistency extend to your visual media. This means that all of your photos and videos should be edited to achieve the same general look. If your company’s vibe is whimsical and bright, your photo edits should reflect this with high brightness, bright whites, and no prominent shadows. If you’re all about down-to-earth dependability, your photos should be more gritty and grounded, perhaps with an emphasis on earth tones. If a picture speaks a thousand words, then intentionally edited photos speak a million on behalf of your brand identity.
Ensure Cohesion Across All Platforms
By now, it should be obvious that we’re really big on the “consistency is key” thing when it comes to your visual branding. Really, though – we cannot overstate the importance of sticking to the visual choices you make. Your social media posts should be edited with the same presets as the photos on your website; the colors in your videos and digital ads should complement your branding colors; your logo should be consistent in formatting everywhere it’s used. These small but powerful elements come together to tell a story about your brand, and getting customers to listen starts with knowing what story you’re telling.
Stay on Top of Graphic Design Trends
We’ve all seen the logos of popular brands make subtle but significant shifts over the years. As modern minimalism becomes increasingly popular, brands are quick to follow suit with changes to their own visual branding: simple fonts, one-tone backgrounds, and unobtrustive pastel shades prevail over text-heavy websites, elaborate design, and emerald tones. It’s important that your graphic design strikes that balance between staying true to your brand and keeping up with the times. Modern audiences don’t want to see text-heavy websites: they want to see beautiful images, short copy, and appealing colors. Failing to keep up with visual trends can make audiences perceive your company as dated or out of touch. Stay on top of design trends and make small shifts where necessary to make sure your visual strategy keeps giving audiences what they want to see.
The ability to elevate the visual branding of your business is as simple as having an well-thought-out strategy and being consistent with the choices you make. Visuals are one of the most powerful and impactful statements you can make about your company’s identity. Be confident, creative, and consistent – audiences will love to see what you have to offer. To learn more about what you can do to elevate the visual branding of your business, reach out to us..
