Understanding Visual Identities in Branding
Much like our blog on designs systems, the visual identity at its core is a very straight forward concept, but also one with scope to become more complex. A visual identity is a larger design system that is more developed around a brands specific needs and the touchpoints its customers or clients interact with, aiding stronger story telling, connection opportunities and in turn sales or sign ups.
Let’s break this down so that you can understand how a brand might benefit from a visual identity, when you might, or might not need one and some of the advantages and disadvantages depending on your company’s size and stage of growth.
In smaller and boutique startup businesses a simple design system consisting of a logo, brand typography and colour palette are common entry point. This can be all you need to get started and begin trading while looking professional in your space.
A business will quickly need to add to these initial assets as they start to grow. Most businesses in their initial branding will include one or two additions that are essential to what they do. This might be a social media banner, one or two templates, business cards, or a specific logo mockup for their works vehicle. As the business grows they will then look to augment these assets with itmes linked the the business growth, designs for the new website, custom packaging, inhouse designs for their premises, the list is endless in terms of possibilities.
Where the visual identity comes into play is often through two paths. A startup with a clear vision of their business, who they are trying to reach and a budget to invest in their branding to help them grow from day one. The second is the smaller business we already talked about who has gone through the early stages of growth and is ready to start acting more strategic with their brand communications, often seeking a soft, or strategic rebrand to showcase their brand and position themselves more confidently in their market, or market segement they have chosen to pursue.
In both of these cases a visual identity that is more direclty targeted at telling the brands story, reaching customers across platforms and touchpoints and most importantly, able to communicate with clarity and consistency wherever people interact with it.
Where the visual identity finds its strength is how it is able to be applied, offering a larger brand footprint and in turn a clearer path to sales and connetion opportunities. Where a start up has a logo, the visual identity might have ten additional brand illustrations, and extended colour palette for different settings, custom packaging, a full suite of social media designs and multiple templates within a system of story telling, custom uniforms, branded murals for business premisses, a bespoke web experience, crafted pitch decks, again the list can be pretty long, but the individual items matter less than what it is the business is trying to achieve with its brand story telling. In essence it’s the design of an ened to end design ecosystem foe where the business is, but also where it sees itself growing towards in the next period of time.
The big advantage to a visual identity is that you feel less hindered by your design assets and can speed up communication as well as apply more sophisticated applications. For example, a coffee shop with three types of coffee beans for sale can place their logo on the bag and differentiate origins and belnds with a cleanly labelled logo, perfectly acceptable. however, A coffee shop with a visual identity can present the bags in different colours from their extended colour pallete and instead of just applying their logo, now each bag has one of their custom brand illustrations. This deepns the ownership of the product by the brand, brings a level of sophistication in the consumers eye, but importantly, it speeds up the customer experience and interaction. Now they aren’t picking from a drab brown bag, but picking their favourite from a collection. This also means that next time they know which coffee was their favourite, or if a new colour or illustration pops up on their next visit, then they immediately know a new bean has dropped, something a solo logo and label would not be able to communicate hands free. Of course this is a physical and real world example, but the same is true of the online spaces brands operate.
While it might be easy to say that all brands should have a visual identity, the reality is more nuansed. As a start up, If you have a clear vision of your direction and growth plan and are ready to get into the weeds with your designer to shape a brief that can fit your brand needs, then a visual identity is an excellent investment and one that will enhance your brands visual confidence, visual communications and drive more sales and communication opportunities. However, its ok to wait to make this investment and make it part of your first strategic rebrand. A good rule of thumb is that if you don’t have a clear vision for the next five years, then you might not get the most value from a visual identity and should look a establishing a rock solid foundational branding system.
The final thing I want to touch on is what we are calling asset growth. Even within a visual identity brands evolve quickly as they grow and one of the advantages of having a more developed identity system is that growing the brands assets and IP is easier as the brand is defined by a clearer set of guidelines and principles. Where smaller brands can struggle to maintain consistency as they grow, visiaul identities have more developed guardrails, something that is even more important as you employ more people to manage the day to day application of the branding itself.
For the smaller business owner reading this and thinking, this feels a bit much just now, then don’t worry. Businesses starting with an entry level branding system (logo, typography and colour) can still benefit from asset growth, adding strategic assets as they need them. We call these bespoke commissions at Fulcra Creative and it’s a great way to grow more steadily and invest when needed, such as a website, or custom packaging for example. Our last bit of advice in this situation is to make sure your initial logo and design system is created with your potential growth in mind. A designer that knows where you are hoping to take the business will anticipate how they might expand the branding should you come back to commission further asset growth.
There we have it, the visual identity, as complex as you need it to be, but at its core it is about providing more dynamic and consistent ways of reaching your clients and custmers and helping your brand to tell its story more effectively.
If you would like to hear more about how we work with our clients and share the ambitions you have for your next project, why not book in a discovery call, no hard sales, just a chance to say hi and to see if we can help.