Branding is an experience
Competition between businesses today is very tough. For brands to stand out among the crowd, a company’s branding needs to be unique and easily recognised by customers. “Design is the silent ambassador of your brand,” says Paul Rand – an American graphic designer.
When people think branding, they only think of the logo but it’s actually much more than that. The major focus will always be the logo but there are a lot of other elements that need to work together to create a strong branding experience.
What is Branding?
According to the dictionary: a brand is a unique design, sign, symbol, words, or a combination of these, employed in creating an image that identifies a product. Brand is a visual representation by which people can identify a brand or product.
However, powerful company branding depends not only on the aesthetic features of the brand elements, but also on the message and the emotional appeal behind it.
Just think of all your favourite brands; They resonate and evoke an emotion within you. It can be for a variety of reasons. When you first discover a new brand, you immediately experience an emotion. When the company has a very clever and smart execution of the logo, you will always remember it. It is the same if you have a frustrating experience on that brand’s website. When a user’s experience combines finding the info he needs on a website (UX) and an exciting experience (branding), these two complement each other.
What does Branding Consists of:
- Logos;
- Colours – Primary and secondary colour palettes;
- Typography – Primary and secondary fonts. Fonts allowed to be used on digital and print;
- Graphic elements – Illustrations; and
- Templates – How the brand should be applied to a variety of different mediums, i.e. Business Cards, presentations, etc.
Branding is not just the elements I’ve named above though. It is making sure that every aspect of your brand that the customer interacts with is consistent. This can be from print promo to an app, or even the way your customer service team interacts with them.
Branding is an entire experience, because your brand is not just your logo or colours. Just like your user experience of a website is not just a login or checkout screen. The way that a customer experiences your product is your company brand.
It is the end-to-end experience that a customer has when they discover or interact with your brand that creates an experience, and it can be good or bad. Quality of design determines the likelihood that a customer will recommend your product to a friend or family member. That is why creating a complete branding experience from the outset is vital.
