15 Creative Ideas To Improve Your Brand Identity

MMG Consulting
brand identity

Contents

Brand Identity – 1st Step To Successful Customer’s Interaction

Do you know many brand services fail to establish their identity in the marketplace largely due to poorly constructed brand identity? At every level of business from the most experienced companies to the startups, company, newbie or experienced, needs to know that brand identity works similar to a special sauce that produces crave in customers to generate sales.

When it comes to making your own mark, you wouldn’t like being on the same shelf as every Tom, Dick, and Harry. And that’s exactly why you need to have a solid idea to craft a brand identity that works as a customer magnet. 

But what if you already have one and it doesn’t get enough attention in the first place? Despite your outstanding product and a team of professionals, yet customers ignore your brand. This is the time when you must have a second thought on your brand identity and think critically if it’s posing your correct image? You’ll need to choose the right color, relevant graphic design, logo, etc. that portrays the right perspective of your company. How can you group different elements in order, in different styles, to project a certain perspective?

If you already have a brand identity but need some changes to shine amidst the crowded rivals, I’m here to help you by showing 15 creative ideas to improve your brand identity.

A Meaningful Brand Strategy

Brand Strategy

It is the outline that defines exactly what you want to achieve and how you’re going to achieve your goal. And if you outlined it unprofessionally, you won’t stand a chance against your competitors to winning buyers’ interest and hence increasing your sales. So, having it properly designed eases your aim for creating a corporate identity design as you know exactly know what to show off.

You should consider the following points while rephrasing your brand strategy.

  • Your company’s purpose, mission, values, and vision.
  • How you want your audience to perceive your idea. This can be achieved by brand messaging which includes its voice, tagline, personality, etc.
  • And finally, the brand identity comprises color, logo, typo, etc.

If your brand strategy is not wisely fleshed out, you might end up losing communication with your potential buyers and eventually fail in your goal so it’s really important to have it done accurately prior to brand identity.

Redefine Your Current Corporate Identity Design

brand-corporate-identity

Congrats to you for having a brand identity but why it’s failing to acquire enough attraction? Did you really craft it with a critical eye and professionally? If not then you must really poke, inspect and prod your brand until you know what core points you might be missing.

Since the overall goal is to let your customer clearly understand your message, it is equally important that your brand is internally and externally perceived.

Be careful whatever brand identity you create has a “face”. And that “face” interacts with the entire world communicating your message. Let me clear the misconception that brand identity is not what you want to present but it is basically what customers want to know and engage with.

Your customer is always in search of an item that satisfies their demands. Since they won’t spend hours understanding your brand, your brand identity that resonates with their interest effectively will boost your company’s aim. Therefore, understanding your audience will help greatly in designing your brand identity.

Seek Your Competitors, Observe Their Strategy

You don’t just want a creative and perfect brand identity for a long-term goal, but you’d always want to stand out from your competitors and show them why you are the perfect brand customers have been looking for. But how you’re going to do it in a marketplace that’s crowded with your competitors and what’s worse is that at every corner, they’re there to steal away your chance to grow your business; this leaves you no choice but to sneak a peek into your rival’s strategy and find out how they’re doing it.

You must know how your brand compares with theirs in terms of perception and how they present themselves whether by visual themes, by trends, by visual elements, etc. This will help you blend in the marketplace with this smart move and increase your sales.

A Second Look At Your Creative Brief

brand-creative-brief

Is your branding profit’s graph gradually decreasing? Not getting enough sales? Maybe your creative brief isn’t “creative” enough. It’s a foundation for any project and it matters because it serves multiple purposes like providing relevant information for the project, acting as an anchor sticking everybody tight on the same page, and whatnot.

Yes, you have a creative brief that you think, in your opinion, will stand out. But it doesn’t hurt revisiting the basics of crafting a creative brief and who knows what wonders you may get by it.

  • Title: It must include the project name or other shorthand.
  • Overview: it must sum up the driving knowledge for the project.
  • Timeline: can include start, end date, etc.
  • Personas: Include your targeted audience.
  • Tone: Show ways to communicate with strong adjectives or feelings etc., and much more.

Revive Your Visuals

rebranding

Now that you have all the necessary information and survey reports either through competitive analysis, brand persona surveys, etc., you could have overlooked converting those figure-centric analytic reports to attractive visuals that stimulate interest and thinking on the subject. 

This is not just about slapping some visuals to quickly wrap up the work at hand but think of it as a communication medium. Right visuals really bring the words to life. To redefine your visuals, you can think what your current words make you visualize and then try tweaking them in a different but relevant way,

For example, if “fast” is your brand service, don’t talk about the word “fast” think about what a common well know example relates to fast. Like cheetah or Zeus etc.

Logo – Customer’s First Thought About Your Brand

brand-identity

Do you know that when people think of any brand, they instantly jump visualizing a logo? Designing a perfect graphic design is the biggest creative challenge and this is exactly why you need to make sure you are promoting your brand identity through the right logo,

But how to make sure any logo is right for your brand? How to critically think of a unique idea that promotes your message professionally? Here are some tips for it, see what can work best for you depending upon your type of industry and your competitor’s strategy.

  • Logomark: It’s a simple image like Nike and the Apple logo.
  • Wordmark: it’s a styled-font brand name like Coca-Cola or Gucci.
  • Combination mark:  It’s a combo of both image and styled font like Puma

Now that you’ve got the inspiration with these definitions along with popular examples, you need to do a little research on what makes a good logo. This will boost your brand identity and eventually the company’s goal. 

Studies have shown that certain shapes used in logos have a powerful impact on customer’s perceptions. For example, your logo with a circular shape could be associated with softness as caring or kinder, etc. While on the other hand, the angular shape will pose an attribute to hardness like durability.

Color – Means To Build Emotional Bond

Besides your logo being well-planned and professional, why your logo does not get enough attention as it should? Ask any customer and they might tell you that its color is what’s causing them to get away from your brand. A well-planned color palette greatly enhances the brand experience from product design to content.

To have the right color palette, you must have a keen attention to the following factors:

  • Differentiation: Because it’s super easy to draw the attention of customers, it can also provide a great way to differentiate in the marketplace. Some brands, by applying the right color, has left an irreplaceable impact on customer’s mind they don’t even realize like Apple with minimalist white,
  • Emotional response: Corporate identity design is parallel to building an emotional bond with customers and studies have shown colors impact greatly on the buyer’s mind. Vibrant color influences them to take quick action while light colors tend to feel customers relax as they’re on the right platform.

If you have un-professional and un-aligned typography with your logo, you’ll face great difficulty in achieving your company goals. Great typography is informed by logo shapes. 

But typography can also be tricky when the alleged brands are following trends like serif vs. non-serif. For you to stand out, you must use 2-3 font families to keep it simpler. These families can include primary and secondary typefaces for specific purposes.

Design System – Organize Well For An Effective Intro

brand design system

You can’t just combine your visuals, logo, or color the way you like. Bad combination of these results in brand identity decrement. Not only you want to give an effective introduction about your company, but you also want to make sure the customer really enjoys it and the best way to do it is by a true and cohesive presentation.

Intuitive hierarchy, the proper order of content including headers, sub-headers, body and etc. all can lead to an interactive and engaging design.

Photography – Grab Customer Attention Instantly

brand photography

It’s not surprising that customers, doing research, merely skims the content they read online so besides having great typography, logo, and color palette, photography can also represent the style and character of your company. This will not only draw instant attention of skimming customer but also enhance recognition to a level customer recognize by just looking at your photography.

So, you need to make sure your brand images align with the company’s essence, tell stronger stories, and make your organization unique. The best common example can be of Fashion Company like ASOS and a tech-focused company like Dropbox.

Illustration – The More Adaptable, The More Effective

logo illustrations

There is no better illustration than a human-centered design. Not only illustrations are an adaptable and effective means to build company reputation but communicate the company message in a way that is more demanding in today’s era.

For example, you can create a powerful illustration using vectors that favors clean images and translate your message better than words.

Iconography – Have Language-Independent Communication

brand iconography

Do you know that icons could be a language-independent and stand-alone element for your brand identity? And what’s the best part of it is its tiny presence within the content. But besides being a foundational element of illustration, they can also be daunting, and you should really think of following certain factors while embedding them into your brand identity. I’ve listed some of them here for your understanding:

  • Size: They should be size-consistent and well-proportioned. The best practice is aligning them in a grid system and increasing their size in multiples of the base size icon.
  • Color: use a single color, preferably black for a cleaner appearance. But you can use 2 colors as long it’s for marketing purposes but not more than that.
  • Grids: The only and great way to align your icons. If you want your icons to appear professional and cleaner, use grids to make your life easier.

Data Visualization – The Simpler, The More Readable

data-visualization

No doubt your data is well-curated and researched. But putting it in a complex chart system will make data manipulation difficult. So, to eliminate this problem you must have a chart that 

  • Doesn’t have irrelevant information like illustrations, shadows, etc. 
  • Have a minimum number of columns in your chart (max to 6 columns).

Keeping Up With The Latest Trend

Your competitors are really raising their brand identity by putting much effort through the latest technology and presentation methods. And if you aren’t updated with the news, you might be left far behind in this fast-growing era.

Today we have much incredible software that can promote your brand much effectively than the old-fashioned way. Brief intro videos, catchy motion graphics presentation are some of the notable trends that companies are really going after.

The Takeaway

So, grab these 15 creative ideas to improve your brand strategy as not only they’ll bring uncountable sales, make your organization prominent with flying colors but also side-step your competitors in the long run. Effective and well-designed brand strategy is keys to your successful company’s future.

And this is not the end, you’ll need a constant eye on what trends your rivals are following and what latest technology will support promoting your idea. Take these 15 creative ideas to improve your brand strategy as they are the proven tips that have helped entrepreneurs like you and had made a fortune for many.

So, what are you waiting for? Grab your laptop /notebook and start crafting your business’s future right away.