Emotional brand storytelling can give your conversion rates a boost of 96%. So the way you communicate your business identity can be the difference between being just another speck in an overcrowded market and making a lasting impact on consumers’ behaviors.
To give you an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at branding, we sat down for an interview with our designer Mary Stoyanoff whose extensive experience and creative vision shine through the newest edition to our line of exciting projects – Glam Insight. In an insightful chat with her about the journey of bringing our platform to the public, we’ll introduce you to the ‘real deal’ of creating a brand from scratch. So if you’ve decided to DIY yours, here you can discover the common pitfalls of branding you should avoid in order to create something unique and memorable.
Contents
The big picture of branding
Contrary to popular belief, effective branding begins with reflection and research, not creative action. Before diving into the fun details, you need to take a step back and focus on the big picture of your business.
How to define a brand mission: A practical example
Within the branding process of the Glam Insight project, we started our journey by meticulously analyzing the market, as well as our competitors, and we quickly found a major issue that we wanted to provide a solution for. In a digital world framed by clickbaits and sensationalism, a lot of the information out there seemed superficial or even misleading.
That’s how we decided we wanted to position our platform as a trustworthy source of content on everything beauty-related and stand out with a fresh perspective on this fast-paced industry.
Defining your brand
If you’re a branding newbie and don’t even know where to start, rest assured that no question you could possibly ask would come as a surprise to our designer Mary. In her extensive career she has helped develop numerous successful brands in a variety of industries. Here’s her take on the very first steps of the process.
Interval: Building a brand from scratch can seem quite intimidating if you lack professional experience. Where do you start?
Mary: Right from the basics – defining your business, target audience, as well as your unique value proposition. Once you have a grasp of your brand identity, you are ready to start researching the market and brainstorming ways to position yourself among competitors. Working with a professional designer is a huge benefit throughout this stage. They can provide objective insights into the aspects of your business that make you stand out in your industry. That way you’ll have a clearer vision of your brand personality which will later become the engine for all of your marketing efforts.
Logo creation
After the key brand elements have been defined, you are ready to get creative.
Interval: Let’s talk logo conceptualization and development. Any tricks up your designer sleeve you’d like to share?
Mary: Ah, you sound just like a client! Logos are the most common request every designer gets especially from small businesses and start-ups. But it’s important to know – and I can’t stress this enough – your logo alone does not make your brand. It’s just a piece of a much larger puzzle that has to fit well with everything else in order for your brand to seem cohesive and to make sense for your customers.
Interval: Right, so how do you achieve that if you’re not a professional?
Mary: For starters, keep your brand values in mind during the brainstorming stage. The key concepts which motivate your business must also be reflected in your logo. Whether your ‘thing’ is elegance, action, endurance, luxury and so on – everything about your logo, from the font through the color down to the tiniest twirl, should embody it.
Interval: We did something similar when we first started working on the logo for Glam Insight, didn’t we?
Mary: Exactly. I initially developed several logo designs, each inspired by a particular idea, emotion or art movement. One was influenced by the Art Deco visual style which originated in 1920s France. Another – by the sensuality, femininity and overall symbolics of the bordeaux color. And the one that stuck in the end – by the ancient Arabic philosophies on beauty and elegance. The platform’s current logo is an embodiment of sophistication and reflects the profound connection between nature and femininity. When it comes to logo design, it’s incredibly important to rely on long-term trends rather than temporary concepts. If you want your brand elements to endure in time, you need timelessness, not short-lived craze.
Brand book development
So, what does branding entail beyond the logo? The answer to that question can be found in your brand book – a comprehensive guideline that defines the identity of your brand. It outlines key elements such as vision, values, logo usage, visual style, color palette, typography and more.
Sounds intimidating at first but once you have a clear notion of how you want your brand to be perceived, it all comes into focus. Lucky for you, Mary did not hold back on practical ideas and tips on brand book development.
Color palette
Interval: Choosing a color palette for your business can seem overwhelming at first. Are there any rules to follow?
Mary: The emotional responses you provoke with your selected palette will drive user attention and behaviors. So it’s important to understand how the human brain interacts with colors as a whole. Here we again circle back to the brand values in order to find which colors correspond to them.
Interval: How many colors is too many?
Mary: It’s generally recommended to stick to one primary color with two or three accent ones. You can experiment with hues and color intensity for the various visual elements but the essence of your palette should be pretty concise. Tools like Adobe Color are a great help if you have no prior experience with color pairings.
Interval: What challenge comes to mind when you think about this part of branding?
Mary: Client indecisiveness, definitely. Finding your style is a trial-and-error type of process but you have to stick with the choices you make. When we were creating the color palette for Glam Insight, our starting point was warm, neutral, soft nuances. We looked at key trends – color of the year and such. And from there it was just creative experimentation and testing which combinations worked best. But this would not have been an easy task if you didn’t have a strong grasp of your brand values and mission.
Typography
Interval: What do you look out for when picking fonts for a brand?
Mary: It’s smart to prioritize readability and scalability. Some people get carried away with the aesthetics – they pick up a pretty font and don’t consider whether it would still look as good on a billboard instead of a business card. That’s a rookie mistake.
Interval: But is aesthetics not equally as important?
Mary: It is, but there are plenty of subtle ways to highlight it. Glam Insight is a perfect example, actually. The main font on the logo is quite unusual, it catches the eye and it has a symbolic element – the drop forming in the lowercase “a”. But the secondary font, Avenir Next, offers a fresh twist on a classic design for improved digital readability. It’s also a part of a diverse font family, which makes it optimizable for a variety of online channels – blogs, social media, etc.
Interval: How do you achieve harmony in font pairings?
Mary: Look out for contrast, font weight and mood. Just like colors, fonts too are associated with various concepts. The ones that work for brands like Glam Insight might not be the best choice for a clothing line for teenagers, for instance. If in doubt, there’s plenty of tools that you might find useful – Fontjoy is a solid one. And hey, I know I’m biased, but you can always consult a professional.
Branding isn’t just about slapping a logo on your product – it’s a layered process filled with crucial steps that lay the foundation for your business’s success. From defining your mission to crafting a cohesive brand book, every element plays a key role in shaping how your brand connects with the world. That’s why winging it won’t cut it.
Building a brand that’s memorable, professional, and impactful requires expertise and strategy. So, if you’re serious about standing out, trust the pros. A skilled designer or marketing agency can help turn your vision into a brand that people will love – and remember.
