What is a brand identity?
Moreover, see brand in visual form and ensure it appears wherever you display your logo, site and materials. Additionally, these elements help build a small business brand identity across touch-points, from cards to uniforms and the logo colours.
Many know corporate identity as branding, but a clear brand system covers far more than graphics.
Additionally, as a brand identity design studio, we create dozens of brands for businesses of all sizes.
I don’t like the term corporate identity, as it suggests only corporate companies should have one brand identity.
Additionally, that’s not true for small businesses seeking a memorable market presence.
The strategy behind any form of branding is marketing, research and a focused plan.
To build a small business brand identity, every business, regardless of size, must market itself to stay in business, attract customers and support sustainable growth.
As a small business, you may not have a giant sign on your office building and you may not even have a fully fledged office but you do have assets of some sort. It might be a vehicle, a pen, a website, social media page or the shirt on your back. Any and all of these things can be used to build a brand identity and promote your business.
The basic premise of a brand identity design is to communicate your company purpose, mission and professional image:
- Communicate a message
- Communicate it consistently
- Communicate it uniquely
- Communicate it repeatedly
- Use it to create a relationship with your customers
- Resonate with your customers
Your brand identity creates a visual link with potential customers and your target audience. Even if they don’t know your business yet, they will recognise you through your logo design, visual identity and assets. Each element communicates something at a glance. Over time, recognition grows as familiarity builds.
As a result, they can identify your brand and remember it. When they need services like yours, your identity comes to mind. That recall depends on consistency across colours, type, imagery and messaging. A strong visual system supports this process to build a small business brand identity over time.
Ultimately, consistency makes your brand memorable, credible and trustworthy. Invest in clear brand guidelines so every asset reinforces the same story. A deliberate design system speeds recognition across online and offline channels. That is how you create a lasting market presence.
How to build a brand identity for your small business?
1. A logo design
Firstly, a good logo design balances technical details with emotion. Additionally, to create a good technical logo design, use a vectorised logo. It uses vector software to reproduce the logo perfectly at any size and keeps it accessible for modern business applications.
You’ll also want to consider the sizing on your logo design. More often than not, this is where an amateurish logo design will fail. To create one that’s sized and spaced proportionately and pleasingly to the eye, you’ll want a logo design that’s created with a grid or the Fibonacci scale in mind. To find out more read this practical guide.
How to create the perfect logo design.
In addition, you’ll want your logo in a variation of layouts to use in different spaces, platforms and branded materials. eg. A portrait layout, a landscape layout, a type-mark layout, an iconic layout.
Visually, the logo design will be the beacon for your business but also act as a springboard and foundation for the rest of your brand identity design, allowing all other materials to be built upon it.
To create a brand identity you need to fulfil the following brand elements and establish a cohesive visual system.
To create a brand identity you need to fulfil the following brand elements
2. Your Brand Colours
When I create a brand identity design I don’t just pick out pretty colours willy nilly. Colour is a science and it has rules, purpose and emotional impact.
Colour is produced by a combination of Hue (pure colour) and saturation (the amount of white light infused into that colour). The hue might be red but if we add a little white to it it might get a bit orangey. Add more white light and it becomes very light pink. The variances of hues and white light combinations reveals an infinite amount of colours that the human eye can see.
How we interpret those colours is also tied into colour science. It’s not a case of “red means energy or excitement” and “black means, evil or classic”. Those are subjective opinions based on specific combinations of colour and other elements such as line, shape, type or form. We’re talking just about colour here and it’s the colour wheel, formulas and calculations that reveal what colours are naturally appealing to the human eye.
Colour wheel symbolising colour space and palette selection.
Rules such as Analogous, Monochromatic, Triad, Complementary, Compound and Shades are formulas used to find sets of colours which naturally go well together and are naturally pleasing to the eye, also known as colour harmonies. In addition, you can create a custom rule to create bespoke colour harmonies that reflect your brand personality.
bottom a colour harmony using red as a primary hues with a complimentary rule
Top a colour harmony using red as a primary hue with an analogous rule bottom a colour harmony using red as a primary hues with a complimentary rule.
When creating a brand identity design you’ll want to pay attention to these ideas about colour so that you can create a colour harmony for your business that’s original, psychologically pleasing but most importantly functional.
The colours you chose need to work together to complement each other and create contrast with each other so your identity works in different colour spaces and remains legible at all times, from a small mobile screen to large signage.
Colour plays a huge part in brand identity design so pick at least one colour but if possible pick five different colours and pick them correctly for a consistent brand experience.
2. Picking fonts for your brand identity design
I won’t go into detail about the different types of fonts.
Once you’ve picked a selection of 2-3 fonts for your brand identity design you need to also know how to use them as a part of your text content delivery by making a hierarchy of typography.
In its simplest form picking fonts and creating a structure of text delivery is a way of planning how documents should look with regards to titles, sub-titles and paragraphs.
It will detail what font and format will be used in which instance and the end result will:
- Identify a document as a document belonging to your business
- Create contrast and legibility for your documents
- Guide users through your documents
- Text content delivery structure and typography guidelines.
And when I say documents I mean anything where you present text. From your website, blog and social media posts to your vehicle livery and business cards.
Picking out a set combination of fonts, structuring their usage and systematically using that rule will leave you with the makings of a great brand identity system that communicates clearly across every customer contact point.
3. Brand Imagery
Your logo is branding imagery and a key part of your visual identity.
However, at some point you realise you need to display more than a logo to make documents stand out and create a stronger brand impression.
Additionally, good typography can do the trick.
If you want to diversify your brand identity and strengthen it, develop additional brand imagery.
Brand imagery can be seen as visual content in addition to your logo design that can be used to communicate with your customers and identify your business with.
Additional brand imagery can come in the form of textures, patterns, icons, illustrations, graphics or photos, and sometimes it might just be a distinctive branded style.
Additional brand imagery may not seem important at first glance but when it comes to producing documents it’ll play a key part in differentiating your documents, delivering messages and driving your brand identity design. These elements help small businesses create an emotional, relatable experience that people can recognise more easily.
4. Tone, message & language
The core purpose of a brand identity design is to deliver a message through a
To figure out your message you might want to look at your target audience, competition and brand strategy.
Once you’ve defined your brand strategy, mission and values, you’ll need to use tone to refine the delivery of the message.
For example.
- is this your message?
- OR IS THIS YOUR MESSAGE?
Your values, tone and message is a way to personify your brand and identity making it appealing to your target audience using human characteristics. Read this great quick read about tone.
With a tone of voice comes language, a way to redefine how your brand specifically speaks with various uses of words, whether the communication is friendly, expert or direct.
Example of brand language and consistent messaging.
Overall, tone, message and language should generate direction, personality and define your audience clearly for the creation of your brand identity design. Clear communication builds trust, improves engagement and helps a small business connect with the right people.
Applying the brand identity design
Once you have a brand identity system in place, apply it consistently across every relevant business asset.
Whatever size business you are, think about your assets. What can you place your logo design on and why should you want to place your logo design on it. Consider whether each application supports your target audience, business purpose and customer experience.
Typically it might be your stationery, digital documents, email signature, website and business cards but your business may have special assets such as a van or shop sign in which case make sure the identity design is applied to them in particular. Social media platforms, branded presentations and customer resources also matter.
You can alter the theme slightly according to a specific purpose, campaign or events but you should always be visually identified as the company you are, hence the term, “identity”.
Using a consistent visual theme across your business assets makes it easy for potential customers to recognise, and essentially easier to market. A cohesive identity logo, colour palette, typography and imagery help your company show credibility in every contact with people.
Following Big Businesses:
You may not be a corporation but it’s good to see what they do and how you can take their actions into consideration. Some corporations tend to keep their logo and brand consistent but change the corporate identity elements according to the current marketing campaign they’re running. Some keep the company logo in the background whilst their product logos are propelled forward. These are strategic decisions to maximise the potential of their marketing message without losing focus of the brand.
Corporate manuals are used as a guide to how their identity should be used and these guides will cover everything, even the way their office buildings look inside and out. For small business use, brand guidelines can outline logo spacing, typography, colour use, imagery, tone voice and copyright requirements.
Corporate manuals are used as a guide to how their identity should be used and these guides will cover everything, even the way their office buildings look inside and out.
All in all, this creates a strong and consistent identity affecting the business internally and externally. In return, the result builds, which we become familiar with and can trust unconsciously, and that’s the end goal to building a brand identity design for your small business.
| Brand element | How to apply it | Why it matters |
| Identity logo | Use approved layouts across website, documents and signage. | Creates immediate recognition. |
| Colour palette | Apply primary and supporting colours consistently. | Shapes a clear brand image. |
| Typography | Use defined fonts for headings, body text and digital content. | Improves readability and professional presentation. |
| Brand imagery | Use selected graphics, photos, textures or illustrations. | Helps branded materials feel cohesive. |
| Tone voice | Apply the same language principles in emails, social media and sales materials. | Helps the business communicate with personality. |
All in all, this creates a strong and consistent identity affecting the business internally and externally. In return, the result builds recognition, which we become familiar with and can trust unconsciously, and that’s the end goal to building a brand identity design for your small business.
A well-developed brand does not need to copy larger brands. It needs to reflect the company clearly, align with its mission and speak to the people it wants to serve. Research your competition, identify what makes your services different and avoid visual choices that make your business look generic.
Use the process as a practical plan: understand your target audience, develop brand elements, apply them to priority assets and review the experience regularly. As your business changes, your brand guidelines can support new services, online content and marketing campaigns without losing consistency.
Do you need help building an identity for your business? Find out more at www.conceptstore.co.uk
