More Than a Logo
Welcome & Happy New Year! (The year is still new-ish, right?)
One of the main value pillars we have here at Type A is curiosity, and in addition to learning new things ourselves, we love sharing our knowledge to help others learn more about design & branding. So it was only a matter of time before we decided to launch a blog to help house & share all of our insights—and what better time to begin a new initiative than the start of the year?
It’s only fitting that our inaugural post discuss the hottest topic in the branding world— A logo is not a brand.
If you scroll though a handful of brand designers’ feeds on Instagram, you’ll see variations of this common topic among the posts: Why a brand is more than just a logo.
In order to talk about what a brand is, we need to discuss what it’s not.
A brand isn’t a logo, a corporate identity system, colors, mission statement, packaging, or even your product or service.
The elements that come to mind for most people when they think of a "brand" are usually part of a company’s visual identity—the logo, colors, fonts, packaging, etc. While each of these elements aren’t a brand on their own, they’re all vital pieces of your branding puzzle.
Now that we’ve discussed what isn’t a brand, let’s talk about what a brand actually is: Your brand is the feeling your customers get when they think of and interact with you. That's right—your brand is something your customers get to decide.
For those who are not part of the world of design or marketing, this might be surprising to learn a brand isn’t something tangible that you create for your own company and that it’s created in the minds of your customers.
Even though your brand is defined by your audience, there are steps you can take to guide them to feel a certain way. This process is “branding” and is where another big buzzword—brand strategy—comes in! When developing a brand strategy, you’re isolating and defining the “WHY” behind your business to find where your company values & goals overlap with your audience’s needs.
Using that information, you can align every aspect of your business to support your strategy to best connect with your target audience in a way that will resonate with them. Your brand strategy, in turn, will influence how you should approach all of your visual identity elements like your logo, voice, messaging, and absolutely everything within your business!
Having a fully developed visual identity system (logo, fonts, colors, imagery, patterns, and more!) vs. only having a logo helps increase the brand awareness for your company over time. Once customers become familiar with your company’s visual identity & overall aesthetic, if they see something with your photography style paired with your brand front, they’ll instantly know whose content they’re looking at without even needing the logo. When you only have a logo for your business and don’t build out the other elements, you’re missing out on tons of opportunities to connect with your audience & leave a lasting impression on them.
If you think about your favorite store/online shop, you can probably picture the colors they use, the layout, the type of imagery & product shots they use, and maybe the logo comes to mind. But, chances are you’re picturing how everything looks together, not each element in isolation. And that full mental picture is because of cohesive branding. And you can’t get that same result with just a logo.
Wondering if your company could benefit from developing a brand strategy or a new visual identity?
Connect with us today to discuss your project!