A brand becomes more efficient when its strategy is converted into visuals. Most people will remember what they see. Businesses can have strong brand strategies, but they miss exploiting their full potential when they fail to translate them into visuals. In this article we discuss How to Translate Your Brand Strategy into Visuals.
According to the founder of Ford, Henry Ford, “you cannot build a reputation on what you are going to do.” Customers and employees want something they can identify with in the business. So, how do business owners translate their brand strategies into visuals?
Table of Contents
Focusing on Brand Reflection
Websites and logos are mainly used for brands’ visuals. The idea of visualising seems simple until it is time to actualise it. Businesses have to capture many details while keeping the visuals sleek and appealing.
The details can be overwhelming, which is why professionals offering branding services cannot afford to make mistakes. They take time to understand the brand’s strategy before translating it into visuals.
For example, if a company says it’s fun to do business with, the visual should reflect that. However, the colours and the presentation should not be overly fun that potential customers forget what brought them there.
It might be tempting to use what other businesses are using, but that will kill a business’ voice. Potential customers get confused by such brands.
Target
When seeking branding services, you are often presented with rich portfolios by different designers. Most of the completed projects seem enticing, and if you work in the department responsible for branding in your company, decision-making becomes challenging.
It is easy to choose suitable designs for the company or one you think will impress your bosses.
But that type of approach is wrong. The company does not sell its goods or services to its bosses. Customers are what drive businesses. A brilliant move is studying their psychological needs. Besides their demographics, this window leads to creating successful designs.
A business cannot thrive by assuming what its customers need. To create visuals that provide quality leads, it is important to learn what they love seeing. Is it a specific font, colour, animation, etc.?
Competitors
Businesses cannot thrive without studying what their competitors are doing. By analysing competitors, companies understand why they are thriving in the field while thinking of something that will make them relevant in the competition.
In a market where entry is open to everyone, a business must have a unique approach that makes it stand out. Market analysis helps create ideas of what can be done differently while reflecting on the business.
When visuals are done without conducting a market search, businesses can find themselves in tight situations. For example, having similar designs can lead to lawsuits for copyright infringement.
The Voice
When designing visuals, a company’s tone should be clear and focused. The tone of a business is determined by the type of audience it targets and the reflection they want to give. The voice is usually unique to the audience and can easily relate to what a business is about.
Here, the words used for the voice are critical. Customers don’t like feeling like they are being lied to. When a company’s voice feels off, trusting it becomes hard, affecting conversion rates.
For example, it would be a terrible failure for a company to identify itself as funny and friendly. But the word choice for its voice is pretty aggressive.
Mind Maps
Mind maps are created once the ideas have been put together. When creating these, designers should be as creative as possible. It helps prevent getting stuck in an idea and being open to multiple possibilities.
Usually, the brand name is placed in the middle. Then, the designer creates many short phases around it while ensuring they align with the brand. These phrases could be anything from the company’s location, services, motto, and more.
Once these are created, they are expanded to determine the best fit. When done correctly, mind maps reflect businesses’ voices, attributes, goals, and targets.
Identity Concepts
Here is where the actual branding begins. After brainstorming the target audience, voice, competitors, and personality, businesses give feedback to their designers. They discuss what they think can be improved, and begin creating identity concepts.
Professionals offering branding services transform the information into visuals. They capture as many details as possible to ensure they align with businesses’ brand strategies.
Usually, designers create varying identity concepts to help their clients have different choices. They are creative with the colours, texture, fonts, and shapes they use for designing.
A company is then presented with the different identity concepts and picks from them. Because the concepts reflect confidence in the business, a few tweaks are made to ensure the visuals are perfect.
Base Standards
It is common for businesses to feel pressured to have their strategies translated into visuals. An expensive mistake most of them make is rushing to buy what is readily available ‘like everyone else.’ Businesses are unique, and each should take time to identify its strengths and what makes them special.
These hasty decisions are limiting and only work at the businesses’ present moments. An ambitious business considers future expansion. Will the visuals remain relevant when the company expands?
Businesses that want to keep their customers should have scalability standards. Most customers think that companies change their visuals to hide their dirty linen. But, when base standards are set, visuals can serve long-term even after the business has expanded.
With this approach, companies will not rush to buy what is readily available. Instead, they appreciate the expertise of branding services to get well-thought customised visuals that align with their strategies.
Summary
People start businesses so they can grow and generate profits. Because only monopolies lack competition, they have to be creative in their marketing strategies to keep the business afloat.
Translating strategies into visuals is one of the most effective ways. Thankfully, they can do so by getting help from professionals offering branding services. A lot of brainstorming happens to ensure the efforts pay off and the business stands out.
Join The Logo Community
We hope this article about How to Translate Your Brand Strategy into Visuals has been helpful. If you would like more personal tips, advice, insights, and access to our community threads and other goodies, join me in our community. You can comment directly on posts and have a discussion.
*TIP – We use and recommend DesignCuts for all your fonts, mockups and design bundles.
