Branding and psychology go hand in hand. The choices you make about style, tone, look and feel are the blueprint of your brand. Here’s how they reflect your business personality.
When considering your business branding, colours are often the first thing that springs to mind. There are some established associations between colour and mood. Everyone’s associations are slightly different though, depending on their life experiences – so these are trends, not rules.
Beyond this, your colour choices mean something in your particular industry. Blue, for example, might be classic for a bank but a distinctive choice for a bookshop. What’s typical for businesses in the same niche as yours? Whether you tap into the established norms or break the mould with a new approach, your brand’s colours will say something about who you are as a company.
Credit: joinhoney.com
We love fonts and we can pretty much talk forever on how to use them in your branding. Because fonts have such a rich cultural history, lettering style can have a huge impact on how you’re perceived. Here are a few font branding considerations:
Serif fonts are classic and elegant, and carry a sense of tradition and authority. Sans serif fonts are more modern, minimal and a little bit cool. Think Times New Roman vs Helvetica.
Using several fonts at once adds energy and could even make things look a little busy, indicating a brand that’s full of ideas and always has something new happening. Sticking to a single font means you’ll come across as calm, purposeful and deliberate, with a no-fuss approach to getting things done.
If you choose decorative or script-style fonts, you can create a trendy throwback aesthetic or a timeless, classic feeling. And depending on your font choice, a handwriting-like style can also create a more personal, casual feel.
Credit: One World Project
Few aspects of design are as expressive as illustration, and every artist has their own take on crafting editorial or creative imagery. That said, there are a few trends that most brands fall into. If you’re using digital illustration, there are two primary branding styles:
Of course, any kind of art can be part of your brand, from collage to watercolour, but generally, choosing analog formats rather than digital will give your brand more of an old-school, handmade identity.
Credit: Alice Mollon
Tone of voice isn’t just about what you choose to say – the way you say it also plays a big part.
Whatever your approach, take note – if your brand tone originates with a single founder or staff member, it will only be with you as long as they are. Write down a few style rules to make sure it lives forever! Read more about capturing your brand’s spirit in our guide to building your brand culture and our step-by-step primer on building brand values.
A brand is like a sports team – every player counts, and they all need to work together. To make sure your ‘team’ of brand elements is performing at its best, make sure they all show up when they’re needed, every time, every place.
So if your design is on point and your tone of voice is perfect, but your font choices are random and unplanned, it’s never going to be a winning combination. Likewise, if you’ve got beautifully branded Business Cards but your website design isn’t recognisably similar, your brand personality won’t always shine through.
Now you know the basics of branding psychology, why not design beautiful Business Cards and Flyers to get the word out?
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