What do you think of when we mention the colors red and white along with a family of polar bears? Unless you’ve had your head in the sand for the last half-century, you likely conjured up images of those heartwarming Coca-Cola Christmas adverts.

This, in essence, is what branding is all about. Using as few words or details as possible to create something that sticks in the minds of your customers.

And while we may not be able to help you become the next Coca-Cola or McDonald’s, we can help you understand more about branding practices and the principles behind them.

Ready to take your brand to the next level? Check out these nine awesome branding tips.

1. The Significance of Semiotics

You’ll need to understand the ‘Why’ before you understand the ‘How.’

There’s so much more to branding than awesome logos and catchy slogans. And if you want to create a truly effective branding campaign, you’re going to need to understand that.

That all begins with a quick lesson in semiotics. In short, semiotics is the academic term for the study of signs and signals along with how we interpret them.

Think of a traffic light, for example. The colors red, yellow, and green don’t really mean anything on their own. It’s only when we assign meaning to them — stop, slow down, and go, respectively — that they actually hold a value.

Semiotics and branding go hand-in-hand. Take our Coca-Cola example, for instance! Those colors and images have become synonymous with soda through decades of branding.

But we don’t just know these things. It takes tons of repetition and brand awareness to make these work for you.

2. Call In The SWOT Team

Fortunately, this doesn’t actually involve calling in any sort of militant presence. Instead, it involves you and your team sitting down to take a good hard look at your company’s past and present to determine its future.

SWOT is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

The former two are quite self-explanatory, but the latter half of the acronym is where you’ll really start to flex your marketing muscles. Who is your biggest competition and what opportunities are they seizing that your company currently isn’t?

The more you flesh out your company’s standing in the market, the more successful your efforts will be.

3. Analyze Your Values

Whether conscious of it or not, every brand exudes certain values. A surefire way to make branding a business easier is by taking a hold of those values and leveraging them in a positive way.

What is it that you set out to do when you first created your company? Furthermore, what sets you apart from any other business in your field?

Admittedly, these questions can be difficult to answer. However, they’re often actionable responses, such as an increased focus on customer service or an open mind and desire to help the local community as your business grows.

Whatever the case, your brand has values, and you’ll want to make sure they’re sending the right message.

4. Assess Your Audience

Whether you’re in the midst of a campaign that isn’t quite making its mark or you’ve never launched a branding campaign before, you’ll want to take a closer look at your market.

Who, exactly, are you trying to sell your goods or services to and why did you choose that market?

5. Create A Customer Avatar

This step works in perfect tandem with your assessment. Once you have a clearer picture of who you want to sell to, you’ll want to create a fictional individual that exemplifies your audience.

Personifying your audience can make your marketing seem more tangible, in a way, as you’re no longer selling to a faceless group. Now, you’ll have an (albeit fictional) person to market toward.

Include at least basic elements such as their age, gender, income level, language style, and degree of education.

6. Develop Your Brand’s Voice

Branding a business is about setting your company apart from the pack. And part of that includes humanizing yourself, as well as your audience.

One fantastic way to achieve that humanization is to develop a voice for your brand in conjunction with your customer persona.

Speak like your audience speaks. If they’re using casual language, go casual. If you’re trying to sell directly to other businesses, use a more formal, buttoned-up approach.

It is worth noting, though, that warmer language and more personalized content tend to generate better results. So even if you’re a B2B company, try and implement warmer, friendlier language.

7. Make A Memorable Logo

While the more humanistic aspects, such as your brand’s voice and customer persona, matter a great deal, it’s likely your logo that is going to best stick in customers’ minds.

It’s hard to nail down what makes a great logo, but every successful logo has a few things in common:

• Simplicity
• Elegance
• Use of color psychology
• Brand relevance

As you begin to create your logo, think of how you can use each element together to create something your audience will remember.

8. Establish Branding Guidelines

If your marketing team consists of 15 people, and each of those 15 people has their own ideas of what is and isn’t going to help your branding, it’s safe to say that your campaign is going to be quite muddled.

We recommend teams work together to create a set of guidelines and best practices for their personal brand so that branding remains consistent across channels like social media, your website, advertising, and pamphlets.

9. Be Patient

As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day. And, unfortunately, your branding won’t be, either.

Be patient throughout your campaign and don’t expect results to flood in instantaneously. It’s going to take some time for your efforts to have a noticeable effect.

These Branding Tips Can Make A Corporation A True Brand

These branding tips are designed to give you the basic outline of a strong branding campaign. Now, it’s up to you and your team to create something truly revolutionary!

Ready to get started on your branding? Make sure to check out our free logo-making program that can help you create the next memorable design. And best of all, it’s completely free!

Coming up with a new logo for your company can be fun. it can also be challenging. You need to take time and consider the best way to design your logo. Whether you are trying to come up with a new logo or are trying to improve your initial logo design, you need to do some research.

Your logo is you. It should be able to stand up and represent you and your company for a long as you are in business, and beyond. Designing the perfect logo is possible.

Your vision of your company is expressed through your logo. You want the customer to see it, as well. When it becomes recognizable, people associate it with your company and product. It’s the purpose of having one.

Here are a few important tips to get you started.

Perfecting Your Initial Logo Design

Your logo is more than something that looks nice. It has to represent you and your brand. It’s important to get it right so people recognize it. When they see it, they’ll see you.

1. Use Color

The colors you choose are important. Color plays an important role in our everyday lives. We all have associations to certain colors. Incorporate colors into your logo that represent your company.

Colors can represent fire, heat, fresh, sunshine, and health, but they can have negative connotations, as well. Don’t pick a color simply because you like it. Find one that works for your product.

If you have uniforms or your product is a particular color or has a distinctive color in its label or packaging, work that into your logo fora better brand association. It helps to tie everything all together and make it all one package.

2. Keep it Simple

Don’t overcomplicate things. A logo with too much of anything will be quickly discarded. People have the attention span of a gnat. Keep the logo simple and easily recognizable.

Simple lines, one or two colors, and empty space work well. If people have to work to figure it all out, they won’t. It needs to get the message across and be memorable. Too much fuss turns people off.

3. Incorporate Your Product

Find creative and fun ways to get your product in the logo. With a simple outline or symbol, it becomes associated to you and your company. Don’t make it too complicated.

A barber might use scissors, a landscaper may use a lawnmower, and a baker could use a pie. It just needs to a simple, recognizable image that people easily see and understand.

4. Be Original

It’s important to find out what is trending and avoid it. You want to be original as your product. Chances are you have a lot of competition, so your logo is the first thing to set you apart from the rest.

Try to avoid using a certain shape or design that is regularly used. You want to stand out amongst your competitors. It’s always tempting to jump on the bandwagon of what seems to be successful, but you’ll be happier to make your own success.

5. Make it Relatable

A simple image, symbol, or word makes a strong clear message. Your potential customers like something familiar. It’s very comforting. It’s very important that the images, fonts, and colors all relate to your brand.

Work with what you have. Don’t pick an image or design you like and try to build your product around it. The design must come from the product. People like familiar and recognizable.

6. Use Humor

Using humor can work for any product or service. It doesn’t need to be ‘roll on the floor’ funny, but humor takes the sting out of being sold something. It’s particularly effective if you are selling something that isn’t always immediately associated with humor.

Dentists, lawyers, and plumbers have had great success by taking a swipe at their own professions by using humor. It tells your clients you understand their pain. It’s comforting and helps people relax. It’s also very memorable.

7. Test It

Don’t just jump on the first one you like. Design a few and test them. Ask for advice on them from people you trust. You can also do a random test with a focus group.

Take a few that you really like and sit on them for a while. Asking for advice is a good way to weed out the ones that are less effective. Don’t lock yourself into something you may end up hating later.

8. Font Matters

Take some time to test a few fonts for your logo, if you are using them. Some fonts have a stronger line, some give off a softer feel and some can just be too complicated to read.

Talk to a graphic designer for the best advice for what font will work best for your brand. You need to understand the impact it will have. It can work in favor just as easily as work against you.

9. Consider All Platforms

Your logo is going to travel. You want to have a design that will work on your website, your social media platforms, your stationery and business cards, on your vehicle, your uniform, and whatever else you plan on using it on.

It needs to be readable and recognizable on all platforms, in all sizes, and not lose anything in translation. Something that looks fantastic on your van might become a blue blob when shrunken down for your website.

Go-Go A Logo

If your initial logo design just isn’t cutting it anymore, hopefully, we have got you started to a new one. You want your customers and potential customers to recognize it and keep coming back to it.

You should enjoy designing your logo and you should also understand the importance it plays in your overall marketing. It’s meant to be the face of the product, you want to get it right.

Why not try out a few logos to see what is available. It’s easy to do online and there are hundreds of options. Once you have a design in mind, please continue here to make your free logo.

It’s difficult to define exactly what comprises classic logo design, but what we do know is that some logos make a more lasting impression than others.

The world’s best-known logos all have a few things in common. Here’s how you can imitate their timeless style.

Use these design guidelines to craft a logo to take your healthcare brand to the next level.

Classic Logo Design Should be Simple

People don’t want to spend time figuring out what your logo means. There are enough complications in the modern world.

An intricate logo implies chaos. That’s the last impression you want to give customers about your healthcare business.

The cleaner, neater and more obvious your logo is, the better. These kinds of logos are recognizable and memorable. They look good in print, on merchandise and online.

Do some research to get inspiration for designing a logo that works in the medical industry.

Don’t Be Too Generic

Simple doesn’t mean you need to download the first clipart image you see.

A stethoscope is too generic. Try to think of items you use in your practice every day that you could use as part of your logo.

Symbols that represent good health can be very effective in medical logo design too.

Images that suggest growth and renewal are a good match for a rehabilitation center or mental health clinic.

You can turn to nature for inspiration in this regard. Creating a logo that features symbolic shapes like water and greenery will inspire people to find out more about what you have on offer.

Keep it Classy

Medicine is serious business. Gaudy colors and haphazard design will not create the professional impression you want.

Think about what your patients want from you when how to design a logo

Green and blue are popular colors for medical logo design as they have a calming and soothing effect on people. Red and yellow can represent vitality and happiness.

The same applies to your choice of font. Choose a clear, simple, elegant font to get your message across.

Shapes Matter

Placing your logo inside a circle or choosing a circular design will soften the edges, giving it a comforting feel.

Studies show that circular logos give the impression that your company is caring, warm, and sensitive.

Logos with hard edges create an aura of reliability and durability. This can work well for a laboratory or pharmaceutical logo.

Triangles are usually associated with religion, science, law, and power.

Getting Down to It

When you think you’ve ticked all the boxes about classic logo design for your healthcare business, it’s time to get started on designing a logo for yourself.

You can either do it yourself or get a professional graphic designer trained in how to design logos to do it.

No matter how much time and money your logo costs, the right design will be worth it in the end.

Ever stopped to marvel at distinct company logos everyone can remember? Almost everyone can, in the blink of an eye, identify the logos for Nike, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Apple.

Speaking of Apple, did you know its market dominance with smartphones is at 12.1% globally? A big reason behind this isn’t because of the iPhone’s capabilities but of brand recognition. People know the logo, they trust the brand and hence buy their products.

As a small business, this is a good example to follow. That said, you need to have a good grasp of the logo design process companies use since it helps people understand your brand.

Experts don’t make logos on a whim.

There are intricate steps that most logo design professionals follow. Not sure what these steps are? Read on to learn every step and what you can do to make the best logo possible:

1. Discover the Client

One of the first steps to create a logo is for the logo maker to have a long conversation with their client. This meeting helps them learn a lot more about your company’s culture as well as your values and your means of doing business. This allows them to show off that message when designing your company’s logo.

After all, aspiring for a great logo means expressing your company’s values and reflects the ideals you want to show people. You can compare this to an employee with the sole purpose of representing your company in its best possible light while maintaining its distinctive features. You can’t give a good representation without making the wrong assumptions if you aren’t asking for professional help.

Completing this step ensures that the designer creates a logo that you and everyone in your company can relate with. It’s important that they ask the personality you want your brand to project and the kind of customers you have.

2. Discover the Industry

After getting to know your company, the designer then attempts to know your company’s audience and your competition. Knowing the former allows them to have the understanding of the specific kind of logo style you need to appeal to them. For example, working in a market that caters to teenagers needs something mainstream and catchy.

That’s the reason designers will ask for thorough answers when it comes to the customers that you cater to. The more they know about it, the easier it is for them to give the logo your audience can appreciate and get behind with.

Knowing your competition is a more important part of the process. They need to know if there are other logos out there that look similar to something they might design. Doing a logo identical to your competitors’ is a big business blunder, so it’s important that they design one that sets you apart from the key competitors that need your consideration.

3. Discover Logo Usage

This step in the logo designing process is about the designer knowing how and where the logo gets usage. Logo application refers to the different possible uses of your company’s logo. It’s important since it allows the designer to set what can and what cannot happen in terms of the logo’s design perspective.

Web-based companies, for example, can let designers use the full spectrum of the RGB for the logo. After all, the digital devices that view it won’t have problems with the color. It helps the logo stand out but it can become horrible when printed as physical copies.

With this, you need to consult your designer and tell them the medium you’ll use for the logo. This ensures that they only use the ideas your company can execute without having to spend more.

4. Lots of Sketching

Some design schools urge their students to formulate around 100 ideas before deciding the right pick amongst the bunch. It’s a practice that ensures you have a lot of choices. It allows your designer to separate the good ideas you have from the bad ones.

It’s a simple truth but if you want your logo to have the identity it deserves, your designer needs to sketch lots of logo ideas while brainstorming. Once they do, they pick from a handful of decent designs to present to you. It might sound difficult, but the process isn’t that long since it can take less than a minute to sketch each depending on the complexity of the logo.

5. Design Drafts

After sketching, your designer will now pick the top 5-7 of their ideas and create drafts of its designs. They aren’t necessarily the nicest-looking designs but they all have the capability to make you stand out in the industry. They will often present the black and white versions of their designs, keeping them focused on the ideas without the need to gloss over the tiny details.

You need to give them the feedback for the rough ideas. It helps them know which ones are worth refining.

6. Refining Logos

This logo creation process step is the longest. The reason is the fact that it needs lots of back and forth when it comes to the necessary improvements and updates to the drafts they present to you. There are times when you pick one idea from their drafts but it’s often ideal to pick at least three and see where they end up once they get refined.

This is the part where they add the colors and details. It’s up to you if you wish to add, change, or throw away the ideas that don’t appeal to you. Once the final logo gets chosen, you can now help in developing its identity and use it for your company’s sake.

Learn the Logo Design Process Today!

With branding firms asking for at least $1,000-$50,000 to help develop your brand identity, you need to know the logo design process to ensure you get what you pay for. Of course, there are some cheap ones out there but you don’t want to pay those since they don’t give you the best results. It becomes worse if you ask people to do it for free.

It all comes to how much you’re willing to spend. In any case, you often get what you pay for.

Do you need answers for your logo-making questions? Contact us today and we’re more than happy to assist you.