Fashion Branding 101: How to Create a Unique, Bold Fashion Brand
Posted on October 04, 2018 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
Are you considering launching your own fashion collection or clothing store? If so, you need to learn all about branding if you want your business to stand out from the rest.
Branding is more than just a logo. It’s about the stories you tell, the packaging you use, the quality of your items, and the connection you have with your customers.
Being unique in an oversaturated fashion world is challenging. But if you have an effective marketing strategy and a clear vision, you can compete with worldwide clothing brands.
Keep reading to discover what goes into successful fashion branding and how to implement it in your business.
What Will You Sell?
Rule No. 1 of how to build a clothing brand is to decide whether you’ll be selling ready-to-wear clothes or high-end fashion.
Do you have ambitions to become the hottest new fashion designer or are you happy to offer your creations to a wider audience?
Fashion clothing is about perceived value. Some people buy designer pieces as a status symbol and pay for the brand rather than the actual clothes. Others pay top dollar for haute couture because they feel the quality is higher.
On the other hand, fast fashion clothing brands cater to a crowd that wants to be trendy and doesn’t care about status or designer logos.
Narrow Down the Style
You can build a fashion brand in two ways: one is to design your own clothes for each season and then mass produce them. The other is to curate the best pieces from different manufacturers and sell them year-round.
Whichever you choose, you need to define the style you’ll be going for. Will you be selling classic, timeless pieces or modern, colorful, hip clothes? Are you selling all kinds of sportswear or are you exclusively focused on top-quality yoga pants?
Before you even start a brand, you need to narrow down the style you want to be known for. This is an essential part of your branding that’ll set you apart from your competitors.
Be Devoted to Quality
The most important factor in building a fashion brand is the clothing quality. If you want customers to stay loyal to your brand and tell their friends about it, you can’t compromise on quality.
This is especially true if you want to become a fashion designer with high-paying clients. Well-made clothes are more expensive because they last for years, and the customers get more value for their money.
The quality must be consistent throughout every piece you sell and cannot go down as soon as your business starts growing.
Pick a Name for Your Fashion Brand
When creating a fashion brand, you obviously have to pick a name. You can use your own full name or a variation of it, or think of something catchy and unique to represent your brand values.
Some of the biggest fashion and clothing brands have short, simple, easy-to-remember names. Bear this in mind when you think about the name of your business.
Create a Logo and Unique Packaging
A crucial step in building a clothing brand is creating a unique logo and packaging. This is the visual part of your branding and the first things your customers see when they come across your clothes.
Your logo should be true to your brand vision and represent who you are as a business. The packaging should contain the logo and reflect the experience you want to give to your customers.
Offer Outstanding Customer Service
Your customers are the only reason your brand exists, so you have to treat them with care and respect.
This means providing a smooth shopping experience, seamless returns, and most of all, treating them as a part of a community.
You can do this by sending them discount codes, gifts for their birthdays, loyalty programs, and special offers once in a while.
Use Effective Marketing Strategies
Another golden rule of “How to Build a Fashion Brand 101” is using effective marketing.
This doesn’t mean commercials, large billboards, and flyers. It means connecting to your customers on a deeper level and personalizing their shopping experience.
Show your customers how to style the clothes instead of just displaying a picture of the piece. Show the material up-close, from several perspectives, and in multiple colors.
Invite your customers to share how they wear the clothes and display the photos on your website and social media.
You can also send out newsletters with valuable content, have seasonal giveaways, and use influencers to promote your brand in front of new audiences.
Tell a Story with Your Brand
No matter what type of clothing you sell, you need to establish a gripping story around your brand.
You want customers to recognize your branding without even seeing your logo or packaging. Storytelling is an essential part of your marketing strategy. It’s applicable to everything from your website, product descriptions, emails, social media channels, and company vision.
Blogging is one of the best ways to raise awareness about your brand online and provide value to your customers. You can write about fashion, post lookbooks, talk about beauty, and company news.
To see how other companies use their blog to appeal to their customers, read more here.
Be a Trendsetter
One of the most iconic women in fashion, Coco Chanel, once said that “fashion changes, but style endures.”
Keeping up with the trends is a given in the fashion industry, but even more important is setting them. If you have a fashion brand and you want to make a statement, focus on originality instead of following everyone else.
Be the brand that helps people look and feel unique when wearing your clothes. Don’t settle for the same pieces everyone else is selling. If you want to stand out, be bold and do something nobody else thought of.
Now You Know How to Create Fashion Branding from Scratch
Launching a fashion business is no easy feat and it goes way beyond designing and selling clothes.
Creating a recognizable fashion brand is one of the main factors for the success of your business. Along with having a name, logo, and packaging, fashion branding is also about the stories you tell and your relationship with your customers.
For more branding inspiration and tips, check out our blog.
Need a logo for your business? Now you can create your own logo from scratch using our easy online logo maker.
9 Cloud Logo Design Tips for Managed Services Providers (MSPs)
Posted on October 04, 2018 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
As a managed service provider, you’re well aware of the fact that there’s a lot of confusion surrounding what your company has to offer other businesses.
Your job is to make life easier for businesses in a wide variety of industries by offering things like cloud-based web hosting services, general IT services, assistance with payroll and compliance, and much more.
Looking for a better way to instantly let leads know exactly what you have to offer?
The right cloud logo design can help to clear up any confusion when it comes to the specific services you provide.
So, what makes a strong cloud logo design?
Keep on reading this post to find out.
1. Minimalism Matters
The first thing that you need to keep in mind when you’re dreaming up your cloud logo design?
As a managed service provider, it’s your goal to increase the operating efficiency of the businesses you work with. You want to make it easier for them to find the files they need, and to ensure that they have a safe and secure space to both store and access their data.
What doesn’t communicate that?
A cluttered, over-the-top cloud logo design.
Especially in the world of cloud-based services, simplicity is key.
We strongly suggest using no more than three colors in your entire logo design — and less if you can help it. Your central image should be crisp, include lots of white space, and should be easy to replicate on a variety of surfaces.
Avoid anything that suggests digital clutter. This includes hard-to-read fonts, overly detailed images, and clashing colors. This will only hurt your business.
2. Avoid Cliches When Designing Logos with Clouds
As a primarily cloud-based business, we know that it can be a serious challenge to make sure that your leads know what you have to offer without creating a cloud logo that looks like a carbon copy of your competitors’.
While your logo will likely include some sort of cloud image, there are lots of ways that you can breathe new life into the design.
First of all, remember that you can place your text inside the cloud. You could also place images of gears, a computer desktop, or even a lock inside the cloud.
This helps to separate you from other businesses in your industry. It also suggests to customers that your cloud is a protective space for their data.
Avoid having raindrops or fog leaking from the cloud, as this can quickly call to mind security breaches and a loss of data.
You can also use unconventional colors for your cloud — in other words, there’s more to good design than blue cloud logos!
Use the psychology of color to help you decide on a hue that will best pique the interests of your target market.
Finally, if you’re ready to think outside the cloud image, try an interlocking shape of your own creation. Things like a three-dimensional box, an octagon, or even a circle will still hint at a sense of protection but will be a bit less common.
3. Aim For Visual Balance
Scalability is key in logo design — but so is ensuring that there’s a strong visual balance within all the elements of your design.
If you have a tagline, is it properly centered underneath your company name and central image? Is your central image in proper balance with the size of your font, or does it seem to overwhelm the entire design?
Discover more about how to create a logo design with the right visual balance by looking on the Jaguar PC website. First of all, their logo design uses two colors to ensure that the design is easy to read.
But we especially love the look of the “g,” which is unique enough to immediately imprint on the minds of potential customers. Plus, the orange hue of the logo communicates a sense of authority and dominance.
This design can also easily be adjusted when it comes to size and scale — so it will never end up looking cramped or cluttered.
This is the perfect example to draw inspiration from when creating your own design.
4. Keep It Current
Finally, especially in the world of managed service providers, your cloud logo needs to communicate to customers that you’re with the times.
The last thing that you want is for an outdated logo to make potential clients think that your services also haven’t been updated in a while.
When you’re designing your logo, make sure that it gives you opportunities to update the design in the future. Make sure updating doesn’t compromise your branding.
For example, think about how Apple consistently changes the color of its logo to account for trends and announce new products. What about how Google changes its homepage and font design to celebrate holidays?
Your logo design should possess the flexibility to be able to do the same.
Ready to Create the Perfect Cloud Logo?
We hope that this post has made it easy to understand the essential elements that a compelling cloud logo should contain.
Remember to focus on creating balance in your cloud logo design, and to ensure that your logo can be updated as your company grows.
Looking to dream up a few potential designs?
Use our simple logo design tool to make it happen.
Then, continue coming back to us for more invaluable design and branding advice that will help your managed service provider business to make it to the big leagues.
We can’t wait to see what you accomplish next.
7 Interesting and Creative Restaurant Logo Design Tips
Posted on October 03, 2018 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
Dining outside of the home has become one of America’s favorite commodities. In fact, the average household spends over $3000 a year at restaurants, which is a huge chunk of salary.
The market is hot and ready for restaurants to succeed. But, you do have to be aware of how steep your competition is. The restaurant industry is actually quite over-saturated, making it hard to captivate new diners.
You have to deliver more than just quality food. Everything from your aesthetic to your brand needs to be on point at all times. Let’s focus on the latter, as branding is imperative to the success of all businesses.
When building a brand, a logo is a great place to start. It gives customers an eye into your company while telling a unique story. These 7 restaurant logo designs will give you inspiration for your own product.
1. Olive Garden
Everyone’s favorite chain Italian restaurant can teach us a bit about color appropriation. When designing a logo, you need to keep in mind how well your color scheme works together.
Olive Garden makes use of an olive green, which is often associated with Italian culture. Many Italian restaurants use this dark green or even a red to emphasize their flair. We indirectly ascribe meanings to colors, which is why greens and blues send different messages than pinks and purples.
What colors can help an audience resonate with your brand? If you’re a fast food restaurant, you may consider red or orange, as they allude to joy and speediness. A more high-end restaurant should consider a purple, black, or white.
2. Cracker Barrel
Cracker Barrel is a perfect example of how to use imagery to tell a story. You see an elder man leaning against a barrel, with the words “Old Country Story” in the center. This is because Cracker Barrel started as a small country store long ago.
So, how can you capture your own story? A good place to start is to consider why your audience chooses you over other restaurants. Are you freaky fast? Family-friendly? Fresh? Finger licking good?
Use an anecdotic to drive home what your brand sells. Finding a unique selling proposition is essential to finding brand identity.
3. Denny’s
What makes America’s favorite diner so ubiquitous in mainstream culture? No, it’s not that you can find one at nearly any exit off the freeway.
It’s how Denny’s props itself as an iconic brand that withstands through time. Part of its timeless appeal comes from its typeface logo, that only states the company’s name.
It’s not fancy or gaudy. It’s not overly decorative or complex. It doesn’t get crazy with colors or symbols. It simply states ‘Denny’s’ in a bold, red font with a yellow background.
This is one of the best examples on how to keep a logo simple, yet expressive. Sometimes the most creative logos aren’t the ones that are so in-your-face.
4. Oodles Noodle Bar
You’re probably not familiar with this Thai-influenced cafe unless you live in Seattle. But, Oodles can teach us all about getting creative with a logo through balanced shapes.
It’s advised to not use unfamiliar shapes when designing a logo, as it’ll confuse your audience. Instead, go with a symbol that is recognizable, and that ties your brand neatly together.
As a noodle bar, it makes sense why Oodles chose two chopsticks and a bowl in its logo. They took their creativity one step further by situating their main offering in the middle of the image. It’s familiar, yet innovative, and leaves no confusion amongst consumers.
5. Bottle + Kitchen
Another restaurant that’s probably unbeknownst to you is Bottle + Kitchen, an American gastropub based out of Portland. What makes this logo so special? Despite having a mix of different shapes, Bottle + Kitchen keeps a clean, symmetrical look.
Having a symmetrical logo doesn’t always mean you’re going to have a balance of shapes on each side. What’s important is optimizing the space, so one side isn’t filled while the other is completely blank.
You can measure this by imagining a rectangle or circle surrounding your logo. Would the edges of your logo meet the outer part of the encompassing shape? This can also help if you need better alignment.
6. Wendy’s
Since Dave Thomas opened this iconic burger chain in 1969, his redheaded daughter has been apart of the logo. Not only was the founder a family oriented man, but he also prided himself in old-fashioned values.
This logo exemplifies all of those qualities. Despite being one of the largest burger chains in America, we still get that homegrown feel from the Wendy’s logo. The inclusion of Thomas’ daughter has resonated so well because it sends that unique message.
We feel confident in the product we’re getting because of that family tie. This is the type of differentiator brands should look for to set themselves apart.
7. Roka Akor
You can find Roka Akor throughout Scottsdale, Chicago, and San Francisco. It’s a luxurious, award-winning sushi and seafood brand whose logo says just that.
Their logo is neatly tied together with a discernible black font and modern Japanese typeface. There isn’t a ton of words, symbols, or other shapes, which keeps it from looking cluttered. Still, when you see this logo, you can tell the message it’s trying to convey.
Sometimes familiarity isn’t such a bad thing, and Roka Akor uses this to their advantage. We get the feel that it’s an elegant restaurant, and it’s uniqueness still shows through expressive font.
In Need of a Restaurant Logo?
Designing your own restaurant logo doesn’t have to be so challenging. With our easy-to-use logo maker, you can become your very own graphic designer!
Get started by registering with us today!
How to Create an Attractive Clothing Company Logo
Posted on October 03, 2018 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
If you need to design a clothing company logo, where do you begin?
A lot of different things go into creating a new logo or redesigning an old one. The clothing business is competitive, and a logo matters. Eight years ago, Gap attempted to redesign its classic logo with disastrous results.
It cost the company millions in design costs, focus groups, and bad press. The company underestimated the attachment people had to its logo, and the reaction was so strong, the company reverted to its old logo just a few days later.
That’s the potential impact your clothing logo has on your customers. How do you design a logo that stands out from the crowd? Read on to find out.
The Most Important Step Isn’t The Design
You’ll be surprised to learn that the most important step in designing a logo isn’t designing the logo itself, but rather the planning and research that happens beforehand.
What you learn in the research and planning phase will inform your designs, and actually, make it easier to apply design principles because you know exactly the look and feel you want to create.
Before you start designing, you have to have in-depth knowledge of two things: your company and your customers.
Knowing Your Company
We’re not looking at sales figures or anything like that. Rather, we’re going to look at your company’s vision and mission. You want to make sure that the reason why your company exists aligns with your company’s brand and your customers.
If your company’s mission is to create upscale business clothing for older women, you want to be sure that your logo and brand reflect that.
One easy way to go about this is to describe your clothing company as a person. Is it a man or a woman? What do they wear? What do they drive? What is a typical day like? Treating your company as a person will help you describe what your company is about.
Once you know why your company exists, you want to be able to describe the brand’s promise in a few words. For example, Nike’s mission and brand promise are to “bring innovation and inspiration to every athlete.”
Volvo’s is to make driving safer. What does your company promise its customers?
Who Are Your Customers?
When you have your company’s mission and brand promise down, you want to make sure that you understand your customers as well.
When they’re looking at different clothing companies, what do they want? Are they shopping for value or status?
You need to be sure that your customers’ expectations line up with your brand promise. That’s how you’ll create loyal customers who are attached to your brand.
Know What Makes Good (and Bad) Design
When you’re designing your clothing company logo, you have to know what goes into a good and bad design. When people look at a logo, they subconsciously process the colors, fonts, shapes, and symbols to create meaning.
Those meanings may vary across cultures, which is why it’s so important to know your audience. If your customers are largely based in the U.S. and Canada, they’ll perceive colors and symbols the same way.
Color
Color is one of the bigger impacts on design. Different colors are processed in the brain and they have psychological associations with different emotions.
Blue is used throughout many classic brands. Blue is associated with safety, reliability, and security. That’s why so many companies from IBM to Gap use it.
Black is a color of power, mystery, and strength. It’s used a lot in retail for this reason. Black can also be associated with sadness and death, so you have to be careful about how you use it and the color combinations you use.
Font
The fonts that you use also have an impact. Block fonts tend to convey something that’s bold or strong. Retro fonts can take people back to another time, as their childhood.
Some fonts are playful, and others are more conservative. You want to choose a font that matches your clothing brand’s promise.
A good example is a logo for this company. They sell modern clothing, and the fonts chosen reflect that.
Symbols
Even the symbols and lines that you use in your logo have an effect on people. A round logo can be seen as warm or soft. A logo with direct lines has the perception of durability and reliability.
The question for you is how approachable is your brand? Do you want to be seen as reliable or flexible?
You can do additional research to scope out what your competition has for a logo. Note what fonts they use and what they’re trying to communicate with their logos. You can use this as an opportunity to position your clothing company in a way that the competition doesn’t.
Doing competitive research gives you additional inspiration before you design your logo.
Designing Your Logo
You’re finally ready to start designing your logo. You want to start by brainstorming ideas and designing different versions of your clothing company logo. This is actually the easy part when you take the time to do research into your company, your competition, and your target audience.
You can describe exactly what you want your logo to accomplish, and you can test your logo to make sure it does that.
Print out several versions of your logo and ask potential customers and current customers what they think. You can also check with your employees.
Once you test out your logo, you should have one that stands out more than the others. That’s the final version you should go with.
A Clothing Company Logo That Stands Out
When you’re designing a clothing company logo, you have to take the time to research and plan before you start to design. Those are the most important steps you can take because those steps will inform the rest of your design.
You can then apply the principles of design to connect with your customers and create an unforgettable logo and brand that people can relate to.
Once you do those things, the rest is easy, just brainstorm your ideas, test them, choose the one that works best.
Are you ready to get started? You can start designing your logo using our online tool today.