Branding solutions for business is something that we here at Five By Five are really passionate about, and it is all about consistency.
Life is all about consistently showing up and doing the work and the branding of your business is no different.
Five By Five’s design department is second to none. Not only do they design great looking, award winning, high performing websites, they also love designing logo and branding packs for our clients.
Our Design Team can take your business to the next level and nail the personality and community you wish to portray.
We dedicate ourselves to living our brand every day. Through our digital presence, we believe we portray a strong sense of who and what Five By Five is.
Sam is our Head Designer and has been with us for more than nine glorious years and shared his insight and infinite wisdom with us.
We are going to deconstruct the branding and design process. So, if you are wondering how to create a brand identity for your business and wondering why it’s so important, then this one’s for you!
Why is branding so important, particularly for small businesses?
Whether you like it or not, first impressions count. This is your chance to suit up and present the best version of yourself aesthetically and also differentiate yourself.
Great branding allows you to elevate yourself, to build credibility and shows that you’re a stable business that is invested in itself and its infrastructure.
Ultimately, your branding should elevate you in the marketplace above your competitors.
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, talks about branding as what other people say about you when you’re not in the room. It is your reputation and how you shine when you’re not physically there.
But how does branding put more dollars in your bank account at the end of the day?
Adobe commissioned a report in 2016 which revealed that design driven companies reported a 41% higher market share. They also have 50% more loyal customers than their competitors.
70% of design led businesses have a far superior digital presence and 46% have a competitive advantage overall.
The first port of call is extracting a brief on your organisation and what it stands for, who your target audience or market is and what your business offerings are.
If you take the time and the effort to really critically think about this sort of foundational information of your brand, then this intricate information is interpreted and fully utilised by a good designer.
After digesting the brief, your designer should do some in depth market research in order to see what the current trends in your industry are and really hone in on your particular sector.
For example, if you are looking for a logo for your construction business, there’s going to be a certain direction you need to take to best present to that sort of audience.
A great way to do research and gain inspiration is by looking at an online repository of work from the best designers in the world. This will really get those creative juices flowing!
What makes a good logo design for a business?
Even though a logo is very much a digital piece of artwork these days, it may still help to get pen to paper!
Treat this as an initial brain dump and start getting some different concepts out, so you can see what’s not working and what is. It truly is a process of elimination, there are so many concepts that we’ll come up with that actually won’t even make it to our clients.
It’s the best concepts, the cream of the crop, that make it through the client presentation.
As you can see in the example below, you can go down different routes that are slightly different to each other.
You’ve got the same brand and are still utilising the same fundamentals with colour, but each have their own accent, whether it be typography, text styling or cleanliness.
At the end of the day, you need to have a vast array of options to figure out what’s going to suit your specific business the best.
But branding is not just a logo...
Then what is it? It’s the fonts, typography, colour schemes, all those fundamental pieces when put together, create the finalised brand.
So what we’re looking at here on the right is the final primary logo design one of our clients chose.
Then on the left, is what is called a ‘fallback’ which is a minimalist icon style which is perfect for social media profile pictures where you’ve got limited real estate.
There’s no point in coming up with this awesome rectangular elongated style logo, but then it’s actually not legible when it’s condensed in size. This is the kind of expert foresite that needs to come with logo design and branding.
That’s why we always give our clients a mock up of what their logo will look like out in the real world in a physical environment which really helps them realise their vision.
The final piece of the branding puzzle is your style guide which is your branding rulebook. Remember, your brand is not just your logo, it’s your fonts, your colour breakdown and more!
You need to have a central source for all that information in one document that you could then hand to a designer in England or in Singapore, or wherever they might be!
You might have people all around the world working on your different marketing collateral, but they all will come back with a similar result because they’ve got this rulebook to follow.
Branding is all about consistency and every touch point you have with a client should have a sense of uniformity which builds your brand and your brand loyalty.
Before and Afters
These are some examples of logos before and after the magic touch from our Five By Five Design Team.
You can see the transformation of logos that are quite complex and dated that have been simplified and brought into current trends. Our team has also created icons that when reduced in size, still has legibility.
Try not to get too literal with your branding and just have a simplistic logo that can be interpreted by anyone in their own way.
Real Logo & Branding Redesigns by Five By Five
Simplicity is key and that’s the major trend in today’s modern branding because of how it translates to a digital presence.
You might find the fundamentals are there with your current logo in terms of the simplicity, but perhaps more effort can be placed into it. The colour palette might be something that needs to be looked at so it’s more approachable if your target market spans from people in their mid twenties through to their sixties.
Your brand is the foundation on which your company is built upon.
This is the first opportunity someone has to form an opinion of your company and first impressions really do count.
Your brand is not just a logo, it is not your product, it is not your name, it is the personality and community you wish to portray.
Here at Five By Five, we dedicate ourselves to living our brand every day. Through our digital presence, we believe we portray a strong sense of who we are.
So, if you feel like you haven’t nailed your branding yet, then let us help you. You trust your plumber to fix your sink so why not trust one of Australia’s best designers to deliver you a high quality branding and logo package?
To be guided through the process, you are welcome to also view the recording of the Five By Five Lunch and Learn Webinar based on this topic. Feel free to click on the link below.
Lunch & Learn
Learn how to share your business magic online. Monthly, our team of digital masterminds walk you through the latest digital marketing tips and tricks.
Unmissable strategies. All for free
