Back To Branding Basics

This weeks’ episode is another solo episode, covering some of the basics that you need to know when it comes to branding. Although I am not a designer and I have little experience when it comes to creating assets, branding and design is incredibly important from a marketing point of view. Having had lots of conversations about branding recently, I thought now would be a great opportunity to cover some of the basics you need to know when it comes to building a brand that is recognisable.KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTYour logo is your identifier but your brand is absolutely everything that goes with it. When you see a logo, it’s very rare you’d see it alone. It could be on a website, a business card, on social media or on an email signature.Your brand also includes fonts, colours, styles and photos.Your branding is effectively your shop front. It’s how people are going to judge you.Think about the brands you interact with and how you perceive their brands.If you’re struggling when it comes to inspiration, Pinterest is a great place to start. Try searching for your industry and then using the word ‘logo’ or ‘branding’ afterwards. Save a board of everything you like, making a note of the aspects you like as you do it.Pinterest is also great when it comes to searching for colour palettes.If you’re in a sensitive industry, you need to think about the imagery you’re going to use. Stock sites are a great place to get inspiration for these photos.When you’re looking at your new designs, you need to think about whether or not they’re going to look good on social media. The easier to read, the better.If you’re your business, it’s okay to use your face.You need to ensure your branding truly represents you and your brand.Think about where you’re going to use your branding, as often this will often determine how many elements you need to make up your branding.Your designer will need to send all of your files over to you when they’re done. They don’t need to design every social media graphic for you, as they can send you over a file that you can easily edit yourself.THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Coming up with a logo and accompanying branding is incredibly difficult and if you don’t have any design skills, hiring a designer is the best way to ensure you’re doing everything right.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSWhat Is the Difference Between A Logo and A Brand? – 03:21Your First Steps – 05:40Finding Inspiration – 11:25Thinking Ahead – 13:10Considering Social Media – 15:00Creating Your Branding - 17:00Transcript below Speaker 1: (00:33) Hello and happy new year. So you might be listening to this just before the new year. You might be listening just after, you might be listening in the middle of the year and therefore that makes no sense whatsoever. But this episode came out just before the new year for the new year, which will be 2020 so if you are listening at the time then yeah, happy new year. Hope you have a good one.(00:55) Okay, so I'm just going to jump in today's episode because I've been batching contents. If you don't batch, definitely recommend it. Definitely have a think about it going forward. So I'm actually recording this at the end of November and obviously it's not going out until the end of December. But it's so nice to think that I've got all the episodes done between now and then. It's lovely. And also because I have a team that do stuff with the podcast. So I have someone that edits someone who writes the show notes, someone that then manages the whole process.Speaker 1: (01:27) It just gives them and me time to get it all done. So yeah, I'm a little bit tired cause I've done a lot of talking and although I can talk for Britain, I've kind of talked about loads of different stuff. So I'm just going to jump straight in with this episode. I've decided that this episode is a going to be a solo because as I talked about in the last episode, because it's a busy time of year for you guys, I didn't want to put an episode out, which was an interview and then have them maybe not get as many listens as they might do normally. And secondly, I want to talk about kind of going back to basics on some stuff. So what I'm going to talk about today is branding. Now, I don't often talk about design-y stuff and branding stuff because I am not a designer.Speaker 1: (02:10) Let's just get that straight right away. I don't want any designers listening to this thinking, what are you talking about? You're not a designer. I'm talking about branding and design. Coming from a marketer's point of view. However, I've obviously worked with a designer. I have a designer in the team who constantly takes the Mickey out of me because I think I've got an okay at things and he just like, Oh, when did you get your design degree? And I'm like, yeah, okay, fair enough. So we've got a designer in the team. I've worked with loads and loads of designers. I used to work in a marketing agency other than my own that had a fleet of designers. And yeah, so I've had lots of experience, but I'm not a designer, so I'm not necessarily coming at this from this point. But there's some things, and the reason I'm going to have is because I've had two people that I've been consulting for recently and they have been setting them in new and it's not often that I speak to people.Speaker 1: (03:02) Um, they're part of my 90 day programme that are starting a business from scratch. So I've ended up having conversations with them about their brands because they haven't actually yet come up with a logo or a brand. So let's just talk about those two things. What Is the Difference Between A Logo and A Brand? Well, first off, what's the difference between a logo and a brand? I'm not going to give you the theory. What does a brand mean? I'm going to give you like the straight up what I think is the difference. So a logo is the thing that is your main thing. It's your logo, it's your identify. And that's just standalone. That's one thing. Whereas your brand is everything that goes with it. So your logo might be your initials or it might be the name of your business. Maybe it's got an icon with it that permanently sits with the logo. But that's not your brand, that's just your logo.Speaker 1: (03:48) And what you have to remember firstly is that when you see a logo it's very rarely on its own. So your logo is very rarely stuck on something that isn't part of your brand. So for instance, I'm just trying to think of all the places you would find my logo. So we've got a my website, but obviously it's a whole website full of stuff. So the brand is very evident there. You might see my logo on social media, but again it's amongst all the other stuff that's on there and my brand is very relevant and stands out on there. Where else might you see? Mine's on my email signature? But it's probably got some other things where they even like... cause the brand includes things like the fonts and the colours and any images and the style of images. And are you going to use photos, are you going to use illustrations?Speaker 1: (04:32) So it's all those considerations. And what was really interesting, I was having a conversation the other day and someone was saying to me how they can spot my stuff without even knowing it's from me because it's so stylized in a certain way. And what's interesting is this person said that that is not their style at all. However, they totally get that is my style and therefore it makes perfect sense for me. And what's interesting when I talk about brands and things, if you've ever seen me on screen, which if you've ever seen a live or see me do anything in my office, you'll see that even the colours of the walls or the accessories, they still sit with my brand colours. And I wouldn't say that necessarily, that was done totally on purpose, but what I'm saying is that that's the stuff I like, so therefore it's no wonder that it reflects my brand because obviously I'm going to have a brand that I like. Your First Steps Speaker...