Build your brand

Branding is how your business is perceived by the world! So it is essential that you are delivering the right message.

As a graphic designer, I can outline the importance of having a well designed logo, brand guidelines and a beautiful user-friendly website, however this doesn’t constitute ‘branding’ in full. Design is a hefty part of branding to get you noticed, recognised and established. However in addition to this, defining your identity and business values is just as important.

Identify

You need to start from the inside, find the strengths and weaknesses. What are the business’ core values? What are the main services or products you are looking to put into the market, are you passionate about them? Once you have taken the time to outline your ethos, and perhaps worked on a tagline, everything else will fall into play.

Be heard!

Don’t be scared to push your business, consider it a work in progress – part of the journey is to soak up feedback from your clients and customers and use it as constructive feedback to fuel your ideas, learn from and turn into a strong brand. Branding is an ongoing process and is forever building. Take a look at Google.. they aren’t using the same logo they were in 1997, they adapted and developed their look to coincide with design trends and styles.

Network

Be social! Social media is a great tool to communicate with the world. You can get the voice of your business across and discuss topics directly with potential clients, people working within the same industries or simply show off what you have to offer! You can use it to market yourself, but also clients or customers can leave reviews – building your brand further and reinforcing your services.

Get online

Alongside social media, online presence is a must. You should have a website as it is integral to any organisation in order to be taken ‘seriously’. Showcase what you’re about, but don’t worry about whether your website isn’t ‘flashy’ enough or if it’s ‘too understated’ it all comes back to your brand. Each brand is different, so it is important not to compare yourself to an irrelevant market. The important elements that you need to consider with a website is that it needs to be easily navigated and functional to those that visit the site!