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Creating a Brand
Never start an article with a negative. Well, seeing as I've already broken that rule and seeing as you're web designers and such, let's start looking at branding by discussing what a brand isn't.
A brand isn't a logo. Nor is it a colour scheme, a website's theme or a slogan/ strapline. These are amongst the last elements to be considered when creating a brand. How can I speak such heresy? Well, that brings me nicely onto what a brand really is…
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A brand is communicating what you are all about to someone else.
The key words here being 'communicating' and 'someone else'. You can tell me that you offer 'market-leading services' or 'put customers first' but I might see things very differently – your logo might be funky and modern, but every word I read might be boring, dated and bland. A brand is in the eyes and ears of the beholder
The first step in creating a brand is knowing what your brand is. What do you stand for, how do you conduct business and what makes you different? This is often overlooked in the rush for a pretty logo!
Differentiation
In the web design industry you have plenty of competitors, a vast ill-defined potential market and naff-all barriers to entry. The design process is pretty much standard, as are the services you offer, the technology you use and the way you operate – little chance of differentiation. So how do you stand-out?
Your designs are (hopefully!) shaped by the client's business, the target audience and your design choices. You must understand the first two elements but you cannot change them. It is in your choices where differentiation lies.
Obviously for a web designer your portfolio is at the heart of communicating your brand – just don't go ruining it by showing every type of design you've ever done! But, in true Copy Corner style we're going to look at things from a different angle and see how words are what can turn your portfolio into a cohesive brand. Yes, even for such a graphic focussed business, words matter.
Why not communicate how you arrived at a design, what choices you made and why they were effective in meeting the client's needs. Rather than using bland and meaningless statements like "my designs improve the user experience" why not describe the steps you take in designing navigation, why that's important and how it leads to more business for the client's site? Instead of "my designs comply to w3c standards" why not describe how you ensure your client's site won't lose visitors using different technologies? Your choices are what makes you different. See where I'm going?
How can following the crowd ever lead to standing-out from it?
Seeing as most of you are independent freelancers, why not capitalise on the major advantage of being an individual – you're not a faceless corporation? You should express your personality, after all this is what will make your designs different to anyone else's. On the impersonal internet, making a personal connection with people is an important first step in turning visitors into customers.
Can you effectively communicate your individuality, reassure people you're the right choice and encourage them to respond through colours and images alone? You may think you can, but non-designer folk (a.k.a. your clients) won't. And that means you're not communicating what you're all about to someone else.
Image isn't the same as images?
Sure, you could get suckered into thinking brand are all about images if you see only TV ads, but successful brands do an incredible amount of work to ensure that image means something.
And what about where you can't use images to communicate? Does your brand work without a logo, a particular font, colour scheme etc.? No… then it's not as strong a brand as it could be. This isn't just hypothetical either… what about your descriptions in SERPs, Google ads, forums, directories etc. where you can't control the graphics and what about blogs, articles, newsletters etc. where the content is what gets attention?
Do you think you would recognise the 'Wizely' brand if you didn't see my username or avatar? Would the 'Wizely' brand still be effective, would it still communicate what I'm all about to someone? Would yours?
So, creating a brand then…
My advice, as always – concentrate on:
- what you are all about
- why that matters to someone else
- who you're targeting
- ensure you communicate this effectively
That means figuring out what it is you want to say (based on what people want to hear) and finding your own distinctive way of getting heard. Only then should you consider colours, logos and straplines as they support a brand, not define it.
Branding is a huge subject and this article, like all Copy Corner articles, is just meant to get you thinking. There's an 'Add Reply' button at the bottom – who knows this could be like a forum where ideas are discussed?!!!!
In this article I've said a logo is a quick visual summary of your brand; in the next article we'll see how to create a short textual summary as, by popular demand, we're going to look at writing effective meta data in Part 13: "The nuts and bolts of robot food".
) I want to show some personality. I think there's a fine line between showing personality and coming across unprofessional and I wondered how you set these boundaries?
