What makes something worth coming back for? Most of us would agree that quality is top priority anything—the taste, the texture, the material. Some would turn to the customer service of the company, on how well they respond to their patriots. But all these would not factor in if you’re trying a brand for the first time. The majority, including you and me, would bet on the brand name itself or the design of the typeface of the brand to get you to try the product. We lay money on how the brand is presented, and this is 100% true because consumers have gotten brand-conscious nowadays and business owners tend to overlook this important detail.

This is a wakeup call for all entrepreneurs. Building brand identity is an important step when starting up a business. This is the outermost filter your consumers take in to learn about your brand. While it may take up most of your time—researching and trying different shapes and colors that fit your brand—it pays off because this is the first step in building the name of your business.

Dan Matutina, co-founder of Plus 63 Design Co (a design studio responsible for the UP Fighting Maroons rebranding), Paprika cosmetics typeface and a myriad of other great projects, led the session about designing brand identities during Spark Fest 2018. He has had Google, Samsung, Nike, and Coca-cola as clients – and these big companies don’t take branding lightly. I hope the next few paragraphs give you that urge to start building your own brand, as well. Here’s how you can begin:

5 Tips on Creating a Solid Brand Identity

5. Do your research.

As any business owner would do, research is the first phase in the long process of designing your brand identity. This entails wringing out the insides of your brain to identify your brand’s overall essence. How would you want your consumers to see your business?

Dan suggests talking to people to get an outsider’s point of view and to cancel out ideas that may not work out. Next, how do you see your clients? As much as building a brand is all about business itself, remember that your business is also run by your clients. I think this step surfaces your business’s essence.

4. Think outside of the box.

Presenting your brand doesn’t always mean investing a lot on its typeface: the logo, word mark, etc. Videos are great platforms to displaying your business’s essence, too. Incorporating humor is another alternative to imbibing your brand’s image, as well.

Yielding a piece of your brand, may it be through humor or anything else that’s genuinely a part of it, will give your consumers a sense of familiarity.

3. Expand the conversation.

When building your brand, be optimistic about expanding your business. Let’s say you started out as a swimwear brand, and then you want to venture out in making jewelry. The brand that you started out with should be aligned with the expansion you’re planning to make. The overall feel of the brand that you built as you started your swimwear business should also represent the jewelry line you’re starting.

2. Put your soul into it.

Your brand is a living entity of what your business is about. The typeface and the physical outlook of your brand represent the abstract significance of your enterprise, your brainchild. Giving a piece of your brand to your consumers through little details in your brand identity speaks for what your business is all about.

The hues of green in your brand can represent the emphasis of growing environmental problems you put forward in your business. A myriad of other representations of your brand identity subsists, as well. You just have to look for the right emotions to use.

1. Invest in design and creativity.

This step is almost always discounted, maybe because we focus too much on quality. But in a pool of other bakeshops, other swimwear lines, other shoe brands, it really is difficult to make a business stand out. Dan Matutina suggests laying trust in design and creativity to push your brand to the apex of all other businesses. In all honesty, these businesses share almost the same quality, taste, and material—but the brand remains unique to every business. And accelerating your brand identity through detail and design will surely make your enterprise a cut above the rest.

What design process would you consider? Share by commenting below!