I have a confession to make – I am obsessed with quirky socks. My craze started last year when a colleague got me a 6-month subscription for a novelty sock company. Each month I would wait patiently, anticipating what crazy cotton keepsakes would make their way into my letterbox.

By the end of 2020, I had amassed an impressive collection of foot-centric quirkiness. From chillis and burgers, to tacos and bananas. At least from the ankles down, I am quite the fashion statement.

For my birthday this year my kids decided to jump on the bandwagon. When I saw the carefully wrapped present, I had a fair idea what to expect. Needless to say, I was excited.

When I opened the wrapping, there was a lovely pair of plain black socks. Plain, black, run-of-the-mill 1950s-dad socks. Sigh. I faked my joy and thanked them for their kind gift. Bless them.

But deep inside, I knew this wouldn’t fly. I knew ‘Black Socks’ wouldn’t be accepted by the others. The literal black sheep of my sock drawer – they just weren’t part of the family.

Whether it is socks, signs or stationery – consistency is important

It could be your business cards, website or vehicle signage – it’s vital that these elements of your brand look like they belong to the same family.

Why? Because it helps with brand recognition and memorability.

Perhaps it’s an image you use, a graphic or the use of colour. Whichever you choose, having a common recurring element helps strengthen your brand and ensures it resonates with your customers across various touchpoints.

Keeping all your branding with one supplier is the best solution for this. By doing so, they become the keeper of your brand and will oversee all your work to ensure it’s consistent.

Here are a few great reasons to keep all your branding with one company:

Creates brand consistency
By keeping your branding in one place, it can ensure your colours, logo and graphic elements all look like they belong together. So website or vehicle signage, all look like they part of one happy family.

Builds stronger relationships
Whether it’s with customers or suppliers, relationships in business are everything – after all, people buy from people. Keeping your logo, signage and print with one company allows for a solid relationship and understanding of one another – likes, dislikes and the problems that need to be solved.

Your vision imagined
If you’ve been with your branding agency from the start, they should know what makes you tick, your vision and your grand plans. Being able to understand your business from grassroots level, helps them define what it is that you are trying to achieve with your communications, both within your business as well as reaching a wider audience.

Qld Coffee Tech: Consistent branding at every touch point

“Oh, I didn’t know you did building signs!”

This was a recurring comment to me over the years. Building signs could also be replaced with websites, logos, car wraps, etc.

Our name didn’t truly reflect the direction that our company had gone. Over the years, signage and websites had become a big part of our business. We had outgrown our name and it was time to change.

So late last year, we added All About Signage and All About Design to our bows. We would trade under the name All About Group. Perfect…

Well, not so much. Once we began using the new name and structure, we discovered it wasn’t working work us. The name meant nothing to us or our customers. And what is a group anyway? Like the Spice Girls are ‘a group’? Nope. Not for us.

The fire our business suffered on March 1st changed many things for us. In particular, it changed our ability to analyse our business and make changes if we need them. It made us brave.

So whilst being bold is the flavour of the month, we decided to scrap all this All About Group stuff. Boom!

Drumroll…

So after over 20 years, All About Print has now become Brand Hero.

What’s staying the same

What’s changing

In the previous post (Click here to read to Part 2) we looked at how to choose the correct fonts and colours, why you don’t need a paint brush in your logo if you are a painter and why $50 logos suck.

So… your logo is designed. Congrats! The first part is out of the way. Think of this like climbing Mount Everest. You’ve come a long way, but really, we are still at basecamp. Let’s unpack some more…

Step 8: Create your collateral

Once your logo is designed and approved, you can move onto designing & creating your business stationery, signage, web presence and other places where your logo is seen.

There is no easy way of putting this, if you have been in business for a number of years and you are active in various marketing activities, this can be a mammoth job.

Your logo is likely to be seen on:

• Business Cards
• Brochures
• Letterheads
• Envelopes
• Flyers
• Notepads
• Docket Books
• Building Signage
• Vehicle Signage
• Social Media Accounts
• Website
• Email Signatures
• Uniforms
• Accounting Software

If you use a task manager, make a list of everything that needs to be done and simply tick it off as you go. This project can take a few months, don’t get overawed. Like the old saying goes… “The best way to eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

I would set yourself a target of getting everything re-branded within 3-6 months. This way you are not restricting your cash-flow or throwing items out unnecessarily. Start with the most urgent items first, the ones that your audience are most likely to visually see you. Think website, social media, business cards & vehicles and office space.

This is very important – You want your re-branded items to look like they are all from the same family. The same colours, fonts & styles. This helps to keep all the items in sync and will create a much stronger brand presence.

Step 9: Launch your logo

With all the key areas of your brand now in place and looking fantastic, its time to start planning a launch of your new look brand, explaining your new design as well as the reasons and meaning behind it.

Some effective ways to launch your logo would be:

• a professionally printed direct mail out to key clients
• an email newsletter campaign to your database
• a short video for your website and social pages
• new phone on-hold message
• a ad social media campaign

Ideally, a combination of these and anything else you can think of will work great. Got a slightly crazy marketing idea for your launch? Don’t dismiss it, this might be the perfect way to grab people’s attention.

A re-brand launch will help you keep top of mind with your audience and help them identify with you as a company. You could even run a new promotion, event or competition to mark the occasion – the choice is yours! Just don’t lose out on this golden opportunity and keep it to yourself.

Step 10: Consider the other elements of your brand

Your brand isn’t your logo. Your logo is simply an element of your brand. Your brand compasses any touch point your audience has with your company. It is about how they feel when they come in contact or see you.

Think about all the touch points where people interact and see your business. Do they accurately reflect you and the new logo/brand you are establishing? Does your office space reflect who you are and your values? When you and your staff answer the phone, does this reflect your brand too?

How is your brand identity looking? Does it accurately reflect who you are and what you stand for? Does it instil confidence in people to pick up the phone and give you a call? Without unique and effective brand identity, you are selling yourself and your business short.

In the previous post (Click here to read to Part 1) we looked at brand personality, how to identify your target market, what products you sell (and what you REALLY sell) and my hairstyle in the mid 90s.

Now that deeper stuff is out of the way, its time to get creative!

Step 4: Choose your fonts and colours

Once you have your brand personality and target market identified, you can start to choose colours and fonts that appeal to them. Generally speaking, you are picking colours and fonts based on your answers to these questions.

Is your business planned and considered with an older audience? Perhaps blues, blacks and greys with a serif font style works best for you. Do you have younger target marketing and want to be seen as youthful and spontaneous? Perhaps brighter colours and more modern san-serif fonts work best for you.

For more information on font choices, see our post here.

Step 5: Choose your logo style

When you have a clear direction of your brand’s personality, fonts and colours you need to examine your logo’s style.

Modern or retro? Elegant or abstract? Like the steps before, the decisions here are based on your answers to the questions in the previous steps. If your target market is retirees and you are selling financial advice, modern and gritty won’t work for you.

Make sure you look back on the data in the previous steps to ensure your styles align with your target market, brand personality, colours and font choices. Remember, it isn’t about what appeals to you. Its about what appeals to your audience.

Step 6: Choose your wants and don’t wants

Should your logo contain a symbol like Apple or Nike? Or just text-based like David Jones or Coles.

If you do choose a symbol (most do), it does not have to be a literal description of your business. If you are a painter, you don’t have to have a brush. If you are a handyman, you don’t need to have a hammer. Do Nike have a pair of shoes? Does McDonalds have a burger? Does BMW have a car?

To stand out from your competition, go for something slightly abstact, but with meaning connected to your business and offering. Use the clues in the ‘deeper’ answers to Step 1 & 2 to uncover some hidden inspiration. The added benefit here is that if your products change over time, your logo will still reflect who you are.

Step 7: Design your logo

It took seven steps before we even put pencil to paper! If your logo designer is worth their weight in gold, they will ask similar questions to the above when they do a logo meeting with you. Better still… take the answers to the above 6 steps with you and blow their little designer minds!

Be very aware of cheaper online logo design offerings. Fifty bucks for unlimited designs and revisions might seem like a bargain, but you get what you pay for. Nine times out of ten, these are simply stock images with your name plonked underneath. Not only do they not reflect you or your customers, these images can be bought by anyone so you might find any number of companies using the same logo or icon.

Click here to read Part 3

The mid-nineties was the height of Britpop. Way back then, I had somewhat more hair. I took full advantage of this with my Gallagher-esque hairdo – combed down at the front (in no way did this look like a comb-over). Paired with a nice dress shirt, chinos and white running shoes I really looked the part. Hello ladies.

Like Oasis’ time at the top, my hairdo didn’t last. As the ravishes of age and children took over, the comb-over comb-down, became off limits. Not only is it off limits, its physically impossible. I guess this is Mother Nature’s equivalent of taking toys away from kids who weren’t treating them right.

As I have grown older, life has changed. Directions and trends have changed. One must go with the times, albeit slightly slower than some.

The same can be said with your business identity. Your logo and branding play a very important role in your company. It reflects who you are, what you stand for and it helps attract the right customers to your business. All of this enables you to do your best work.

As times change, sometimes your company must change too. Perhaps this is a shift in your customer’s needs, a shift in technology, an increased (or decreased) product offering. It’s important that your logo and brand accurately reflect this.

Time for a new look

Let’s look at the steps required so you can re-brand your business more effectively and with maximum impact.

Naturally, you might think “I need a new logo for our company, it looks stale. Lets find a logo designer designer. Whilst this is somewhat true, it’s really best you understand a few things about your business and your clients before you jump straight in. Once you understand a few simple fundamentals about your business and who it attracts, you will give the logo designer a better chance of developing something unique and special for your business.

Step 1: Identify what you sell, then go deeper

What items do you sell to your customers? Is it timber? Is it plumbing services? Is it legal advice? Some might think that it’s a very simple process. You have items to sell, people buy those items.

However, if we go deeper, you are selling more than this. Are you an electrician selling air conditioning units? Or are you selling a cooler room and a better lifestyle? Do you sell newly renovated homes? Or the pride of having the best house on the street?

There is a clear distinction between what we think sell and what we are REALLY selling. One is simply a tool or method used to deliver on the TRUE nature of the sale.

Step 2: Accurately identify your target market, then go deeper

Let’s get this straight, your target market isn’t “everyone”. I do countless logo design briefs every year and this is by far the top answer to this question. Regardless of your business, if your answer is “everyone”, you haven’t thought about the question.

First, consider demographics:

• male or female
• young or old
• stay at home mums or working professionals
• singles or couples
• locally based or country-wide
• the list goes on

Once you have this, work out the immediate needs of these people and what’s important to them. Is it price? Convenience? Relationship building? Quality? Speed of service? Remember, you can’t be all things to all people.

You are now starting to build yourself a customer avatar – a short description of your ideal customer. This is the person for which you just love coming to work for and will do your best work each and every time.

Here’s an example: “My ideal customer’s name is Joe. Joe is a 35 year old who lives in Wilston and travels to this office in Brendale each day for work. He runs an electrical business with a team of around 20 staff. Joe is proactive in his marketing. He loves collaborating with others and coming up with with new ideas help grow his business. Joe spends the weekends at home with his kids and enjoys family time before getting back into it on Monday morning.”

If you do our best work for Joe and love working with him, you want to attract more “Joes” to our business. This avatar gives you an accurate description of who you aiming the logo design, brand identity and marketing at. It describes their age, social status, business size & values as well as personal values. You can now use this data to craft the logo design and style for this person.

Step 3: Identify your Brand’s personality

Identifying your brand’s personality really looks at the human side of your brand. How you want other people to see you when they look at your logo and other branded items. Do you want to be seen as youthful or mature? Spontaneous or planned? Organic or sophisticated? Think back to the Apple TV ads from a few years ago… are you a conservative, shirt & tie type person (PC) or a cool t-shirt & jeans type person (Apple)?

This isn’t about you, the business owner and how you feel. It’s about how you want your current and future customers to view and interact your business.

Click here to read Part 2

Font choice is important, it is a core part of your brand’s identity & needs careful consideration. The fonts you use in your business are reflected in each and every piece of visual communication you do. Your logo, business cards, vehicle signs, flyers, websites. All of these use fonts to display your company and your message.

How to choose the right fonts

Know Your Style

Generally, we can categorize font styles into a few different areas. Let’s look at the main players:

Serif: Serifs are the little feet on the ends of each letter. This style dates back to the 1500s and allows the eye to flow across the lines of text.

Sans Serif: Sans means without. So this style is the same as above, minus the little feet! San Serif fonts are more modern looking, informal and friendly. Many companies (including ourselves) use a sans serif font for their logo font.

Script: This style is seen as elegant, feminine and elaborate. Think carefully about using this style for your logo as it does not work well across all media. What might stand out on a business card, won’t necessary stand out on the side of a vehicle.

Slab: Bold, strong and high impact. This style is great for logos and headings. Once again, think about your brand personality before using this one. Whilst it stands out and is strong, it can also be seen as loud and pushy.

Handwriting: Relaxed in style, handwriting is similar to script, but less formal. This style works well for some headings and small pieces of text such as company taglines.

Who is your audience?

Knowing your audience and target market is vital when it comes to choosing your font style. For instance, Toys R Us has a target market of children and parents. They use a very playful font style with lots of colour. It’s perfect for their market and immediately sets them apart.

This approach wouldn’t be as effective if a company’s target market was financial investors whose expectations would be more aligned to stability, wealth and growth.

Three’s a crowd

Choose a couple of fonts and stick with them throughout your company’s communication. Having a website, brochure or poster designed? Make sure the designer sticks to just 2 or 3 fonts across everything. Not only does this ensure your message gets communicated to the reader better, it makes the reader feel that each piece is simply part of the same whole, cementing your brand personality.

Where to look

Here are some great font resources for you to browse:

• Google Fonts
• DaFont
• 1001 Fonts
• Font Squirrel

Does your font branding resemble a pizza?

Over time, different fonts can creep in to your company’s marketing. If you looked back on all your items of communication over the past 5 years you probably would notice a fair bit of artistic license has been taken on your brand. Different fonts, colours, ways of displaying your logo. Its not uncommon for a company’s branding to look a little like a supreme pizza. Lots of variety, all packed into one box. Being a pizza snob, I know this is never a good thing.

Once a year, take a look at your company’s communication over the past 12 months and pay particular attention to the typography used. Is it consistent? Does it reflect your brand? Can you spot any typos?? (hopefully not!)

How to keep it consistent

Developing a simple Style Guide is a great way to keep your brand’s visual communication on track. A simple Style Guide would document the fonts to be used in all company communications, the company colour breakdowns and how to (and importantly, how not to) display your logo. A more detailed Style Guide would go a step further and detail the exact layout and design of all your stationery and marketing material.

Either option is a great way to ensure your brand is communicated strongly and consistently to your audience. Contact us today if you think your company could benefit from this.

An effective logo should be timeless. Does yours stand the test of time?

A well-crafted logo should last over 10 years without the need to re-design. Whilst a trendy element might look good today, these can date very quickly.

If you have been building your brand over a period of time, a sudden change of logo after just a few years isn’t exactly ideal. Building trust and loyalty of a brand over time is one of the important actions of a logo design. Your logo helps build your brand’s loyalty and ensure your customers place their trust in your business. If your logo consists of on-trend colours, imagery and fonts, chances are you might need to look at changing this sooner than you want to ensure your logo remains fresh and current. This change undermines your hard work of building brand loyalty.

Being trendy, creative types, its easy for us graphic designer to add a trendy element to a logo, sometimes without realising it!

Some great examples of logos that have stood the test of time…

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Lets take a look at what these timeless logos have in common:

• Simple use of colour (less than 3) and no special effects (no gradients!)
• Simple fonts
• Simple shapes
• Easily recognisable
• Free of complex graphic elements
• Not a clipart image in sight
• Logo can display well if scaled down
• No trendy element
• Last but not least… simple.

Getting these points right is so important to creating a successful logo and branding. Does your logo still look as it should in 2016? Get in touch today for a free, no obligation branding session and we can take a closer look at your logo and how well it is working for your business.

“Leave trends to the fashion industry. Trends come and go, and when you’re talking about changing a pair of jeans or buying a new dress, that’s fine, but where your brand identity is concerned, longevity is key. Don’t follow the pack”
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Want more great tips on building a killer brand identity on a shoestring budget? Download our free E-Book now