Design Terms Demystified: The Lowdown on Branding & What it Really Means
What is Branding anyway?
If you’re not a designer, it can be super hard to understand what the heck all the branding, design, and technical terms really mean. After all, most people don’t learn about design or strategy before launching their businesses. And even if you’ve worked with a designer you might still be confused what it all means. Rest assured, even though it may feel foreign to you, I’m here to break it all down and hopefully clear up your confusion.
History of Branding
Before we dive into some of the terms associated with branding and design, let’s talk a bit about the history.
The term branding originates from the term “brandr” which is an Old Norse term from the 1500s. This term originated from the actual act of burning livestock with a hot “stamp” to claim ownership. Over time, the term branding evolved away from burning livestock to claim property. Artists and other creators began branding their work with the use of a signature or stamp to claim credit for their work.
As we began to enter a more industrial and consumer-driven time, branding products with a logo or symbol started to become a way to build recognition of quality of a product. And in this digital age where there is radio, television, and online advertising, businesses began to take visual branding a step further and began to create mottos, slogans, and jingles to stand out in an increasingly crowded market.
Today, branding still means creating recognition with consumers as having a high-quality product or service and standing out, but it goes deeper. In this ever-connected, online-driven world a simple logo stamped on your products or a catchy jingle is not enough to be recognizable. Successful businesses today know that branding is about taking the core values and mission of your business and making that something visually recognizable and unique, that also fosters a connection with your audience. Pretty tall order, huh?
Okay, so let’s get into some of the terms.
Branding Terms & Definitions
Business: It’s WHAT you do and the services/products that make you money.
Brand: It’s NOT your logo, or colors, or fonts. It’s largely UNSEEN. It's the core of your business. It’s the values and purpose and mission behind the products/services. It’s the promises you make and uphold. It’s your why and ultimately what you stand for. It’s also how your business is perceived by your customers and audience–it’s about emotions, values, voice, and overall vibe.
Brand Strategy: This is an overall plan for how a business is going to present and position themselves. It considers how a business will meet long-term goals. It involves planning on how to become visible and recognized by the target audience as well as how it’s going to stand out and attract that audience over time. Brand strategy is important because it identifies what is unique about a business and hones in on that to stand out among competitors. Brand strategy has many pieces like values, voice, vibe, and of course visuals.
Visual Branding: This is a visual translation of your brand. It includes logos, colors, fonts, graphics that are thoughtfully aligned to bring your brand to life to attract your target audience while also matching those unseen values and missions. The visual components of your brand should build off one another to create a cohesive, unified look that is recognizable. Oh, and your visual branding is not about you. You should love the visual look of your brand, but it ultimately needs to appeal and align with your audience.
Brand Message: This is the how you communicate your values and mission and how you’re different from competitors. It’s also about how you want to appear to your audience.
Brand personality: Although a brand isn’t technically living, we can think about them having personalities. Personality will show through the visuals and the message of a brand. Different colors and fonts can evoke different emotions. And the use of language and terms can also help foster a personality to a brand.
Mood Board: A mood board is a collection of images that give a general “vibe” of a brand. Typically mood boards are created at the start of a brand project and help guide the creation of colors, fonts, logos, graphics, and textures that will be developed for a brand.
Brand Guidelines or Brand Style Guide: This is a document that summarizes all of the elements of your brand including the color codes, typography, logos, other graphics, and patterns. It should also include info about the brand mission and vision and some messaging. It will often include a snapshot of your mood board as well as directions for how to properly use logo files, color combinations and all the visual elements of your brand
Brand Board: This is a condensed version of a Brand Guidelines document and it’s a one-page summary of the visual elements of a brand. It includes the colors, fonts, patterns, and logos. You can find a lot of these on Pinterest for examples. You can also get a sample template in my Building Your Brand Workbook!
Need a little help nailing down your branding? Take the FREE Brand Personality Quiz!
Frequently Asked Branding Questions
Why isn’t a logo enough for a brand?
The purpose of a logo is to serve as a small identifying mark of a business. But, as we talked about above, a brand is so much more than one visual detail. It’s the culmination of all those visual details that align with the mission and vision. A strong logo will give a visual cue to what a business does and also a feel for the rest of the branding, but a logo alone is not enough.
When is the right time to brand?
This is a tricky question because successful businesses are the ones that have spent time digging deep into understanding their mission and vision. Sometimes that takes time to figure out and sometimes that means being in business for awhile first. Whether or not you’re ready to invest in professional branding support, it’s important to get clear on your why. If you’re not clear on your mission or vision, figure that out and then work on your branding. You can read a bit more on the steps to DIY your brand.
Should I rebrand?
A rebrand is when your business has pivoted and the visuals previously used to represent your business no longer represent what you do or they no longer feel aligned with what you offer. If you originally DIY’d your brand and you now feel that it doesn’t represent the true quality or value of what you do that can give conflicting information to your audience. I’ve also seen that business owners who don’t feel good about their visuals also don’t feel good about their business and that ultimately impacts their mindset and how they show up. Sometimes rebranding can help you feel better and more confident which then translates into how you show up in your business. However, if you feel that you want to rebrand often because of “shiny object syndrome” and you see all these other businesses with fancy branding you may want to take a break from that and get clear on who YOU are and what your business does. Ignore the outside noise and distraction and look inward.
Hopefully, this helps clear up any confusion or questions you may have about branding. If you’re still not sure or are ready for some professional help, I’d love to chat!
