People scan their surroundings and instantly make a perception. Besides, this consumer takes seven seconds to decide whether they appreciate and believe your brand. Visual branding is a high-bar deal to leave a great first impression on your business. Your target audience forms a perception of business through your brand visuals. However, it is important to understand the meaning of visual branding. So, in this article, we will break down visual branding meaning, its core elements, how you do visual branding, and the best brand examples.
Visual branding meaning
Visual branding is the imagery and graphics that communicate a brand’s values and personality. It includes all visual elements, from colors to font, shapes to typeface, and includes logos, websites, and social media post designs. In a nutshell, it is everything that your customers physically see, from your logo to the aesthetic of your outlet.
5 Core Elements of Visual Branding
The blend of elements such as logo, color palette, typography, imagery, and other graphic elements (scroll down to learn) builds visual branding. Each aspect, hand in hand, creates an overall feel of your brand. Let’s dive deeper into each element of visual branding meaning.
1. Logo
The logo is a unique visual sign and mark of the company that represents business, values, and personality. It could be a wordmark of a business name like Coca-Cola or a shape like Nike that portrays the value. Visual branding is not all about logos, but the foundation of visual identity makes your company memorable.
2. Color Palette
Since colors impact the perception of consumers about the brand, this element is really vital to strong visual branding. Colors have psychological effects and influence the minds of customers.
While a brand color palette distinguishes business, it’s important to choose a brand color palette that significantly impacts your target audience. You can see well-known brands consistently use their color palette of 4-5 complementary colors everywhere—in design, marketing, advertising, website, and social media posts.
3. Typography
Like colors, fonts also have a psychology behind them. Brands convey their visual voice and tone with the style and shape of their font. You have myriads of options to choose your typeface that displays your brand attributes.
However, you have to take advantage of your typography by regularly using it on all communication channels. Besides the color, typography is also a vital unified element that contributes to your visual branding.
4. Imagery
A picture is worth 1000 words. At the same time, the human brain processes images up to 60,000 times quicker than words. Images pull weight for strong visual branding while aligning with other elements. It could be stock images, but these are easily available, and your competitor can access them.
So, to stand out, the big brands use their customized photographs and illustrations that vibe off the feeling of their unique traits. The image effects, lighting, filter, or focus overlapped with the visual branding approach. Meanwhile, the images and photography create a robust connection between customers and your brand.
5. Graphic Elements
Graphic elements like shapes, icons, color blocks, infographics, and chart style are bombastic tools that enhance your visual branding meaning. You can spotlight the notable content and stimulate the user experience with your business. However, ensure the consistency of the use of these graphics across all communication platforms.
Why is visual branding such a big deal?
Visual branding is an important facet of effective brand strategy for excelling in the crowded business landscape. Let’s dig into how exactly it helps the benefits of visual branding.
- Increase brand awareness: By generating a powerful visual brand, you can level up the game of branding and boost your brand awareness. This means that your customers will get to know your value, who you are, and what you do for them.
- Customer loyalty: Multiple studies indicated that consumers trust a brand with strong brand visuals, and this builds a loyal customer base.
- Build perception of target audience: When you create a visual by keeping your target consumer in mind, then they will find your brand relatable to their needs. Before they even explore your product or service, your strong visuals connect them in seconds with your brand—this evokes emotions and creates a perception.
- Boost the sales: Your eye-catching visuals can boost sales on your website. With good aesthetics and a functional website, you can lessen the chances of shopping cart abandonment.
How do you do visual branding?
1. Understand your business and audience.
You need to figure out what your business does and how you need to communicate with your target consumer to create strong visuals.
- Why do you provide these products or services?
- How can you update the lives of your customers?
- What are the values that you stand for?
Note down your brand purpose, values, voice, tone, and message you want to express through your visuals.
The next big thing you need to understand is your audience’s needs, challenges, and behavior. First, research and define your target audience and who they are, and create a version of your target consumer personas.
It will help you set up impressive brand visuals that resonate with your target group.
Furthermore, analyze your competitor’s visual branding approaches and gather inspiration to create an impactful visual for your brand.
2. Create an Exceptional logo that reflects your brand.
The logo is the core of visual branding as, first of all, the audience spots this unique symbol of the brand. Therefore, you need to define your brand values and personality to make an impact.
A logo can be your brand name, symbol, or icon to appeal to an audience. However, your logo must be simple, scalable, clear, unique, and memorable for your audience.
3. Select Fonts for your brand.
Fonts create an impact on consumers’ minds. Select a font that also aligns with your brand colors and tone. Different fonts have different belongings.
For instance, if you have a bold or modern brand, then you can go for a sleek sans-serif font.
Alternatively, if you have a formal or traditional brand, then a classic serif font might work best for you. When you dive in to select the fonts for your business, you come across six kinds of typeface covering.
- Serif
- Sans-serif
- Slab serif
- Script
- Handwritten
- Decorative
4. Define Your Color Palette
As you likely know, colors evoke emotions and trigger actions. Different colors have different meanings. So, be sure to choose a color palette that resonates with your brand personality and the message you want to express to your customers.
Generally, you have four types of color palettes to generate your unique color scheme.
- Monochromatic Colour Palette: These palettes have the same color in different shades and tones. If you want to keep things simple, then choose this color palette so you don’t have to mix up a lot of different colors. For instance, Apple, Nike, and Chanel use monochromatic color combinations in their branding.
- Complementary Colour Palette: This color palette captures the attention of the viewer. It has opposite colors on the color wheel, and you can select this bright color palette to sustain balance and order. Examples of brands that incorporate complementary color palettes are McDonald’s, FedEx, and Firefox.
- Analogous Colour Palette: These are three colors side by side present on the color wheel with one dominant color, supporting color, and the third, which is a blend of the first two colors. At the same time, this palette is soothing for the eyes and creates a serene and cozy design. Examples of well-known brands that use analogous palettes are Mastercard and Instagram.
- Triadic Colour Palette: It consists of three colors that create a vibrant color scheme. This dynamic palette works well if you want to convey a feeling of passion and innovation. Red, Yellow, and Blue. Green, Orange, and Purple. It is the best triadic color combination. Google, NBC, and Lego have perfectly used triadic palettes in their branding.
5. Choose other visual elements.
Imagery, illustrations, and graphic design can be overlooked when you are crafting visual branding. However, it’s essential to work for effective visual branding. If you have a budget to hire a photographer, then shoot it.
Nevertheless, if you want to stick with stock images, then take a time out and find a unique one that perfectly aligns with your product or services.
Top Visual Branding Examples
Netflix Visual Branding
We all crave to take a break and watch the best TV series and feature films on Netflix. Its radiant red logo with a black background and a sans-serif typeface holds our fascination—connecting us to stories.
They use two primary colors in their branding to make it memorable and recognizable. Meanwhile, Netflix simplifies the user experience so they can find what they are looking for.
You can see Netflix visuals either on giant billboards or social media—they maintain visual consistency on all communication channels. Netflix has a stable aesthetics game, and it strives to provide simplicity in all its actions.
Netflix defined its audience well and created a clear, readable, and modern design that allows users to browse instantly. The eye-catching visuals and displaying mini trailers result in selling their stories.
Glossier Visual Branding
Glossier is a beauty brand that made its place in the market with a soft pink, white color palette and minimalist typeface. It smoothly expresses a cool visual language to its customers. The best part is its website, pack, aging, and social media all align with the same visual poetry: simplicity.
Meanwhile, the light color customer-centric photography gives the feeling of pleasing and comfort to their customers.
They built the supporting community and expanded their product range from makeup and skincare to hoodies and mugs with appealing visuals.
Wrap Up
Visual branding is a bombastic marketing tool. Now, you have a clear understanding of the meaning of the visual branding. So, with the helping hand of visual branding, you can evoke certain emotions and build a strong connection with your customers like the big brand does.
To set up a strong visual branding, keep these vital elements like logo, color, typography, and imagery in mind. Moreover, make up meaningful, simple, memorable, and consistent visuals. Ultimately, you can take inspiration from successful brands to shape your visual branding.
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