5 Visual Tips For Your New Business Brand

You have a sound idea, your business plan maps out and you are raring to go. Slow down a second, before you start promoting get your look right by putting these 5 things at the top of your to do list.

1. Defining your business personality

Firstly, figure out what your brand is going to be and who it is going to be for. Defining your audience first is the best way forward. Once you understand who you are speaking to you can give them what they want. 

A helpful starting point is to come up with a group of words that sum up your business. For example, are you reliable, authoritative, sophisticated or maybe fun, trendy, new?

Think of at least FIVE adjectives that describe your business and write them down, then look at them and figure out what links them. This is the seed for your personality, the key message of your business and it’s going to help you create a visual brand that will define you.

2. Choosing a colour that sums up your business personality

Plenty of studies have shown that the brain reacts differently to different colours. Some studies are even using MRI scans to map how the brain reacts to different stimuli, like colour. So, for example, we might associate red with passion, reaction or impulse – it’s no coincidence red is used to depict a sale. Blue on the other hand is calm and dependable (think how many banks use this colour).  Orange and yellow are optimistic and energetic, green is associated with nature… you can probably work the rest out for yourself.

There are a couple of crucial things to remember. Firstly, don’t force the colour, match it to your business’s personality. An obvious example would be if you are starting a nature-based hiking business red is not likely to make sense, you should be starting your search with greens or browns.  

Think about how your chosen colour sits within a colour scheme or palette. Unless you have a particularly good eye or relevant experience, this is actually really tricky and some design advice would be best in choosing a palette. Hideous mistakes can be made. Maybe most important of all is to choose a colour scheme you love, after all, you are going to be seeing it a lot.

3. Deciding on the right font for your brand

The biggest tip we can give on font is simple, make sure it is readable. One trick is to check your font using a pangram – a phrase that uses all the letters of the alphabet – so you can ensure all the letters are clear.

“A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’s tail”

Again, a font can be a good tool to express the personality of your business and you can use those key business defining words we talked about earlier to help you choose. It’s also essential to ensure your font works well in different sizes – can you still read it when it’s small? Sometimes you might have to make your lettering much smaller, on a logo, for example and it is very important you can still read it. Also, another less obvious tip is to look at how the font uses spacing, do the spaces between the letters and the lines look even and work for your company name and tagline?

4. Get yourself a brand logo

The logo is going to be key to the business. It is your trademark, it is what defines your business, makes you recognizable and helps you stand out from your competitors. This one small design, if done correctly, can say more than a thousand words about your business. For this reason, we would STRONGLY recommend you invest in a professional designer to get this done. If you have followed steps 1-3 then you will be able to hand over to a designer all the information they will need to create you the best logo possible. It really doesn’t have to cost the earth and it will be a great investment.

5. Use your brand visuals to increase your credibility

You have done all this work creating the brand for your business, now make sure it is visible. Studies have shown our brains respond better to recognizable brands. Reinforce your credibility by using your brand identity on business cards, letterheads, compliment slips, packaging and signage so customers can immediately identify with you.

At Prontaprint we realise the importance of getting branding right from day one, which is why we have created the Business Stationary Pack. This pulls together all the brand elements your new business needs.  Business stationery is the first point of contact with your customers or potential customers and provides the all important first impression of your brand. Plus we can also offer you Prontaprint’s expert advice and design experience to get the right look to help your business thrive. Get in touch!