The Importance of a Well-Designed Brand

Friday 9th September 2011

When setting up a new business, something that may not be near the top of your list is securing the help of a good designer or design agency, to help create the single element that can on its own make or break your company – your brand. But what is Brand? It is how people see your business – its image, its style, its culture – and a carefully designed brand can influence how prospective customers perceive you, which can in turn vastly impact on company sales and, ultimately, success.

We are constantly surrounded (and bombarded) by examples of powerful and successful branding. Whats is the make of your watch? The shoes you're wearing? Your car? Your favourite chocolate bar, or coffee, or supermarket? It is highly likely that you will have just named 5 or 6 very well known brands in answer to the previous questions. These brands are well known because of highly successful, targeted, and relevant marketing, made all the more powerful thanks to meticulously researched and cleverly designed branding.

Branding can include logos, a signature font – even a particular colour shade. Branding is cleverly developed in order to evoke certain emotions in prospective customers and thus persuade them to buy Product A over the competition's Product B. Huge corporations do this through slick advertising campaigns, using music, images and wording alongside their brand information to strengthen their influence and brand power. A recent television advert for a particular brand of baby formula subtly suggests through clever wording that any mother who truly loves and cares for her baby will choose this brand of formula over others – even though when you compare the ingredients between different brands, there is little to distinguish them. A full screen shot of the product with prominently positioned logo completes the advert, and further enhances the brand. The effect that this must have on millions of young mothers who want the best for their baby is obvious, and the resulting profits that will be realised by the company go without saying.

For all businesses (but in particular the smaller companies who don't have tens of thousands to spend on marketing campaigns to ensure world domination of their product), a successful brand isn't made overnight. However, repeated exposure of targeted prospective customers to memorable visual designs, along with active marketing in the forms of quality networking – both face to face and online, as well as other proven methods such as a well-designed website, article writing, and ensuring that your company has a regular social media presence, will mean that more and more people will look at your logo and have positive associations with it, without the need to bankrupt yourself before you've even begun by paying for various costly (and generally unsuccessful for the smaller local business in terms of ROI) advertising avenues. And this is a powerful way to drive your brand forward, and - essential if you want your business to grow - build trust amongst your chosen demographic of consumers.

A good design agency (one that comes highly recommended by businesses who've worked with them before) will have the knowledge and skills needed to work with you to create a distinctive and easily recognisable brand, one that reflects your company's values and ambitions, and will appeal to identified consumer demographics. They will be able to offer sound advice based on expert knowledge earned through many years of experience, and will support your company's journey to success with effective, considered, and appropriate design. Investing in good design is investing in your company's chances of success, and so be sure to choose carefully the design agency that's right for you.

Latest Tweets
Your Name:
Your Email:
Register