As an online entrepreneur, it is a challenge to continually create new products and promotional materials that hold a consistent look for your brand beyond simply sticking your logo at the bottom of the page and calling it good. Where’s the fun in that? 🙂 But realistically, how do you diversify your brand identity while keeping a consistent look and feel overall?
Variety and consistency can co-exist
Within this blog post, I’m sharing how you can avoid feeling stuck with a restrictive brand and what you need to add creativity and fun details to your online presence and promotional materials. PLUS, having a complete brand identity will help you step into that CEO mindset you’re made of and grow your business with confidence!
You absolutely can have a consistent, recognizable brand without sticking to the same old, same old. As a brand designer, I love answering this question because I think people miss how simple it can be.
It does take some thought and typically involves working with a professional designer to create a brand that has the depth needed to give you that creative freedom you’re looking for AND have you standing apart from your competitors in no time! Adding just a few visual assets that work alongside your logo can help expand your brand without losing consistency.
Before I begin working on a brand design for a client, we walk through how the logo and brand will be used and applied for their specific business and industry needs. Do they have a website? Are they running weekly social media campaigns where lots of promotional images will be essential? Are they creating PDF lead magnets for their audience? Will they need packaging design for a physical product? Nailing down the application allows the designer to know what type of assets (beyond the primary logo) will be the most useful to you as an online business owner.
Below I’m outlining how visual assets give a brand room to breathe and be creative while still maintaining a cohesive look and feel.
Primary Logo
Pictured below is the primary logo for the brand. In the sections to follow, you will notice how the creative assets pull design elements from the primary logo, but still expand the brand and add the variety needed to not feel stuck when wanting to spruce up a promotional image or product.
Sub-marks
After creating your primary logo, you can add fun detail with sub-marks. Sub-marks are used to compliment the primary logo. You can see how the main design elements are carried over from the primary logo and give you so many more options to work with. I absolutely love providing my clients with sub-marks because they take your branding to a whole new level and show your audience that you care about intentional details. They can be used in the footer or as the favicon for your website, as social media profile and banner images, for sticker designs, and to add detail and branding to any promotional materials and products.
Patterns + Icons
Once I have a solid feel for a brand and the main logo is established, I’ll start brainstorming icons and pattern designs. I go back to the list of application needs that I created with my client and decide how pattern design can elevate those items. I want to provide my clients with as much depth to their brand as possible, so they never feel stuck. With sub-marks, patterns, icons, and color, you now have a library of visual assets to choose from while maintaining a consistent look and feel. Below you can see how pattern design ties this brand together, adding even more personality to the brand as a whole.
Having a full brand identity design—with multiple logo marks, patterns, icons, + more—instantly up-levels your business, allowing you to step into that CEO mindset and grow your business with confidence.
How are adding creativity to your brand while remaining consistent to your visual brand guidelines? Do you have patterns and sub-marks to pull from or are you feeling stuck with just a primary logo design? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
