What is a brand?
Your brand is the promise you make to clients when they do business with you.
—Drew Boyd, Branding Fundamentals and Inside the Box
Successful brands have four important qualities.
They are authentic, relevant, consistent, and committed.
Creating your brand
We’ll begin the process of developing your brand by posing a set of questions designed to illuminate what is most important to you and your endeavor.
- Who is your target audience and what beliefs do you have about them?
- What kind of promise will you make and is it the best possible one to choose?
- What kind of experience do you want your clients to have with your brand?
Brand aspirations
As we develop your brand, it will soon:
- show who you are
- share your values and core purpose
- make a promise to your clients
- set your brand apart from the competition
- inspire loyalty with clients and followers
- demonstrate how you live your values and purpose, and
- convey how you support your brand and continue to invest in it.
From there, we’ll create key statements for your brand: an identity statement and a purpose statement, along with a mission statement and a vision statement if your business will be cause-driven or if you lead a nonprofit organization.
Visualizing your brand
Finally, we’ll develop a visual representation of the intrinsic attributes of your brand concept. Let’s think of it as your digital brand.
Depending on your needs as well as your budget, this may include:
- logo design
- color palette
- font styles/typography
- image collection
- storytelling photography
- key messages
- writing style/tone of voice
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and appealing when displayed.
Bringing it together
The output of your brand development is your digital brand chart—a set of digital assets along with a handy chart of mutually-approved branding standards. When followed, they will keep your brand consistent and memorable.
Quite naturally, you may arrive at the decision to develop your brand after you have carefully thought about what types of products, services, or programs you would like to offer. Products, services, and programs are actually part of your marketing strategy, which often materialize before your brand concept.
A final thought on brands:
Branding is the profound manifestation of the human spirit.
—Debbie Millman, Design Matters
Your Brand, Made Clear
A strong brand starts with intention. But defining who you are and how you want to be seen can feel complex. What should you say? Which visuals fit best?
That’s why we created the Brand Identity Blueprint — a free guide to help you define your message, your look, and your voice all in one place. With prompts, checklists, and space to brainstorm, it’s like having a creative mentor guiding you through the process.
✨ Access your free copy to start shaping your brand with confidence.
