E14: Don't Design Your Logo First. What's Brand Identity?

What is up Remote Start Nation! My name is Jim Doyon, your host and I wanna welcome you to another episode of Remote Start. Today I wanna go over another episode of brand and branding, and this time I really wanna focus on your brand identity. So let me ask you what do you think of when I say brand identity, what's the first thing that came to your mind? For a lot of you, I'm gonna guess it's your logo, and that's normal I get that a lot, but the logo is just one piece of your brand identity, and yes it's what people look at, it's what they see, but there's more that goes to your brand identity different pieces that make up that logo.

Today I hope to kind of shed some light on that and help you on your journey. When I think of brand identity I think of it as your first impression, what is somebody when they see your logo, they see your brand, they hear your brand, they, you send them something they order a product, they get the packaging, what's that first impression that they're going to have of your brand? That's your brand identity, right? It's those pieces that come together to form that impression. So when someone hears your name, they see your logo, what's that telling them, what's that telling them about your brand, when they see one social, they go to your website, they look at your packaging because I just said, what is that telling them? Simply put, I like to think of as your feel of your brand, your look and your feel, and Remote Start Nation, if you've been listening along with the previous episodes, you'll notice that brand identity happens to be the third episode I've put in here on branding, I started a series a few episodes ago and my goal is to help walk you through the different elements of your brand, so if you're either thinking about rebranding, maybe your branch not that cohesive, if you're looking at starting up a new company and you're you need a logo, you need some of the different elements of a brand, these episode as well as the series of episodes about branding are supposed to give you some guides and hopefully help you. So I put brand identity third, and I did it on purpose because as I mentioned with brand a lot of times people think logo or name or website, what thing you need just take a step back, in fact it should be one of the last parts that you think about when building your brand foundation, and I'll tell you why in a minute, but if you're thinking about changing up your current identity or building yours for the first time, then please go back and listen to episodes 9 and 12, they discuss the different elements of your brand part of what I just hit on, and more importantly episode 12, I go brand promise, brand promise and in just a quick summary, your values, your mission, your vision, and then how you put together those elements in your voice how you're gonna show or tell people what they're going to get when they listen to you, how you gonna portray yourself, right? Once you get those and you come up with those elements, your values, your mission, your vision, that all will play key role in how your brand identity will be shaped and it's super important to really figure out those elements in your promise so not only your customers know but so do your employees, they understand your vision, they understand where you're going with your company they have something to get behind, and from there once you have those elements, I think you're gonna find out that putting together a logo and the different elements of a brand identity are gonna come together a lot easier, and if you haven't honed in on your brand promise but already have a logo, website, your product packaging done, don't stress about it, but I think you might find that maybe your elements the things that we just said, could be more cohesive and you may might realize that with some tweaking from a professional designer or brand strategist, a brand agency like Woodward Movement, you're gonna be able to put together a brand that's going to resonate better and share your message and have a better first impression, then if you didn't think of those other elements first. So now that I've gone over that and I think it's really important which is why I stressed on it, let's touch on the different parts that you could put together, form your brand identity, and with all branding don't be afraid to spend some money getting help from someone it's easy to have all these thoughts in your mind and talk to friends and oh here's what it should look like and yes that's a really cool logo, but if you just spend a little bit of money from an expert who can help take those ideas and those thoughts and you're the creative out of your mind and put that into paper, on the paper and come up with a design that really shares with what where your vision is and where your head’s at, I think  you're gonna find that your brand's gonna be a lot more cohesive. So the different elements that iwanna go over and and touch on some different pieces of your brand identity like we've talked about first is your logo, but there's more to it than just a logo, so you have secondary elements you have brand icons, so you know, think about it a little character maybe that goes along with that logo or stands aside that logo and maybe your, that character is the first thing you think about when you see a brand when someone sees your brand it's that character they think about before your name or anything else, like here when you're coming up with your logo, think about simple what would that logo look like printed on merch, if you want twenty colors in your logo, probably not gonna work well, you have a bunch of different gradients a bunch of different elements to your, to your design, it might look cool digitally, but when you go to print that physically on something, how's that gonna look? So when you're coming up with a logo one thing that we always try to look at is, you might have your main logo, but there's going to be secondary parts of it that we can use for different things that people still understand they know it, it'll resonate with them, but you don't have to use your main logo for everything, so that's something to think about it's okay to have multiple variations just be consistent with them and how you use them. Then you have typography, and if you don't know what that means that's the fonts that you use, the type that you use, you can either have, an artist create your own type for you and that's I mean designing search designing even your just your logo in general, there are artists out there that specialize in this that are incredible and they can take just a name and turn into an awesome logo just by the typography. So that's just something to think about when you're looking at your logo is, it doesn't have to be an icon it doesn't have to be you know an image of something you can do it through tight and and get really creative and cool with that. The next thing what color palettes are you going to use, what color your brand going to be what colors are not okay to use, now these are part of your brand identity that come together to form your brand. Your website, that should be designed with the different elements that are in your logo, different colors, the different type, the fonts, you know, we have certain fonts we use for certain things and those are consistent throughout, your product packaging, I already hit on that, but if you have a beautiful website, a really cool product, and then someone gets a your product in the mail and there's no branding, there's no you know there's nothing in it special, that's okay, but you could also go above and beyond and create a packaging experience for that customer, that when they get your physical product, the thought that they're going to have is probably gonna be a little bit higher than if it comes in just a blank product, a big blank package. other things to think about that are tied into your brand identity or any physical material so you know, yes, merch can be one of it but your letterhead, your business cards, your cell sheets, so those are just a few of the elements that you can incorporate into your brand identity to make this cohesive package, but I will say one other thing while we're discussing this, is when you put all those together it's really important to have a brand style guide, that's what creates the your brand style guide, is what, not only you know employees could look at, it's where you can pull different elements when you're going out to do social media or anything else that you're just doing design, but if you have anybody that works on your brand going forward, a marketing agency or you know I'll bring merch up again, it's so nice to have a brand style guide place, that has all these different elements in it, because from that, it's easy for that person it saves you time and it keeps everything cohesive or consistent as we keep talking about. So and that not only I just wanna hit on with your branch style guide it's not just your logo it's also that'll have your values your mission you don't have to put all those pieces in it but the more someone working on your brand or your employees understand this whole package about your brand and it's all in one place and is well organized it's just you're just gonna add that much value.

So with that said, Remote Start Nation, I hope I gave you some decent input today on your brand identity, I hope it created some thoughts, some different things that maybe you can do to get your brand a little bit better from where it is today or to go start your company and you know, think of these other elements before you think of your brand identity. So you know from the bottom of my heart, I wanna thank you very much for joining me, this has been an incredible journey and I can't wait to continue and share more with you and help to grow your business, build a brand, and live your desired lifestyle.

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Thank you much Remote Start nation, I'll see you next time