“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
– Jeff Bezos, CEO & founder of Amazon

So what is a brand? Put simply, a brand is the personality of your business, the way in which it is perceived by those who interact with it. All major companies have a detailed, consistent brand. The foundation of any good brand is it’s logo, from the red and white swish of Coca-Cola, or the golden arches of McDonald’s to the double-C of Chanel.

All of these companies have something in common: You know what to expect from them instantly. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a good logo is worth a million. These companies spend millions on the development of strict brand guidelines, dictating everything from the types and size of images used, fonts, colours, basic layout structure, content writing and everything in between. This ensures their brand remains consistent throughout all their marketing materials, allowing it to be easily recognised by potential clients.

While small businesses certainly don’t need to spend millions of dollars, it is important to create a consistent brand and stick to it. When having a designer develop a brand for your business, it’s worth spending the extra money to have them develop a detailed brand guide. A brand guide is a document or booklet which details the guidelines for your brand (as mentioned above). Following a brand guide will help keep your branding consistent when creating documents or designs in-house, or if you change to a different designer in the future.

If you’re looking to work with a graphic designer you should consider the following questions:

– What does your business do?
– Who are your major competitors?
– What point of difference do you offer?
– Who is your target audience?

The key to creating a great brand is knowing what your business aims to achieve. Regardless of how you wish to portray your business – fun, expensive, stylish, childish, cheap etc, you want to develop a brand that is accurate and appeals to your ideal target audience.