If you’re looking to give your company differentiation, relevance, coherence, and esteem, you need to refine your corporate design and communication. We can help you by branding your business with a clean and professional Visual Business Identity.
Establishing visual identity is more than just adding a logo. It’s creating a look with appropriate design, correct use of color, and selected fonts that reflect a tone, message, and presence which elicits appropriate emotion and makes good sense.
Elements of your identity become the standards for media designed to sell your products and services. These standards give consistency to every part of your sales effort. This consistency helps establish consumer trust and familiarity with what you sell over time. It’s all part of the process that convinces potential customers to buy.
Here’s what we do to create your Visual Business Identity.
Step 1 – Logo design in basic black
Your logo is the foundation of your business identity – all your color and lettering standards stem from it. Your logo should appear on every product you produce and stand by every service you perform. It needs to look just as good on a billboard as it does on your business card. You want it to work in full color or one color. So that’s where we start – one color – basic black.
Let’s go through the five-step process using The Driver’s Club as an example. We presented six ideas in black to our client and asked that they choose the one they like. Note that all of these ideas “work” in black: They’re legible, and their graphic elements stand out just enough to identify themselves. For example: the steering wheel in the top left thumbnail can be recognized for what it is without overshadowing the name of the company. Speaking of the name – in almost all cases, the fonts chosen are part of large families. This adds versatility when typesetting sales copy in brochures and advertisements later on.
Step 2 – Fine tuning
Now it’s time to get things just the way you want. Your Visual Business Identity Package includes one revision to your design of choice. You can opt for multiple revisions, too. We will simply bill them separately.
Our client chose the top center design from the previous step. It was by far and away their favorite. However, they liked the idea of using a tachometer as a graphic element (as seen in some of the other designs) and wanted to see one integrated in their design of choice. We presented their favorite along with a modified version. After taking a look, they chose the cleaner lines of the design on the left. The Driver’s Club had its foundation in place.
Step 3 – Adding color
Color adds voice to your identity. Choose gentle hues of green, blue, and lavender to give softness to, say, a day-spa. Or, decide on vibrant reds and strong, solid blacks that say action and excitement – what better words to describe, say, a driver’s club.
Our client knew from the get-go that they wanted red and black. We gave them eight choices in three distinct styles. Even though they had the option for further revision, one of the eight was perfect as-is. The coloring of the top-right design sent a convincing message to them and their customers. The bold, red C stands for club and that’s what this business is all about – a select group of discerning drivers wanting to enjoy precision machinery.
Step 4 – The business card
Often times, your business card is the first impression your company makes on your customers. It may be the one thing they hold on to for later reference. Your card should describe your business at a glance.
The Driver’s Club still wanted a tachometer – they liked the imagery and the clarity it brought. No one would confuse their kind of driver with the ones used to play golf. We provided five distinct choices and included a tire track graphic to further drive the point home. But the tread pattern made the card too busy. They opted for the top right design with slight modifications.
Step 5 – The entire package
Consistency is key to customer recall and trust. When everything matches, your customers are more likely to view your company as professional. To make this happen, we use your logo, colors, and lettering standards on all your business stationery. Look at the image below to see that the TDC logo is identical in size on the cards, envelope, and letterhead. Also notice the appropriate use of the tachometer graphic in all three pieces.
Let’s get started
Call us at 951-786-4178 today and we’ll talk about what you sell, who your customers are, and the best way to catch their attention, earn their trust, and convince them to buy from you.