Stop Wasting Your Branding Investment
How do you end up with a cheap looking, ineffective brand when you invested over $4000?
Amateur brand implementation.
Way back when, a client booked me for a brand design because they knew for their business model and location, branding was going to make or break their business. We made an adorable and iconic brand for them including logos, color palette, font pairings, instructions for successful implementation, sticker designs, tee shirts, the whole sha-bang. So why did everything look like crap on their launch day?
This client ignored the brand book, allowed their construction partner to add in cheap fonts at will, changed colors on their own logo without professional consultation and made their social media posts from Canva templates without any of the brand elements they paid for. All the work we did together to create an effective brand went to waste and just a few short years later, they have announced their business closure. * Deep sigh *
And though they’re the only client of mine to do this, I see other brands diminishing their own brand investments ALL THE TIME. Money down the drain.
To keep more small businesses in business, I’ve made a guide for quick, effective, professional brand implementation for business owners who do not have a graphic designer on their staff yet. Whether you had a brand designed for you professionally or made something up yourself (hello, time investment!), you can follow these steps to make the absolute most of the branding you have:
Font Commitment
The relationship between a brand and her fonts is a long term, committed, exclusive relationship. This is not a temporary flirtationship or a revolving roster of booty calls. This is a set of predetermined fonts that you go everywhere with, are seen with, are associated with. If you have more than 3 type faces in your rotation, it’s time to dump the extra fonts and start going steady with the right ones. So how do you pick “the ones”?
Your heading font should have some personality and be easily readable at 18pt at the smallest.
Your body font should be more simple and easily readable at 9pt at the smallest. I recommend picking a Google font. You can find those here.
Your accent font can be more funky and fun and is meant to be used sparingly. Choose something handwritten or unusual for your accent font if you decide to have one.
Get off the Bike
Okay, here’s the big “secret” to keeping a beautifully consistent brand. You already know what it is and you probably haven’t done it completely; Upload your brand into the settings of every branding tool you’re using. Most apps and websites that help reinforce your brand will have a feature where you can input your logo, fonts, and colors so when you go to create, the basics of your brand identity populate automatically.
Though this is the easiest trick to leveling up a brand, it is the most neglected. As entrepreneurs, we are just trying to get stuff done as quickly as possible because we have too much on our plate. It’s like we’re on a bike and we just want to keep pedaling, pedaling, going, going. But if we stopped and took a minute to step off the bike and give it a little upgrade, we’d get where we were going so much faster.
So let’s set up to go faster, right? Take time to populate that information into Canva, Squarespace, Shopify, Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Flodesk, Honeybook, Dubsado, Adobe Spark, WHEREVER a customer sees your brand with their eyeballs!
Icon Status
A logo is a visual identifier that is immediately associated with your brand. A social media icon is basically a logo for the social space- but that doesn’t mean it has to be your logo. Update your social media icon with one of the following ideas:
-A cute picture of your face! This one is an especially good idea for 1:1 service providers, podcasters, and other public figures
-The simplest, most readable version of your logo and a brand color in the background. If you can’t read your logo in an icon this small, pick a different idea.
-The first letter or your brand name initials with a brand color in the background
-A shot of your most iconic product- but only if you can tell what it is in an icon this small
-A branded graphic element (a star, heart, or whatever other icon) I only recommend this one if there is already a branded graphic element you’re using elsewhere. Don’t go inventing one just for your social icons.
Ultimately, you just want something that you’re excited to present as your icon and you definitely definitely don’t want a lot of small details. Keep it simple.
If all you do are these three steps, you’re giving your business a huge leg up when it comes to building trust and creating memorable customer experiences, which are big money makers.
If you’re ready to really put your brand to work and let it take some of the heavy lifting out of your marketing, I’ve made a full 7 page guide to DIY brand implementation complete with a worksheet and checklists (yay dopamine!). You can get download it for free when you sign up for my newsletter here.