“Golden Circle”
Learn about your surroundings
If differentiation should be the success of your brand, learn what you should differentiate from. Map out your competitors, understand their voice, visual language, and strategy. Then define your perfect customers. Understand where they are coming from, what drives them and why they would like to use your product. If your customers’ why overlaps with the brand’s, you might have a perfect match!
Prepare for success
Doing research first helps with planning and conducting the whole project. It also eliminates most guesses and wasteful discussions about personal preferences. Research-based design decisions make the product attractive to the target audience, resulting in better retention, reviews, and recommendations.
Having identity design guidelines makes the UI design phase much smoother, bearing in mind that the two areas overlap. Giving it more time at the start you also prepare your brand for growth, making it easier for future teams to expand and plan new ventures. Netguru offers help with conducting branding workshops at this point to help establish the right foundations for identity design and strategy.
Digital product’s branding essentials
After doing the workshops and establishing the foundations, it’s time to get to the specifics.
Name
Probably the most important part of brand identity. It tends to also be the most difficult to accomplish. The name could be descriptive or abstract, but it’s good to follow some simple rules to get it right.
To create a memorable name, try 4-8 character words, easy to say and spell. One practical tip to test it - call your friend or teammate and tell them about this new project. If you have to explain or spell the name to them, it probably needs some more work. Short names are also important from a design point of view - shorter names scale down easier and can also be used as a wordmark logo itself.
Remember to check the market for possible conflicts with already existing brands. It’s crucial in case you think about registering your trademark.
Logo
The most under- and overestimated piece of design, for sure deserving another article. Why does such a paradox exist? Some don’t care much about it at the start, others want it to tell the whole grand story of the company. Respect logo design but don’t treat it as the Holy Grail of your success. Remember that its role is mostly identification , not communication. A good logo reflects the brand’s character and sets the tone for other design elements.
The golden rule for logo design is keep it simple, stupid. Your logo will be displayed in various sizes and contexts. Think about tiny social media avatars, product icons in app stores, small version on a sticky menu bar. Simple shapes retain readability much better when scaled down and tend to be memorable. The exception to this rule might be game logo design. Scalability issues still apply here but the design falls into a more complex category.
Remember, that the logo should look good in black-and-white as well as in colour. It’s a good practice for a couple of reasons. First of all, this approach allows you to judge logo design without colour bias. It also helps you to ensure various application possibilities.
Colours and typography
These elements usually come from the logo design itself, but could be extended for the brand guidelines. Digital branding consists of many elements and use cases, like web design, presentations, social media profiles, posts, and advertising. Each of those areas has some restrictions and characteristics. That’s why it’s a good practice to have a main and extended colour palette as well as main and alternative font suggestions. Having these foundations is a great set-up for other designers and developers creating derivatives like illustrations or landing pages.
Other derivatives
Depending on the starting budget and project scope, there are other possible elements of visual language to consider as a branding package. Designers work on setting templates and guidelines for using imagery or illustration styles (key visuals) to perfectly reflect and supplement the brand voice. Combine it with some strategic copywriting suggestions and you have a complete package to give to your design or marketing team.
Brandbook - do you need one?
This is what binds the whole branding design process and will be a point of reference for your project team and future ventures. Having a brandbook made means extra cost at the start but saves time and money in the future. It facilitates communication between teams, allowing all the project areas to maintain the same focus and build a coherent brand.
If you plan to expand the product with subprojects, it’s also possible to include the system for the product’s sub brands.
Summary
Thoughtful branding design and strategy with well-executed UI for digital products, give the user more than just a pleasant experience. It evokes positive feelings, creates a sense of safety, and above all gives users the freedom to do whatever the product is intended for.
Here are the most important takeaways:
Branding is an ecosystem, a living organism - plan for consistency, think long term,
Don’t underestimate the power of research,
Hire specialists who will help you develop and showcase the why , not just the what of your product,
Plan your brand creation and growth accordingly to the product’s life cycle, don’t overpromise.
And remember, at the end, your brand is not what you say it is. It’s what the people around it say it is. Care about your users and they will help you grow your business.