Last weekend we went camping. We’ve been camping before, never in our own tent – and the past two years we’ve camped as guests in my friends tent with electricity and a kettle and heater (which was amazing! I hadn’t realised you could camp so snazzily) – so this year, we invested in our own tent, and then we tried it out for the last two nights of the Summer holidays.
My husband has zero interest in camping (and a good job too as there’s no room in the car for him once packed..) this tent is mostly just for the kids and I, so I needed one I could put up and down on my own. I was nervous that it would be hard, that I wouldn’t be able to do it. But after watching various YouTube videos I found one that I really liked, with very clear instructions and it turned out to be a doddle. Really. The hardest bit was lugging the thing from the car to the spot on the grass (and back again) it’s heavy!
I think that it’s possible to look at branding like that. It’s going to be hard. Can you do it? Can you really choose your colours and typefaces and put imagery together and design things that look professional and consistent? Really?
Yes you can do it.
I know it can seem daunting. Especially if art was not your thing at school and your stick men look like shorthand. But great branding is first and foremost about answering some questions, delving into what makes your business special (ie. not designing anything, not choosing colours or creating scribbles) and then using that information to help you make key decisions about the different parts of your brand identity so that you can use those to create the things you need. The designing part comes last. And once you get to that bit, it’s relatively easy.
Just like a tent. (I’ve blogged about this before) you need the footprint, the tent, the instructions, the poles, the pegs, the mallet and the patch of grass – before you can put the tent up. All the components have to be in place. All the ducks in a row.
You need to know what you stand for, what your values are, what matters to you, who your audience is, what your colours are, which fonts you’re going to use, what styles of imagery, icons, illustrations and symbols you’re going to use. And your logo of course. Notice I mentioned that last 😉
Then you can make it happen and have a brand that stands out in a crowded field and won’t fall over at the slightest gust of wind. A brand that attracts your ideal clients. A brand that you’re proud of. A brand that gives your confidence and also helps your audience to believe in you more. A brand that doesn’t hold you back, but that helps you feel that you can go out and show people what you have and they will look. A brand that doesn’t hold you back but that works with you to keep you on track to meet your goals.
You can create graphics that look stunning and match across all applications because you’ve made decisions about colours and images. More importantly you can create imagery that appeals to your ideal client, that screams about your values and that helps to demonstrate just how great you are. Because you’ve put in the legwork.
If it still seems a bit daunting doing all of this then perhaps you need a professional to help you. You can hire someone – me 😉 – outright to do this and then the pressure is off and in a short while you’ll be showing off your brand identity to everyone who stands still long enough.
Or if you want to have more control over the process, save money or do it yourself because learning how will be really useful, then perhaps you need to give The Brand Success Club a try. That way you get to do it all yourself in your own time, but with a lot of professional support.
Very useful if you need some help getting your branding tent up. Lets make sure your tent stands out so people can find their way to it.