How do you decorate your business? Do you take as much care over it as you do decorating your Christmas Tree? Carefully unwrapping the tissue paper and placing each item in just the right place before you stand back with your glass of wine and sweet mince pie and double check that everything is just so. Maybe popping back to tweak it slightly. Perhaps your kids decorate the tree and then when there’re done you start over?
Having the perfect tree is time consuming and it’s worth it. Even though it’s only up for a short time, you need it to be right.
Does your brand need to be right? It’s going to be up a lot longer than a Christmas tree. Do you make sure that everything is just so there? Do you take the time to ensure that your business image is perfectly up to scratch and that everything ties in well together?
There’s a lot to think about, naturally, having a business is a big deal and your brand is not just about how it all looks.
Here’s some analogies to help you understand what your brand is all about.
THE STAR – this is your logo, the image that you use to tell people who you are.
THE TREE ITSELF – (This is a real tree) This is your business. It’s growing, it’s alive, it’s holding up the decorations
THE DECORATIONS – these are the visual elements of your brand. The typeface you use, the imagery you choose, the colours you’ve selected, how you’re going to use them, what guides you’re going to have in place to make sure that your visual brand is consistent and inline with your business.
THE POT – This tree is rooted in the pot. The pot is the place for your brand values and personality, your vision, your aims, your plans and hopes for the future, your ideal client profile – all the things that make your brand up and which inspire and inform your visual brand. This is actually the most important bit! Without the pot the tree would fall over and you’d have pine needles scattered all over your living room. You don’t want that, so make sure that you ask yourself the tough questions!
You can download my Design Success Toolkit which covers some of the tough questions here.