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Brand & Identity Technology UI Design UX Design

How to Avoid Bad Branding Mistakes That Can Ruin Reputation

Branding Mistakes

When most individuals hear the term “brand,” they immediately think of huge, well-established corporations such as Google, Adidas, or Apple. However, you must remember that these multibillion-dollar corporations were once small businesses, just like any other venture.

Although there are several factors that contribute to a business’s growth, having an effective branding plan is critical to its success. Creating a strong and visible brand is a lengthy process that requires time and effort.

Branding implies seizing every chance to convince people to choose your brand over the other. As a result, all means of communication — not just visual — are critical for strengthening this trust and keeping your brand at the forefront of your customers’ minds.

However, just as strong branding enhances your business’s value, poor branding detracts from it. That’s correct; even the tiniest branding mistakes may have a significant negative impact on your corporation’s brand and image. Let’s look at some of the most typical errors you must avoid while developing your brand strategy:

Lack of a Well-Defined Branding Strategy

To accomplish your business objectives, the first step should be to develop a strategy, especially with regard to your branding. If you enter the process of branding and marketing without a clear concept of what you want to accomplish, you’re likely to miss the point, creating uncertainty for both you and your consumers.

Before you begin developing your brand image, you should have a firm grasp of the idea and tone you wish to convey for your business. Are you a strong and commanding figure? Are you sociable and amusing? Are you a youthful and carefree entity? Whichever route you take, if you’re clear on the style, feeling, and tone you want to accomplish from the start, you’ll be able to develop branded content that accurately represents this.

Paying No Attention to Customer Experience

A strong brand image is unquestionably helpful. It might assist you in developing a favorable image with your consumers and make selling much easier. While branding can contribute to a favorable image for your goods, the experience of the consumer with your product is much more critical.

Unfortunately, many people incorrectly believe that a brand is defined by a logo, an advertisement campaign, or the aesthetics of product packaging. Eventually, your branding is the feeling a buyer has when considering your products. To enhance the customer experience, resolve the concerns of consumers promptly. Establish a timely response to consumers, whether it’s through a live chat feature on your site or by replying to emails within 24 hours.

Inconsistency Across Platforms

To establish a strong brand, you must boost your business as real, legitimate, and precisely who you claim to be. You must have a consistent voice, style, and purpose throughout all of your communication and social media platforms. If you neglect to do so, your consumers will never get a strong feeling for your business. This implies that if you mention something on your brand’s Social Media pages and something else on your website, your customers will be confused as to which is true.

Brand reliability begins with aligning all of your advertising campaigns across your brand’s touchpoints. This encompasses your visual identity, philosophy, beliefs, and business objectives. To assist you in maintaining a high degree of consistency, we propose that you develop a set of business-specific branding style standards. It is a collection of standards in which you may include your preferred color, typography, pictures, logo, and voice tone. 

These standards will ensure that anybody generating content for your brand maintains consistency across various platforms.

Choosing Low-Cost Alternatives

When you’re just getting started with your company, it makes perfect sense to be frugal with your spending. While it is prudent to be cost-effective, this does not imply you should forego factors that contribute to the identification and effectiveness of your branding efforts.

If you believe you can get away with having your friend’s cousin create your logo and construct your website at cheap rates, you are mistaken. While this may appear to be a fantastic deal for both parties, it will have a negative impact on your branding strategy in the long run. Whenever it comes to social media, everything is a matter of perspective. 

This implies that if you have a low-quality website having fewer features and an unattractive logo, it will reflect poorly on the services provided by your organization. Individuals who are unfamiliar with your company will see them and quickly connect your branding with being poor and unpleasant – a mistake that should be definitely avoided!

It’s good to spend on experienced designers and developers to produce something of exceptional quality, as this will result in the creation of an authentic, professional, and attractive brand to your intended audience.

Integrating Yourself with Your Rivals

While it may be simple to follow patterns whenever it is about branding, if you do so too precisely, you risk being indifferent to the rest of the businesses around you.

While it may be tempting to follow current branding trends, the purpose of effective branding is to differentiate you: to give your brand its unique voice, appearance, and personality. As a result, you must develop your distinctive style, as that’s what will truly differentiate you from your rivals.

Conduct research, determine your differential advantage, and utilize the results to develop a powerful brand image that emphasizes your individuality.

Focusing on Quantity, Not on Quality

Effective branding is not about how often your potential customers see your brand; it is about how they perceive it and the opinions they form about it as a result of what they can see. What counts is that you deliver valuable information to your audience, not how many posts, photos, or clips you publish featuring your brand. Quality should never be sacrificed for quantity in any marketing strategy.

Even though it is a widely held idea that regularly publishing and updating information is a method to differentiate yourself from your rivals, if the frequency of your posts and updates outweighs the quality of your content, it is all in vain. Instead of viewing the content of your brand, consumers look forward to, they’ll come to dislike your business as one that continually appears in their feed or mailbox with nothing significant to say.

This will certainly result in people unsubscribing your brand and discontinuing to connect with you. As a result, it’s critical that you guarantee each content you post with your brand is valuable to your audience.

Ignoring the Significance of Mobile Users

Whenever it’s about digital marketing, there is a growing trend towards mobile device use. Mobile phones currently account for 65 percent of overall digital media consumption and are gaining traction as technology advances and web browsing increases.

Regardless of your primary channel, mobile-friendly content must play a significant role in both your short- and long-term branding strategies.

Conclusion

Utilizing the potential of branding is no different from implementing any other marketing approach. By utilizing analytics, you can ensure that your business avoids costly branding errors. However, increasing awareness and holding the aforementioned guidelines in mind is one of the most effective methods to pave the road for your brand’s success.

Contact Us Today to For Your Branding Needs

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Brand & Identity Design Mobile Apps UI Design Web Design

‘Meet The Team’ Pages: The Human Element Of Your Website

Meat The Team

While designing a website, designers categorize all the pages into three major categories – most important, important, and least important. Their focus and efforts on improving the user experience and elevating the aesthetics of the pages majorly depend upon the categorization. One of the pages that are often overlooked and incorrectly categorized is the ‘Meet the Team’ page. It may sound insignificant, and a very small element of a website, but plays a crucial role in the user experience journey. According to various studies, the ‘Meet the Team’ page is often the most visited page of websites that do have it.

Meet the Team

It is a small section on a website that introduces the team behind your brand and business. It is a way of recognizing individuals who allow your business to bloom and prosper. It may not seem too important, however, it helps a lot to create a positive image of your brand.

The ‘Meet the Team’ not only presents the faces of workers, but it also allows users to know more about the company and its work culture. Be it the pictures of the faces, or a large panorama of the entire group, team pages are there to show the quality and commitment of business.

The personalities, qualities, and ethics of people that make up a company are equally important as are the company’s achievements. Creating a team page that offers meaningful insight into a company’s culture and character enhances the human quotient. Users want to interact with your website as they are interacting with real human beings, and this page is a perfect platform for you to develop that kind of relationship with them. It greatly adds to the credibility that builds trust with customers, partners, and clients.

Best Practices

1. Put a Face and Personality 

Most companies include professional photos of key team members on their team page so that the customers, partners and other agencies quickly connect with the team. It is the most popular way of showing the team. However, the reverse approach has also shown tremendous results. Websites that used personal photos of team members, with friends and family, instantly connected with the audience. Multiple photos of the team at social functions and office gatherings are also a unique way of displaying bonding, teamwork and the fun that the group has together.

2. Create a Mix of Professional and Personal Information

Mostly the profiles include the name, designation and bio information. But, that’s a subtle and traditional way of displaying the team. Although, professional info should be mixed with personal, fun info as well. Include fun, personal passions, and interests that make individuals approachable and showcase personalities. Details like ‘favorite moments’ or ‘fun facts’ allow their staff to highlight skills, areas of expertise and personal attributes. The key point is that it portrays the company as a group of real people.

3. Include Personal Social Media Handles

A company’s team and its philosophy are important and must shine through its ‘Meet the Team’ page. A lot of times the team members personally contribute via their personal blogs, relevant publications, and other platforms. The information shared through an employee’s personal social channels is a reflection of the company’s expertise as a whole. Including an employee’s personal social handles or links is a great way to encourage readers to get to know your staff and the knowledge they offer.

4. Include Testimonials of Team Members

Testimonial quotes of fellow team members provided for each individual’s bio page not only represent who the employee is as an individual but also the strength of their individual role and the incredible value they bring to the team. Team bio and about pages are one of the most important components of any website. Adding a human touch can help build credibility and position your company and its representatives not only as thought leaders but partners that clients and prospects will respect. 

Characteristics of a Strong Meet the Team Page

  • It has personality
  • It is full of quality images and /or graphics, including headshots.
  • It stands out from other cookie-cutter designs.
  • It highlights the people who make up your team in a professional, personal and unique way.

Read more about other pages/screens here which should be designed cautiously

Here are some awesome ‘Meet the Team’ pages

Advantix-digital
Advantix-digital
Humaan - Our Team
Humaan
Mayple - Team
Mayple
Mimosa - Meet The Team
Mimosa

Wrap up

Creating a “Meet the Team” page expresses your company’s identity. It increases brand awareness and definitely this is something that helps your brand to grow. Contact Us Today if you think your brand’s team page needs tuning 🙂

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Brand & Identity Design Mobile Apps UI Design UX Design Web Design

5 Factors That Influence Readability and Legibility of a UI

Readability and Legibility

No matter how exciting and compelling your story is, it will not be able to create an impact on users if it isn’t presented in a clear and readable layout. People generally focus more on the content than its packaging. No doubt content is the king, but packaging plays a crucial role in determining its success. Readability and legibility are two key aspects of user experience design. To simply put – app and web users will not read your content if it doesn’t look clean, clear, and consumable. In this article, we will cover the factors that influence readability and legibility in user interfaces and why it’s important to care about them.

Readability

As the name suggests, readability is the ease of written content perception. It refers to the comprehension of the text content. It includes – the simplicity of words and sentences, ease of consuming information, and clarity of thoughts. Readability is determined by considering your website’s typeface, which takes font size, font style, line length, and line-height into account.

Legibility

Legibility is a much narrower concept than readability. It refers to how easily your audience can recognize and differentiate between individual characters in lines of copy on your website. Legibility is determined primarily by your typeface design. We can say that legibility is one of the components to fall under the bigger umbrella of readability. It is generally analyzed by examining users’ reading speed in terms of words-per-minute.

Factors Influencing Readability and Legibility

There are plenty of factors that directly impact the readability and legibility of the content. Here are the five most important ones:

1. Typography

Typography refers to the font style. There are some fonts that are easy on users’ eyes and create a delightful reading experience. On the other hand, some fonts are not so pleasing. The choice of fonts directly impacts the readability and legibility of your copy. Font size, width, color, and text structure – every single element matters. Fonts also add to the visual element, just like images. Typography in design is the art of balancing the aesthetic aspect of the text and the ability to read it quickly.

Negative space, alignment, tracking, the spacing between baselines of text, line length, etc. are all key elements to clear typography and comprehendible content. Designers must avoid too little space between the words, very less distance between the lines or letters, tiny font size, and non-contrasting text and background colors.

2. Background

Just like printed books and newspapers, the background color has a significant impact on the ability to read and comprehend the content on websites. It allows readers to distinguish both interactive elements and content. For instance, black text on white or light background appears more significant than the white text on a dark background. An improper color scheme will mostly result in reduced readability, leading to poor user experience. Relevant content or useful data that is unreadable is of no use; users will most likely not read it.

The nature of the content also plays a role in selecting the color scheme. Text-heavy interfaces aimed at reading as the main activity should use color schemes based on light backgrounds. In contrast, the image-heavy interfaces should use dark backgrounds to amplify the pictures’ performance.

3. Writing

The UX writing must be clear, concise, useful and consistent. Text is a vital part of the visual design and user experience. The best you can do with the written content on your website, app, or blog is to make it human-like communication. When you interact with your users through text, at any level, they must feel as if they are interacting with a real human being and not a bot. 

Remember – users don’t read on the web, but scan through the content. Be short and consistent in your written copy. An extended form of writing pushes off users. You must also build a solid text hierarchy so that users can quickly scan your page content. Use numbers, marked elements, and textual variants to catch attention. Marking out specific information by using bold and italic fonts, unusual text sizes, different colors, highlighting, etc. has worked well for years and still holds its significance; however, avoid overdoing it.

4. Visual Hierarchy

Visual hierarchy refers to prioritizing the content into different levels. It is based on the Gestalt theory that deals with the psychology of visual perception of elements. The theory shows how people tend to group visual elements. It organizes UI components so that the brain could distinguish the objects based on their physical differences, such as size, color, contrast, style, etc.

As mentioned earlier, people scan content over the web. So, if we take an example of a blog, they will first notice the headline, then subheadings and only then copy blocks. This is a typical pattern. Users scan the headline and subheadings to understand if the article is interesting and useful to them. Only then will they read the entire blog. The headline and subheadings should be framed in a way that is both informative and enticing. On the other hand, if users see the vast and long sheet of text, they will be scared to read it.

To build an effective visual hierarchy, the text is divided into three levels:

  • The primary level – It includes the biggest type like in headlines. 
  • The secondary level – This is the type of element that supports scannability, such as subheaders or captions.
  • The tertiary level – This one is for the body text and additional data. 

5. White space

White space or negative space is the area of the layout that is left empty. It can be either around the objects you place in the layout or between and inside them. Negative space provides breathing space for all the objects by clearing the unwanted clutter from the page. White space is a strong tool to improve the readability of your text and thereby enhancing the user experience. It also helps in creating a connection between the text and non-text elements of a user interface. 

Many more factors influence the readability and legibility of the content of a user interface; however, these are the most important ones. If you feel like discussing them further in detail, our team of experts will be more than happy to assist you.

Categories
Blog Design Technology Virtual Reality

A Guide For Designers To Design Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality

Let’s get back to reality. We sure would have heard this term one or more times in our lives. As humans, we once in a while try to break out of the shell of reality and try to fly into the unrealistic world. That’s really been the foundation of the growing, trending virtual reality. For designers, the arrival of virtual reality poses some unique challenges, as there is really no set rules to design for VR. That said, this leaves room for innovation and new possibilities for greatness.

VR Design

VR design is the creation of a simulated world, which people can experience and immerse themselves in, using hardware, like headsets, or even a software. The origins of VR goes back decades, however, it has become a sensation only in the last decade or so. It has been previously used for practical applications like NASA flight simulations and even for entertainment purposes, but today, it has become more achievable and profitable than ever. Recent tech advances in VR suggest it will eventually spread out across all industries.

Virtual reality’s application range from physical therapy to educational aids, cancer research, employee training, remote communication, image modeling for architects and a lot more. Design gurus of the world suggest that VR will play a transformational role in the world of web designing by contributing to the creation of more immersive websites. It will potentially change the way we browse the web.

How To Design ‘Reality’?

If we draw a comparison, VR design is closest to video game design, or we can safely say that both of them are almost the same. Web designers will see some familiarity in interactivity and specifics of the UX, but visually, it is one level above video game designing. There’s a lot of unique visual problems in virtual reality design, like changing depths, recognizable cues, and including functional controls within the environment. So how do you design for virtual reality? We have compiled a list of best practices that will get you started with designing for the VR, if you’re planning to master the art.

Interactivity

The top priority for interactivity is controls. There are no different buttons for different actions in VR design. Most of the controls must be gestures. Primarily, there are two types of controls – semantic and responsive. Semantic gestures are common movements like walking, nodding etc. On the other hand, responsive gestures are how we interact with our environment, like picking things up, pushing buttons, etc.

The key here is that the fewer controls your user has to learn, the easier it will be for them to immerse themselves. The main objective is to duplicate reality so try to rely on as many natural gestures as possible. Another challenge is to make users understand what they can interact with, and how. Proper and prompt cues based on the real world must be offered for this. Acknowledgement and constant feedback are also necessary so that the users know once an action has been completed.

Designers need to be very careful about the distance while designing for VR. You don’t want your user to look back and forth between something close and something far away, which leads to a shift in focus. In VR, asking your users to browse items both near and far would cause too much eye strain.

Visual and Audio

Remember, our own sight is curved. Therefore, one should always use concave text and images in the VR design. This lends itself better to the visual immersion and will look smoother when the user turns their head. VR still relies on a 2D display model rather than three-dimensions, like in real life. Showcasing spatial relations is particularly very challenging in VR. Techniques like isometrics, lighting and shadows can help create realistic 3D spaces.

As far as the audio is concerned, speakers are best for audio immersion as you can change the direction the sound comes from; headphones limit this advantage. It’s best to design for speakers to create the most realistic audio possible.

Human Designing

Ultimately, we are designing for humans, and it is important to note that we humans don’t move in straight lines; we move in arcs. VR design’s body movements must resemble real life. Talking about movement, the excessive head movement gives some users motion sickness; we don’t want that to happen for sure. It’s best to keep interactive elements between desk height and eye level, commonly known as the ‘Goldilocks’ zone.

All the VR designs must include hand movements. When the user can see their hands in the virtual environment, it’s easier to interact with objects. This may require creative problem-solving, but sometimes it’s just as simple as having them carry around an object.

VR’s success completely depends on designers. It’s more about the length of designers’ imagination and less about the technical aspects. Yes, being an uncharted territory it’s difficult to get started, but that creates a chance of endless opportunities. The aforementioned information will surely be sufficient to guide you towards the right path; if you want to discuss more on VR design, feel free to get in touch with our experts.

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Brand & Identity Design UX Web Design

Design Arrest: A New Way To Design Your Dreams

Design Arrest

To grow an in-house design team or get the services from a professional design agency is a heated topic of discussion. While there are still people who believe that it’s best to have an in-house team, the majority of experts from the industry strongly believe that a professional design agency is the best option and drives the business growth.

With changing times, the design needs, trends and philosophies have also witnessed a makeover or revamp. With these changes, the process to cater to design needs also needs to upgrade, in order to provide 360-degree design solutions in the most viable manner.

Design Arrest is one such creative job-stop that revolutionizes the process of designing graphics. It is a creative agency that aims to transform your ideas and thoughts into captivating designs. Here are a few differentiating factors of Design Arrest which make it stand out from other creative agencies.

Personal Graphic Designer

The biggest challenge while dealing with creative agencies is to find a single point-of-contact. Often the person working on your request is different from your point-of-contact. Moreover, multiple people work on your project which makes it difficult to strike consistency in the design language. It’s a tiresome and time-consuming task to again and again convey your thought behind designs, brand vision and requirements to different people, every time when you make a fresh request. At Design Arrest, you don’t need to sweat it out. A personal, dedicated Graphic Designer is assigned to you, who will be available round the clock to fulfil unlimited design requests.

Design Your Dreams

 

Flat Rate

Generally, the cost of every design request is calculated basis the type of request, required efforts, time required and nature of the request. This leads to variable costing and often shakes the planned budget for designing. Design Arrest understands the importance of budget-forecasting and values your money. They charge a flat fee, $300 per month, for all your design requirements. There are no hidden charges, taxes, or service charges at any given point-in-time. They believe in clarity, trustworthiness, and developing mutually benefitting, long-term relationships.

Flat Rate

Unlimited Requests / Revisions

Here comes the best part. There are absolutely no bars on the number of requests you raise or the number of times you request revisions. Until you are fully satisfied with their work, the team will not rest. The objective here is to completely satisfy the design needs. Putting a cap on the number of requests will require clients to hand pick the requests, normally the most critical and significant would be passed on, however, a lot of essential requests may not come through only because of the restriction on the number of requests. But, with unlimited requests and revisions, all your design requirements are bound to be fulfilled.

Daily Output

The design process is not a one day job. Some projects last for weeks or months, and some may even be a continuous task for years to come. It becomes difficult for project managers to track the progress and status of the design requests, especially when there’s a provision of shooting unlimited requests. The team at Design Arrest allows you to raise requests every business day and get them served with desired output on a daily basis. This makes your job easy to track the progress and analyze how the work is going on.

No Commitment, No Contract

Unlike many creative agencies, Design Arrest doesn’t bind you in any kind of contract. In case you find any reason to end its services, you’re free to discontinue from that moment itself. You are not at all bind by any regulations or conditions. You are billed on a monthly basis, get the services on a monthly basis and can stop any time you want. Everything that is created by Design Arrest for you is completely editable and belongs to you. They claim no ownership even after you discontinue its design services. Also, they do not disclose or share any information related to your project or business with anyone else.

One-Stop Design Hub

Design Arrest simply designs everything. Be it websites, banners, downloadable, brochures, or anything on web or print media, they design it for you. No matter how diverse or intricate your design needs are, you are sure going to get the solution, with its widespread services ranging across logo design, business collaterals & literature, promotional merchandises, mobile apps, web pages, e-stores, social media creative, presentations and infographics.

Design Arrest certainly stands out in terms of delivering high-quality design solutions at a reasonable price with feasible payment options, and is backed by result-oriented, trend-driven, highly enthusiastic creative brains who are striving to create a difference. You can check out their work here.

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Design

10 Famous Logo Design And Their Hidden Meanings

Logo Design
Logo Design

For a lot of people, a logo is only a creative way of depicting your business name. However, there’s a lot more than this behind the concept of a logo design. Logos not only play an important role in the overall branding process, they also help people to identify and connect with a brand. That’s the reason why designers devote a good amount of time in carefully crafting a logo which communicates the brand’s language. While creating a logo, designers use their creativity in different ways and sometimes they squeeze hidden meanings in a logo design. Here are 10 famous brand logos which look very common but have a hidden meaning in its design:

1. Amazon

Amazon Logo
At first sight, the logo simply looks like the company name with an arrow. But, this arrow is not just to add an aesthetic appeal. The arrow starts from letter ‘A’ and goes till letter ‘Z’ which conveys that the company offers an A to Z variety of items across its online store. In addition to that, the arrow displays a smile which customers will pose as they will be satisfied by the wide range of products.

2. FedEx

FedEx Logo

The shipping giant’s logo is again no-brainer at first look. However, if you look closely, you will notice that the blank space between letters ‘E’ and ‘X’ shows an arrow representing speed and precision in company’s delivery.

3. Le Tour De France

LeTourFrance Logo

The most iconic cycle race across the globe is a world-class sports brand in itself. Again, there’s not much to think about when you first look at the logo. However, the designer has neatly fitted a cyclist in between through the letters ‘O’ ‘U’ and ‘R’ which clearly communicates what the brand is all about.

4. Beats

Beats Logo

The logo for Beats is pretty simple with letter ‘b’ enclosed in a circle, followed by the company name. But, the circle isn’t just a circle. It depicts a human head and the ‘b’ inside it represents a headphone which very effectively allows people to visualise themselves wearing company’s headphones.

5. Baskin Robbins

BaskinRobbins Logo

Interestingly, when Baskin Robbins was launched, it started off with 31 flavours of icecreams and the company very creatively highlighted this fact in their logo. The curve of letter ‘B’ represents number 3 while the stem of letter ‘R’ represents number 1.

6. London Symphony Orchestra

LondonSymphonyOrchestra Logo

This one is a little tricky and requires attention. The logo of London Symphony Orchestra shows the initials of the company written in a single freehand stroke. But that’s not it. There’s an orchestra conductor waving his baton in the logo. The joint of letter ‘S’ and ‘O’ represents the head of the instructor while the letter ‘L’ represents the baton.

7. Formula One

Formula1 Logo

Formula One is the world’s biggest and most renowned car racing championship. Its logo shows the initial of Formula and a race track. If you look closely the space between letter ‘F’ and the racetrack shows the digit 1, which completes the logo.

8. NBC

NBC Logo

NBC was once known as the Peacock Network and hence the bird was first used as its logo in 1956. The peacock has now evolved to this with its 6 colored tail representing the departments; News, Sports, Entertainment, Stations, Networks, and Productions.

9. Picasa

Picasa Logo

Picasa is an image editing and sharing site. The logo of Picasa features a colorful circle which represents a camera shutter. Also, the name itself has a hidden meaning. ‘Casa’ means home in spanish and thus Picasa means ‘home to your photos’. If you look closely, the space between the different colors features a house.

10. Sony VAIO

SonyVAIO Logo

Vaio is Sony’s brand line of laptops. The logo is not just a stylishly written brand name but refers to turning analog waves into a digital form too. The analog waves are represented in the ‘V’ and ‘A’ while the letters ‘I’ and ‘O’ refer to 1 and 0, which are the two digits used in the binary code, the digital language.

Looking to get a perfect logo designed for your brand? Talk to our design experts.

Categories
Brand & Identity

Here’s The Essential Guide For Your Startup Business Branding

Startup Business Branding

We are living in an era of startups. Every second person in today’s world either has his own startup or else dreaming of having one. It starts with an idea which shapes into a business model which eventually lays the foundation of a company. There are plenty of things involved in the whole process. The idea, planning, execution, market study, competitor analysis and the list just goes on and on. Startup owners have so much stuff on their plates that they often neglect one of the most important topic – Branding. In this article, we will highlight some important guidelines for your startup business branding.

It’s very important that you get your branding correct right from the start. How you brand your business will set your image in a customer’s mind. But, Mind it, it’s a one-way road without looking back. Once the image is set, it’s very challenging to change it.

Half The Game Is In The Name

Zeroing on a name for your company is a very crucial, tiresome, and time-consuming process. It takes a lot of efforts and time to come up with the perfect name but, the wait is surely worth it. Customers start judging your business and your company the moment they hear the name of your company. A non-impactful or bad name might lead customers into falsely judging your company even before knowing what you do and other important details.

An effective name will assure a distinct and rock-solid place in the market. It helps in distinguishing yourself as a company and conveying your business vision along with creativity. A strong and impactful name can be the difference maker in being just another firm or a category-defining iconic brand.

Maintain An Impressive Visual Identity

If you underestimate the effect of a brand’s visual components on people, then you’re calling trouble. We always hear sayings like “Never judge a book by its cover” but let’s be honest, an attractive cover will always grab more eyeballs. It helps in getting noticed by people which will eventually lead to a long term business relationship. Logos, business cards, color schemes, graphics, taglines, fonts and many other visual components need super attention.

It can easily communicate your intended message to the customers. If the design is used in an efficient manner, it instantly communicates your business values- Trust, strength, innovation, creativity, luxury, value for money or anything your brand identity stands for.

Differentiate Yourself Through Branding

It’s a rare possibility that you won’t face any competition while running a business. Even if you are the first one to start any kind of business, competition will crop up in no time. It’s very important to differentiate yourself from all the other companies in the same business. Use your branding to create that difference. If properly done, your branding can make a huge difference in cutting through the clutter and placing you above your competitors.

Develop A Brand Personality

A lot of businesses fail to understand the importance of building a brand personality. Their websites look boring filled with all unnecessary jargons, words from the founder etc. These tend to repel customers and many times there is stuff on websites which totally confuses them. Irrespective of the business or the industry, everyone needs a brand personality. A brand personality should be designed carefully, thoughtfully and must be executed properly.

It might take more than one go to find the best brand personality but the effort is definitely recommended. Try out different methods until you hit the bull’s eye.

There are a lot of commitments to fulfill in the initial period when you’re planning to launch your startup or just started it. It’s very much possible that you forget about important aspects like your branding requirements. Share your vision and business objectives with our branding experts and fulfill all your branding requirements.

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Brand & Identity

Golden Rules of Brand Extension Every Company Must Follow

5 Golden Rules of Brand Extension Every Company Must Follow

You can be the biggest company in your nation or any small scale organisation, a day would come in the history of your company to spread your arms into new categories or a new product line. Entering into a different product category altogether is very tricky. It takes years and decades in some cases for a company to establish itself as a valuable brand. A name that people trust on. If not implemented properly, this move can bring serious damage to the overall brand image and profitability. Brand Extension is the most appropriate way to go about it.

What exactly is Brand Extension?

In simple terms, it’s a marketing strategy practised by companies in which they introduce a new product or a new category using their existing brand name. Like every strategy or plan, the Brand Extension also has certain rules for it to be successful. Let’s take a look at the top 5 rules to follow during Brand Extension.

1. Identify Your Brand Equity

The companies attempting to dive into a new product category have surely achieved some brand equity. If your company is still under the process of building its brand name, then entering into a new category would mean starting from scratch. The Brand extension process would become very tedious and will also mount uncertainty about the success of the process. So identify your brand’s real value and analyse how much the customers are loyal towards your brand.

2 . Classify The Core Characteristics of Your Brand

The first and the most important rule is to identify your brand persona and the core characteristics of your brand. You must be aware about how people perceive your brand. Like if your attributes are rough & tough, street smart and you want the extended product to be smart and classy than that will be something out of your alignment.

Ensure that the new products wear the mask of your brand. You can play around with the colour schemes, logo, imagery etc. for the same. The goal is to keep the branding intact with only a slight variation to highlight the difference in the new product.

3. Back Your Step With Solid Reasoning

The decision of Brand Extension should have a solid backing up. Perform a thorough analysis to analyse the current position of your brand. Understand the challenges involved in the process and measure the chances of success. Many prominent brands have failed in the past while entering into a new product category only because they jumped into it without having any solid reasons to do so.

4. Understand Your Brand Architecture

You must identify if you are a House of Brands, Branded House or a Hybrid? Brand architecture is an important aspect which needs to be considered while extending the brand. A House of Brands depends on multiple single brands while the parent brand sits quietly in the background. A branded House runs multiple brands but all in the same brand name. And, as the name suggests Hybrid is a combination. The model of your Brand Extension should be designed based on your brand architecture.

5. Test Before You Go All In

The success of your new product is not certain. If you have a loyal customer base then you can do a pilot test before you hit production. Getting your customers’ input on your plans will be a huge contribution to a long-term success. Form a small test group and record their feedback for validating your product. It’s the best start for Brand Extension.

To conclude, if you follow these rules along with some expert advice, the extension of your brand can be done very efficiently. Never lose the essence of your primary brand as it will be the foundation of any brand extension effort. Talk to our Brand experts today and explore your Brand Extension possibilities.