Learn to Super-Charge Your Brand with Consistency!

Ask yourself these questions:

• Have you tried to “fix” your logo by squishing it? or stretching it to fit?
• Did you try to change the font yourself and now it looks weird?
• Have you been using templates from word for your brochure? With fonts like Arial or Comic Sans?
  
• Does your business card match your website and your social media profiles at all?
• Do you use different graphics because that was what was available or easy?

Having mismatched visuals is a HUGE disconnect for your audience!

Our brains really love consistency. It's how we are wired. In cave-man days it served a purpose — finding an attractive person to marry, remembering which berries are poisonous. When something doesn’t look good, it makes our brain uneasy. Keeping your Visual Brand consistent and professional looking creates a sense of trust. 

First. Think of your brand is a Person.

• That Person is reflected in a lot of things — things like your values, uniqueness, and the promise of what you provide. It's the voice it speaks with. It’s a personality.

• Your “Person” has a distinctive way of talking, walking, dressing, and mannerisms — just like your best friend or your mom! There may be a pattern of how they talk, phrases they use, their sense of humour, a distinctive mannerism. You would definitely know your loved one anywhere, right? That’s because they act and look consistent!

Your Visual style is part of that personality —  it’s what this “person” would wear. Items like your logo, colour swatches, photography and illustrations, the fonts and typography you choose. This is your Brand's VISUAL STYLE. This is what your “person" is wearing! Another aspect is the language or style of speech you use and your writing style. This is what you say and how you say it. This is your “person’s” VOICE. This is how your brand sounds.
Example: What if your mom started wearing a heavy metal t-shirt instead of her usual cardigan?
You would feel uneasy. That hard-wired instinct that craves consistency is telling you something is off.
Now, if you aren’t dressing your “person" consistently, it's harder for your audience to recognize you.
It may look unprofessional and that cave-man instinct kicks in and creates a sense of uneasiness.

Your brand should always be easily recognizable and professional.

• Take steps making your brand coordinate! 
  
• This does not mean everything has to be all matchy-matchy! 
• Think of it more like a capsule wardrobe for your “person”. 

Example: Superman wears a cape and red and blue. He says “up, up and away!"

What does your brand wear? What does your brand say?

Check out my handy checklist:
Logos — do you have the proper file formats and alternate versions if you need them?

• What file types do you have? You should always be provided vector (.eps and pdf) and raster (.jpg and .png) files by the designer who created them.
• You might not be able to open the .eps but don't worry, your printer knows how to use that!

Colours — find a family of colours and stick with those swatches

•  Find and use the proper Pantone Colours for printing
• Get the RGB and Hex codes so you can use those colours in Word, Powerpoint or online 

Fonts — Choose one or two font families to work with all the time and stick with them.

• Use the same or similar fonts for Headlines, copy in your Advertising, your Powerpoint & Word docs
• Images – Pick a style of photography* or Illustration* and use that style consistently

• Choose a visual theme – you may want blurred images or fresh, green images or smiling people. You may like watercolour illustrations or you may prefer cartoon images.

• **PS. Please DON'T GRAB pictures from Google. It can get you into hot water with copyright infringement! Some images are protected by their creator. To ensure you are using safe images purchase affordable royalty free or take some of your own!

Voice — Choose a writing style

• is it formal? casual? serious? funny? 
• does it use specific terms or plain language?

Guidelines — Make yourself some rules

• no “guessing" on colours

• no squishing or stretching your logo
• no fonts that don’t match your style

Backups

• Keep digital copies of your logos, fonts, images and other necessary files backed up on google drive, dropbox or a similar service in case of hard drive crash, fire, burglary etc.

Use these items regular basis and your business will be easily recognized everywhere it goes.
Your communication will feel comfortable and authentic. Your message will be remembered.

Need help organizing? Need some design work?

I can help! I LOVE this stuff!