What I Include in Every Brand Identity Package
Creating a brand identity goes beyond just designing a logo. It involves weaving together the foundational qualities of your brand—your story, purpose, and expertise—to craft a visual identity that resonates with your audience.
Additionally, in today’s online market, your brand identity needs to be functional. For example: your logo should adapt for different screen sizes and your fonts + colors should be legible for web. It’s the combination of these aesthetic and practical elements that create a strong identity. Let’s dive into exactly what I include in every branding package and why each element is important.
Logo Suite
A logo suite is the heart of your brand's visual identity. Each logo variation serves a unique purpose, ensuring your brand is versatile and consistently recognizable.
Primary Logo: This is the cornerstone of your brand identity, combining your logotype and an icon to create a memorable brand mark. A great logo should be meaningful, yet simple. It also needs to work at any size.
Logo Icon: This icon represents your brand. It's a simplified visual symbol that can stand alone and embodies the core of your brand's identity.
Logotype: The words of your logo, set in a specific typeface. It can be custom-designed or based on existing typefaces. The choice of typography should align with your brand's personality and values.
Logo Badge: This circular version of your logo is perfect for social media profiles. It's compact yet memorable, ensuring your brand is recognizable in any space.
Favicon: A tiny version of your logo icon, the favicon ensures your brand is recognizable even at the smallest scale, such as a browser icon.
Brand Marks: Additional logo variations that may include taglines.
While these are common logo variations, not every brand needs to have all of these. For example, in the instance below, the logo icon is simple enough it could also work as the favicon. Additionally, many service providers may want to use their headshot for social media profiles instead of a logo badge.
Finally, your primary logo may be your logotype (without an icon) This is popular as a slightly more modern approach.
Brand Typography
Font pairings, also called brand typography, are the combination of fonts your brand should use. These fonts have been selected to be legible and representative of your brand’s aesthetic.
Headline Font: The headline font sets the tone for your brand's communication. It should be legible at multiple sizes, but also give the brand distinct character.
Accent Font: Accent fonts add texture and interest, typically used for special highlights or subheadings. They bring a touch of personality and texture to your brand. Since they typically tend to be more personality-filled (less legible) fonts, I use them in small doses.
Body Copy Font: The body copy font is used for main body paragraphs of text on your website, social media graphics, or other marketing materials. It complements the other fonts while being functional and readable at various sizes.
Color Palette
Colors have a profound impact on brand recognition and emotional connection. Your color palette is thoughtfully chosen to resonate with your audience and communicate your brand’s aesthetic and values.
Every brand's color palette includes:
Main Brand Color: This is the heartbeat of your brand's color scheme, serving as a key identifier.
Secondary Brand Colors: Compliment the main color.
Accent Color: A slightly brighter color to be used in small areas to capture your customer’s attention.
Dark Neutral Color: For text, ensuring readability and contrast.
Light Neutral Color: For a majority of backgrounds, providing a nice contrast against your dark neutral.
To learn more about color and find your brand’s perfect palette, take the free Brand Color Palette Quiz.
Patterns, Illustrations, and Textures
Flat color and generic icons are the quickest way to make your brand feel unfriendly and sterile. On the other hand, my favorite way to elevate any brand is custom-made patterns, illustrations, and textures. These artistic elements add depth and richness to your branding. They infuse your visual identity with personality and warmth, creating an elevated vibe that sets you apart.
Patterns: Repeating designs that can be geometric, organic, or abstract. Patterns can be used as backgrounds, borders, or overlays to create a cohesive look across various brand materials.
Illustrations: Custom-drawn illustrations or icons that help tell your brand’s story. These can be used as bullet points, embellishments on social media graphics, or featured elements on your website. They add a unique, personal touch that highlights your brand's unique features and creativity.
Textures: Subtle or pronounced textures can be used to add a tactile feel to your digital and print materials. From paper-like textures to fabric-inspired designs, textures bring an added layer of sophistication and depth to your brand’s visuals.
I often use these elements on social media graphics, website design, and other brand materials to elevate your brand's visual story.
Brand Identity Guide
A brand identity guide, sometimes called a brand style guide, is a comprehensive document that outlines the rules and standards for using your brand elements. It ensures that everyone, from your team to external partners, uses your brand assets consistently and correctly.
While, every brand I work with has unique needs, this post includes the elements that serve as the core of your brand identity.
For each client I work with, I pour my heart into creating a cohesive and compelling brand presence that not only resonates with your audience, but also honors your passion and soul-led mission.
If you’re interested in learning more about how I can help your business thrive, apply to work with me here.