David Ogilvy, known as the “Father of Advertising” referred to a brand as a “product's personality… its name, its packaging, its price, the style of its advertising, and above all, the nature of the product itself.” Your personality defines you, and your brand defines your business. The way you are perceived is a reflection of your personality: if someone is “nice”— that's their personality. In much the same way, your business image is a reflection of your brand: your brand is “quality products” — that's your business, making quality products.



According to Chuck Green, “The brand is less about your organization than it is about the product or service it offers.” A product or service is successful because it offers customers a benefit — it satisfies them in some way, for instance, by saving money.

To build a successful brand, you must think about the two sides to branding: the conceptual side and the visual side. The conceptual side is the time you take to think about the benefits you offer your customers. This should come from the basis, or mission statement, of your company, and you must do this before you explore the visual process of building your brand. Next, you need to work on your brand visually, by developing a visual palette. This includes all the basic components you use to design most of your materials, from a Web site to full color brochures. These basic components are: logo, typefaces, artwork, photographs and a color scheme. You can develop these components yourself, or pay a designer to create your brand for you.

If you're short on ideas, you can start by looking at your competitors' brands. Note how they distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack. Also, if your products and services are radically different from each other, create a brand for each. You don't want to confuse your target consumers by trying to encompass all of your differing products into one brand. It's better to have a clear brand for each product than a garbled brand for all your products. Remember you are branding your products and/or services, not your company.

First, you need to develop a logo that will show what you do, or differentiate you in some way. Then you need to pick a font that complements your logo. Once you do that, you can pick secondary fonts for headings, brochure titles and the body text for your print products. Your logo and text should create a mood, whatever you want your customers to think of when they see your logo, whether that's professional, creative or relaxed. Next you may want to choose some stock photos to use in some full color brochures or a Web site. Lastly, choose your color scheme. You'll want to choose two or three colors that complement each other and any photos you may be planning to include in your brochure printing.

Once you create a palette, stick with it. You'll want that palette to be the same whether you're brochure printing, newsletter printing or designing a Web site. You may get bored looking at it over and over again, but think of all the potential customers that haven't seen it before. If what you're using works, don't change it until it stops working.