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A brand logo is possibly the most powerful marketing tool for businesses and companies. In fact, it is a crucial part of brand identity alongside the brand name, slogan, and theme. It has the ability to help businesses achieve their business goals and fulfill their vision within a targeted timespan. 

The primary purposes of creating a brand logo are to build brand recognition, increase brand awareness, and establish a trust factor among the people. However, a brand logo serves a company beyond these things. It plays the most crucial role in the growth of a company. This is why every company or business must have a powerful brand logo that can clearly convey its messages to potential audiences. 

Creating a logo design may seem a simple task, but it is very challenging. It is not just a process of designing specific shapes and combining them with attractive colors and texts, but it is much more than this. It is a strategic process comprising:

• Understanding the business, its goals, and purposes
• A comprehensive logo design research
• Competitive analysis
• Knowing what audiences love the most 
• Understanding the market trends 
• Planning a comprehensive marketing strategy 
• Designing a brand logo 

When you think of designing or redesigning your brand logo, you have mainly got two options: do it yourself or hire a logo design specialist. We recommend you hire a logo design specialist as they can provide you with what you actually desire. 

Many logo design companies are out there, making it challenging for you to choose the right one. Well! We are here to help you. 

This comprehensive guide has listed seven important things that you need to consider before hiring a logo designer. Check them out below!

7 Important Things to Consider Before Hiring a logo design Company

A logo design company should serve the real purpose. They must meet your requirements and preferences. Check out the following considerations!

Reputation

Where does your chosen logo design company stand in the market? What do their past clients say about their services? Do they have their unique identity?

Finding the answers to these questions will help you know the status of your chosen logo design company. You can expect to get the best quality products and services from a well-reputed logo design company. 

Excellence in Graphic Designing 

Logo designing is a challenging task. Although you can create a logo using graphic design software, it is not possible to design a result-oriented brand logo without excellence in graphic design. 

A lot of factors matter for designing a perfect logo, such as:

• Uniqueness 
• Simplicity 
• Timeliness 
• Scalable 
• Color Palette 
• Memorable 
• Targeted 
• Clear Message 

So, make sure your chosen logo design company has excellence and expertise in all essential aspects of graphic designing. If they have certificates of excellence in their field, rewards, and noticeable accomplishments, nothing can be better. 

Experience 

Experience matters a lot. A company with years of experience designing brand logos and other visual designs for marketing purposes can provide you the best logo design services. They know a lot about the market, audience preferences, and creative techniques to design an attractive and result-oriented brand logo. 

They usually have a team of highly skilled and experienced graphic designers who ensure you get what you want eventually. So, we would recommend you to hire a well-experienced logo design or graphic designing company. 

Reviews and Client Testimonials

Checking out reviews and client testimonials gives you honest feedback about a company’s service quality. You should not skip this step as it is the most important part to know the originality of a company. 

It will help you know if the past clients enjoyed working with them and if they were satisfied with the final product. Moreover, evaluating clients’ testimonials and reviews will help you find if the claims and promises of a logo design company are honest. 

Make sure you go through this step, or else you will not know the originality of your chosen logo design company. 

Requirements and Goals 

You would have certain goals and requirements. Does your chosen graphic design company meet them? Can they provide you with what you exactly require? Do they meet your budget requirements? 

How would you find the answers to these questions? Well! Checking out their official website and talking to their business representative are the best ways to find the answers. If your chosen logo design company meets your goals and requirements, you probably have the right one. It would help if you continued with them. 

Time Required For Project Delivery 

You would have targeted a period to achieve your business goals. But, does your chosen company have the ability to deliver your project within your targeted period? Ask their business representative and check out honest client reviews; it will help you know the average time taken by your chosen company to deliver a complex project. 

Conclusion

All the considerations included in this guide are equally important. It would help if you kept all these points in mind before hiring a particular logo design company. 

In the end, we hope this comprehensive guide is informative and valuable for you. For more detailed information about logo design and print marketing collateral, stay in touch with us. 

A logo is a quick visual representation of a company, business, or organization. It briefly explains the people about your company, products & services, and the benefits you provide to them. Simply and straightforwardly, it is a visual identification of your business.

It consists of various visual design elements, such as alphabets, symbols, shapes, colors, etc. The perfect combination of these elements creates an outstanding logo design that makes a long-lasting impression on customers.

Designing a brand logo seems like a cakewalk, but it is much more challenging than you think. It is a strategic process that includes:

• Understanding the business and audiences
• Researching to collect market data
• Analyzing the market trends
• Conducting competition analysis
• Designing different elements of the logo
• Combining all elements to create an outstanding visual representation

Typically, professional logo design services or a brand designing agency is responsible for designing brand logos. However, you can also create one on your own. But if you don’t have enough knowledge and experience of logo designing, your logo may lack clarity, effectiveness, and engaging elements that are a must to drive results. Therefore, it is the best option to hire a professional logo designer.

There are some fundamental principles of logo designing that a designer must follow while designing a brand logo. We will comprehensively discuss those principles in this writing piece. But before we move on to that section, let’s explore the different characteristics of a logo design.

What Are Some Different Characteristics of A Logo?

A brand logo has many different characteristics that play a crucial role in how people experience your brand. When you choose or design them correctly, people fall in love with them at the very first sight.

Here are some most common logo characteristics that you need to select and design correctly. Check them out below!

Shape- Each element of your brand logo is crucial for effective visual communication. When you choose or design them, make sure they complement your business type, objectives, and vision.

While choosing a specific shape, you need to keep in mind that every shape has a different characteristic, and all of them do not perfectly meet your logo requirements. You need to choose a specific shape that you want your brand to look like.

Size- Your brand logo represents your business in different channels, such as print marketing materials (letterheads, business cards, brochures, etc.), online platforms, and advertising banners. You cannot feature the same size of the logo in all these channels as their requirements are different. Therefore, it is always a good idea to have at least four different versions of your logo of different sizes. You can determine the different sizes of your logo based on the requirements of different channels.

Color- Color is the most dominating element of a logo. It helps you make a powerful impression on your potential audiences and influence them to associate with your interest. Just like shapes, colors also have different characteristics and emotional connotations. For example, Red is the color of blood, and it indicates urgency and alertness.

So, while choosing a color or a color palette for your logo, make sure you choose a color that conveys your emotions and messages to your audiences.

Typography- Typography refers to designs, styles, and layouts of text. It is equally important as the shape, size, and color of your logo.

First, create a line that has an in-depth meaning and conveys a powerful message to your audience. Then, you need to make your line impressive and pleasant to the eyes by making the best use of fonts, styles, and layouts.

Fundamental Principles

The fundamental principles of logo designing comprehensively describe how your brand logo should look and how it should be to your audience. Here we have mentioned the five most important fundamental principles. Check them out below!

Simplicity- Some people think that creating a graphic-loaded brand logo makes a significant impact on audiences. However, things are different. The more you add to your logo, the more complex you make it for your audiences.

Remember, a logo that gives your brand a clear message to your audience is considered the most impactful logo. So, keep your logo simple yet effective.

Memorability- People remember those brand logos that are visually awesome and give a clear message to them. Use complementary colors, designs, and other relevant elements and strategically place them to create a stand-out logo. It will leave a lasting impression on the audience’s mind, and they will recall your brand so often.

Modern and Timeless- Designing a logo based on the current trends is a great idea, but remember, the trends change from time to time. A movement is hot today, but it will run out of steam with the passing time.

So, before choosing a particular trend for your logo design, make sure it is timeless and perfect for the long run.

Complementary- All the graphic elements, including shapes, colors, texts, and designs, should complement each other. It is the most fundamental principle of logo and graphic designing.

Suppose you want to choose two different colors for the color palette of your logo. The color combinations like blue with red, green with yellow, and orange with yellow are the best options to choose from as they complement each other. Similarly, the shapes, fonts, and designs should be complementary to each other.

Balance- A balanced logo is catchy and pleasant to the eyes. It grabs people’s attention quickly and leaves a lasting impression on them.

Use the method of proportion and symmetry to create a balanced brand logo.

Versatility- A brand logo is used in many different ways on different channels, for example:

• On advertisement banners
• On print materials, such as newspapers, magazines, letterheads, etc.
• On websites, blogs, and social media platforms
• On caps, bands, and other wears
• On clothes

A brand logo should maintain its integrity and serve its original purposes in all situations. It should clearly convey your message to your audiences.

When it comes to highlighting your online presence, there are several things that you need to put into great consideration. What does this actually imply to online marketers? Basically, the act of establishing your online presence does not simply end by just creating a basic website for your business and/or company.

Most, if not all, websites have gained success through their online marketing efforts by incorporating the right SEO tactics and constantly feeding it with the right elements. It may not provide you with instantaneous positive outcomes, but in due time, it will surely make progress.

The Importance of Website Design

There are numerous factors that lead to a successful online presence. There are various ways to look at the whole standing of your website as well. But before going on any further, let’s focus first on one of the most basic elements that make up your online identity — your website design. How exactly important is it?

The design of your website can either make or break the business you are trying to deliver. It actually makes a difference on how your target audience views your business or company and potentially turns them into your customers. As such, developing a website design that has an impressive user interface will result in a much better conversion rate, which leads to better business and revenue.

Key Elements to Consider when Designing a Website:

1. Navigation

This is essential especially when your website has so many pages. It basically includes a well-labeled navigation bar or a menu that shows a list of the different web pages. When the website navigation is developed well, users can easily explore and understand your website. It doesn’t need to have state of the art typefaces. Settle for a simple yet intuitive navigation that can make visitors come back for more.

2. Content and Visual Elements

These also include the choice of font and other typographic details. Such aspects of web design should go along together to deliver an accurate message to the audience. In most cases, readers tend to remember the message when it is concise and something that the readers can identify with.

However, overdoing these elements won’t bring any good to your website, Web pages with too much content will look messy and can affect conversion rates. How? Visually clutter pages may be difficult to read, resulting in disinterest in visitors and making them not wanting to come back.

To avoid that from happening, it is best to streamline the content wherein website designers can easily incorporate the text in their design. Moreover, designers are able to add negative or empty spaces that let the readers’ eyes rest in the middle of their reading.

3. Brand Uniformity

Your brand is what sets you apart from your competitors, and it is usually identified through a logo. If your business/company has a unique logo that is placed on all print materials, then all the logo’s elements must be integrated into the website design for the sake of consistency.

It is very important for your target market to recognise your business brand in all types of medium. If for instance, there are slight changes in your brand and visual communication, then it can result in confusion among your customers and make them feel that there is something wrong with your business.

4. Engagement

Web pages should have an exceptional layout so that they can appear more appealing to the users and make them want to engage with your page. It needs to feed people’s eyes because the truth is; this is where every engagement will begin. For this, the need of website design and development is an indispensable factor that should be measured carefully by every website owner.

5. Organisation and Search Engine Optimisation

Just like how we read a book, it is comfortable to read a web page from left to right, top to bottom. Virtuosi in web designing use the same reading pattern when they’re designing a website. Because most people read starting from the upper left area, designers put the most important information there. It increases the chances of relaying your message to the visitors who can become your customers.

Aside from the organisation, utilising the visible areas for the important website details can also improve the search engine optimisation or SEO. This happens when you incorporate business-related keywords in the HTML text. When search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing can crawl into your website, it results in higher search engine placement, which means your website becomes more visible and searchable.

In this digital age, most businesses have already developed their respective websites to become more accessible for their customers. With the help of website design, business owners are able to create a user-friendly and welcoming online environment where users can get useful information any time of the day.

Have a look at our web design portfolio here.

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For years, motion design and animated videos have been a fun way to inform and entertain customers and employees alike. Producing a custom animation that delivers your message can sometimes cost more than you want to spend. If you are on the fence about whether or not you should use motion graphics to tell your story, keep reading.  Here are the four main benefits of creating motion graphics videos.

1. SIMPLIFY COMPLEX INFORMATION

If you work in a highly technical industry or simply seek to explain complicated information, communicating with your audience can have its challenges.

Motion graphic videos are an effective way for content marketers to communicate this complex information and data-rich content in an easy-to-digest format.

Once your audience has a clear understanding of your information and process, they can make the connection between what your brand does and how it can fulfill their needs. This is essential to moving your audience through the sales funnel.

Motion graphics can make learning new information exciting. The dynamic nature of the content draws your audience in and keeps them focused—which helps with retention of the information.

2. INCREASE BRAND AWARENESS

We all know that brand awareness is key to driving conversions. In a market that is highly saturated with content – standing out from the crowd can be challenging. After all, if someone has never heard of your brand, how can they be expected to convert?

Put simply: motion graphics are memorable—and that drives brand awareness.

While live action video is a great way to engage your audience, there can be limitations to how much you can incorporate your brand messaging without it feeling like overkill, or too salesy.

Motion graphics, on the other hand, can be easily altered to fit the needs of your different audiences—all while keeping your branding and core messaging consistent.

3. COMMUNICATE WITHOUT AUDIO

These days we find ourselves putting subtitles on just about every video designed to hit the social media airwaves. Often when viewers are scrolling through timelines they do not want to be bothered with audio.

Creating motion graphics using text is a way to communicate via video without having to subtitle your images after the fact.

By designing the video to use text from the start you will be able to elevate the design and ultimately create a more compelling video.

4. UNLIMITED CREATIVITY

Paramount to all of the above, motion graphic videos allow you to truly tap into your creativity. You can create any scenario you wish with unlimited parameters. And, in a world where budget plays a role in the creation of any video, motion graphic videos tend to be more forgiving for a lower budget.

In essence: With motion graphics you get what you pay for. But you don’t have to spend a fortune to create a video that communicates your message.

Whether you’re telling a story, sharing interesting data, or explaining complex subject matter, motion graphics provide endless possibilities in representing your brand.

At Kaizen Brand Evolution,  we’ll help you create the right video for your brand.  Click here or give us a call to start your motion design project.

VIEW OUR PORTFOLIO OF MOTION GRAPHICS HERE.

What is a logo? A logo design is a combination of text and visual imagery that serves two purposes. It tells people the name of the company and it creates a visual symbol that represents your business. Some logos have powerful symbolic associations connected to people’s memory. For example, the McDonalds golden arches are so familiar that they no longer need the text “McDonalds” for you to recognise that that symbol represents McDonalds.

Having a professional looking, well designed logo builds trust. Potential customers are more likely to do business with you if you have a well designed logo. If your logo looks like it was designed in Microsoft Word, people will question how well you are able to deliver your core business products/services.

Key Elements of a Good Logo

Make the text part of your logo super clear and readable

When you’re starting out with your logo, one of the most important characteristics is that the text of your company name is clear and easy to read at a distance, as it may appear on vehicle signage, building signage, posters or some other place where the logo is seen at a distance.

Use it consistently

When brands get a logo designed they often prepare large brand standards documents, dozens of pages deep, covering things like:

• Guidance on the different variations of the logo and where they should and shouldn’t be used.
• Guidance on modifying the logo and what shouldn’t be done to the logo.
• What should and shouldn’t appear nearby the logo.
• How the logo should appear in all sorts of different scenarios.

Although this level of documentation may seem like alot, it means that your company understands that if brands are inconsistent in the way their logo appears in different situations, this can be damaging to trust.  So be really consistent with how your logo is used.

When we create a logo for you, either for a logo design project or as part of a larger branding project, our team at Kaizen Brand Evolution will provide you with brand guidelines that outline and demonstrate how your logo should be used. 

Simple colours – think about the different situations it will be used in

Your logo might appear on screens, business cards, letterheads, pull up banners, vehicles, shop signage, product packaging, newspaper adverts just to name a few.  Logos that have gradient colours, lots of fine detail, a lot of different colours or photographic content are much more likely to look quite different in these different situations as many of them use completely different printing technology and it makes it difficult to match the colours exactly.  This is why the most powerful brands in the world usually stick to a simple palette of less than 3 main colours.  They also use solid colours rather than gradients.

Have something visual/memorable

While it might take you a few decades to become the next Coca Cola or McDonalds, having something memorable about your logo is a good idea.  Some businesses do this by using interesting text or modifying part of the text in the logo to not just be a standard font.  Other businesses do this by adding some sort of illustrated icon alongside the text part of the logo.  One useful aspect of having an icon is that you can use the icon on it’s own in some situations as well.  For example, the Nike tick can appear with the Nike text or without.  While originally the Nike tick would have meant nothing if it didn’t appear alongside the Nike text, over time that visual memory association has developed.  If you’re wanting a very sleek, minimalist logo, just using a modern looking font with a pop of accent colour is a good option.

How do I get a logo?

The best way to get a logo is to have it professionally designed.  Although there are online logo design services, from our experience the best value and service is from graphic design studios, like ourselves. At KBE, we are lucky because we have a print team downstairs, so we can roll out your new logo design on printed materials. This also helps you nail that brand consistency.

Tips for choosing a designer and getting the best result

Make sure you view examples of their previous work — and you like what they’ve done previously.  If they have a large portfolio of great looking logo design examples, you can be more confident in their ability to design you a great logo. 

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Establishing a startup business is just like turning dreams into reality. Many entrepreneurs have a business idea in their minds. Some of them are pretty sure about its success, but they cannot dare to turn them into reality due to lack of funds. Apart from having money, you have to be determined for your dreams. And once it works out in your favor, your startup will flourish, creating an excellent brand image.

If you can’t support your startup financially, raising funds from investors is another way to keep your new business up and running. Though it is a time-consuming and challenging task, but it is crucial for every startup that is actively looking to establish value through a pitch deck. It is the best way to articulate an interesting and compelling story. Before discussing the significance of the PowerPoint pitch deck for startups, let’s know more about it.

What Is A Pitch Deck?

It is a 10-20 slide presentation designed to give a brief about your startup, its plan, and its vision. A pitch deck doesn’t serve a single purpose. It serves different purposes varying from trying to impress a new investor to telling an audience about your startup on a stage and others. Though creating a pitch deck and its structure could vary, the intention will be the same: introducing or making the people aware of the company, no matter whether they are the investors or normal audience.

You have to make sure that your pitch deck should be more visual and contain a little text. Considering graphics and images is important as they are easily remembered. Your viewers can easily see it from far and can relate the things with the image while telling and informing them about what you have presented in the slide. Even if you have to email your pitch presentation to your clients, make sure it is self-explanatory. If you really wish to see a positive response to your startup pitch presentation, you can also take professional help. Many printing and designing companies offer pitch deck design and development services. They help develop a great pitch while ensuring it has all the ingredients to help you get to follow-up emails from investors and clients.

What Are Important Ingredients Of A Perfect PowerPoint Pitch Deck Presentation?

We have shared some important elements that should be there in a successful pitch presentation. The elements we have mentioned are suggested by authors, venture capitalists, startup founders, and evangelists. These include:

• Problem
• Solution
• Product
• Market Size
• Business Model
• Underlying Magic
• Competition
• Better/Different
• Marketing Plan
• Team
• Traction / Milestone  

Experts believe that producing a compelling pitch deck requires special skills other than slideshow skills. You must know how to create great designs, aesthetically pleasing slides, accurate market estimations, and overall market dynamics. All these are good enough to start creating a pitch deck if you are doing it by yourself.

Given below are some critical elements of a great pitch deck. If you choose a professional to create your startup presentation pitch, they will ensure that all these elements are there in a pitch deck to make it worthwhile.

• High-Intensity summary slide: You can create one or two slides for this. These will be opening preliminary slides that highlight your startup business. These slides seize the quintessence of your business story. You must include those points that you would want to communicate to the audience.
• Mention The Problem You Will Be Solving: You need one or two obligatory slides conveying the nature of the market along with the opportunity you address with your business, its products, or services. All you need to do is highlight what is missing or not working. If possible, make sure these slides include information that clarifies that buyers are spending real dollars on imperfect products. Most of these products do not adequately address their needs.
• How Your Product/Service Can Help: After duly demarcating the problems faced by your target audience, the following slides should be about you and your business. First and foremost, describe how your products or services can provide a solution for the unmet market demands. You have already described in the preceding slides. This slide should highlight how your products or services are different. Make sure these slides leave no holes in your story. In short, there should be no questions that remain unanswered.
• Marketing/strategies: By this time, your audience will be impressed with your product and business model, proactively enunciating a go-to-market strategy. The reach of these slides will more or less depend on your development stage. However, it should clearly exhibit your thoughts about how to roll out your startup business and how to capture market share.
• Financials/projections: When you are a startup, the number in your projections typically doesn’t matter in the early stages. However, assembling a set of thoughtful predictions on both the revenue and cost sides significantly augments your authority with potential investors. While your audience may feel projections are impulsive in assessing the business. Your audience will appreciate that you understand financial metrics and how to maneuver a successful business.

Always keep in mind, when pulling together your pitch deck presentation, you must consider the tone you want to express. Be inventive. It will help if you avoid dry and boring presentations. You must show some personality as it will help you have a winning combination. If you think creating a pitch deck is not your cup of tea, you must hire a professional agency.

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Billboards have always been very important in the world of advertising primarily because of their extensive reach. Even with the growth of technology and online marketing, the billboard continues to play an important component as a marketing tool. As a physical marker that thousands of people can see daily, it can hold great potential in exposing your company and product to potential buyers–if designed properly. 

This is already reason enough to ensure that the amount you would be spending would eventually translate into meaningful sales conversions. Here are some of the key considerations when creating a high impact design for billboard advertising.

Use a Sensible Story to Deliver a Message

Your billboard design needs to have a story in order for it to be memorable for everyone. To determine which story to use, try thinking about something that you would want viewers to do whenever they see the ad. Do you want them to stop at your next branch and eat some steaks? Do you want them to remember your brand whenever they go shopping for clothes? You can come up with a good and sensible story based on the message you want to deliver.

Stories are important for billboards because people are actually good at recalling them but are bad at recalling facts. As a visual medium, the next thing to do is to find out what text and images to use in order to deliver the story. Being strategic is key when creating a good design. To make an impact, you need to use a fun but short word play. Short rhymes are helpful in making people remember the message. If you need help to find the right story for your next billboard, contact any leading media and marketing professionals in your area for some very reasonable billboard prices.

The Message Should Be Safe and Short

Keep in mind that the billboard will be seen mostly by drivers, passengers and passersby. On the average, they only have around five to 10 seconds to look at the text and design and understand the message. This is the main reason why the message should be kept short. Try to limit the words you will use to only 7 words max.

Ensure Text Readability

With such an enormous layout, it is very important that the design text of your OOH advertising is highly readable. Use a large, bold and clean font for an enhanced readability. By doing so, the viewers can have more time to read and comprehend the message better from afar.

The More Colourful, the Better

In order to draw more viewers in an effortless manner, it can help to include a bold image and bright colours in the design of your billboard advertising. The use of colour contrast can produce an even greater effect and is very helpful in message retention. For the background, it needs to be simple so as not to compete with the foreground for attention. Additionally, the use of a single large photo or image is better in creating a greater impact than the use of several images.

Make it consistent.

It is easy to look at a billboard and think of it as a clean slate for another marketing plan, but think of how your billboard design fits your larger marketing puzzle: is it consistent with your overall marketing strategy and company branding? Does it match similar advertisements in newspapers, magazines, online, or on TV? Sometimes the best billboard designs allow audiences to remember it in relation to your logo or brand in another context. Having the continuity between your different advertising outlets is just as important as the advertisements themselves.

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When we speak about brands or branding, the temptation is always to think very big. To think that brand focus is a practice reserved for globally recognised entities. The Coca-Cola Brand, The McDonalds brand, Apple branded products. The very term can conjure up visions of unattainable recognition and grandeur. This may be the reason why many small business owners do not see the importance of branding, and do not invest their time and efforts into getting it right.

However, this should not be the case. Effective branding is absolutely crucial for businesses at every level of the pyramid. From the global powerhouses to the smallest of sole traders.

A brand is what identifies your business to consumers and distinguishes you from your competition. This includes visual elements such as the colours and logo. However, brand is so much more. Your brand can guide all of your business’s activities.

Once translated into one dynamic package, branding speaks to your audience and communicates exactly what you represent as an organisation. But why is branding so important, even for those smaller businesses without a large audience?

Being Memorable

Customers enjoying a positive experience with your product or service is great, but this has to be married with recognisable branding. If your branding does not effectively differentiate your business from the competition, highlights what makes your business amazing and capture the minds of the audience, then your hard work delivering an experience can be undone. You need to be memorable. And for all the right reasons!

Culture and Building Teams

Strong branding is key for small businesses when building and growing a culture. A clear and consistent brand allows a workforce to understand just what it means to represent that organisation. It creates a focal point for emotional investment and something staff can really get behind and believe in.

When constructing a brand strategy, we will set out a list of brand values which best represent their business and what they aspire to be like. These are guiding principles which direct all of an organisation’s activities. From effecting external communications to who you employ.

Consistency Across the Board and Effective Marketing 

Brand influences every action taken by an organisation. No matter the size or scale of the business. Consistent brands are far more trustworthy to consumers. If a brand is inconsistent with its messaging then this will confuse the audience, leaving them uncertain of your offering.

So, when putting together a marketing campaign you must ask yourself, “Does this convey what we want to represent as a brand?”.

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Like an individual whose personal identity makes him unique, similarly, a brand identity is vital for any business that sets it apart from competitors. And brand identity design is something that reflects the identity of any business at its best. Therefore, if you are running a company, no matter big or small, brand identity is something that you cannot overlook. 

Before we discuss how to shape a strong brand identity to take your business to the next level, let’s first determine what brand identity is and what it has to do with the design. Also, we will discuss the role of a brand design agency and the different ways they use to help any business develop its unique yet positive identity! 

What Is A Brand Identity?

 It is an outward expression of a brand that comprises different elements such as name, trademark, communications, and visual appearance. These elements together represent the right image to its customers. Brand identity is different from “branding” and “brand image.” Branding refers to the marketing practice that lets you actively shape a brand, and brand is the company’s insight in the eyes of the world. It is a way to communicate with the world and differentiate your company/business from your competition. You have to create a brand experience that inspires your audience to engage with you. They will associate your brand identity, your products, or services. This will help you build customer loyalty.

What All Is Included In A Brand Identity?

Many business owners think that a nicely designed logo and a website can help them make a brand identity. But this isn’t true! When designing an identity, you need to develop a comprehensive visual language that applies to everything from your business website to your product packaging. Your branding needs may be expansive and vary based on your brand, but a basic brand identity consists of:

• Logo
• Colors
• Data visualization
• Design System
• Iconography
• Illustration
• Interactive elements
• Photography
• Typography
• Video and motion
• Web design

Remember one thing that your brand identity should translate across channels, so make sure you include everything you think it must have.

How to Build a Brand Identity?

 If your brand is new or you are planning to rebrand, but you are unsure where to start, below are some steps to follow. These steps can help you build a strong brand identity seamlessly.

Step 1: Complete Your Brand Strategy

Step 2: Dig Into Your Existing Brand Identity

Step 3: Know Your Identity

Step 4: Recognise Your Competition

Step 5: Pen Down Your Creative Brief

Step 6: Brainstorm Your Visuals

Step 7: Design Your Elements

Step 8: Build Your Brand Style Guide

Why Is Brand Identity Important?

There are several reasons why one should focus on creating a good brand identity. Some of these reasons are:

• Personality: A brand identity is the visual illustration of your brand’s principles and “personality.” You can set the tone of your brand with identity design which can be used to induce certain emotions into your audience. You should design your brand identity in such a way that it communicates your overall business message and promotes your business goals.
• Uniformity: When you build a brand identity, you will create a consistent message across all marketing resources. Each piece should have a similar basic style and design features, creating a unified branding suite.
• Differentiation: A brand identity lets you differentiate your business from the competition and properly position your brand. Developing a professional, creative identity design can help you outshine your potential customers in your marketplace.
• Cognizance: Creating a brand identity package guarantees that your brand is at the front position of all your marketing materials. This will help you increase your brand awareness. The more places your brand is featured, the higher the chances it will make contact with consumers. This will make it more memorable.
• Reliability: A compelling brand identity can help you build customer allegiance and faith in a brand since it lets customers connect to a product and the company.

What Should You Do To Build A Strong Brand Identity?

 Know who you are! Yes, it is most important that you must know who you are as a brand which is made up of a few important things such as:

• Your mission – what’s your and “why.”
• Your values – what opinions drive your company?
• Your brand identity – if you consider your brand as a person, then what kind of personality would they have?
• Your unique positioning – how are you different from your competition?
• Your brand voice- if your brand is a person, how would it communicate?

 These are a few elements that define your brand. Before you start building your brand identity, you must clearly understand each of the above-mentioned elements.

If you find it challenging to figure out who exactly you are, don’t sweat it. Brainstorm to help you get clarity on who you are as a brand. You need to ask a few questions to yourself:

• Why did you start this business?
• What beliefs and values are important to you as a company?
• What should you do to be better than anyone else?
• What makes you different?
• If you could describe your brand in three words, what would they be?
• What are the three words you would want your customers to use to describe your business?

Once you understand the significance of brand identity and get the answers to the above questions, you are ready to develop your business identity. You can also take professional help by hiring a brand design agency like Kaizen Brand.

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When we think of traditional printed marketing collateral, Brochures are the first thing that comes to mind. Brochures are an integral part of marketing for a company despite the growing popularity of various online marketing tools. With brochures, we can capture the attention of potential users. A brochure with captivated visual effects proves to be the most effective as it contains product-specific information. Your brochure or booklet focuses on the business and services. With the help of best brochure design, you can bag the undivided attention of your customers, unlike producing a product advertisement in magazines and newspapers. Moreover, a brochure is a cost-effective way for a small and emerging company having a tight budget. 

The objective of printing a brochure;

• The ultimate aim of effective marketing campaigns is to emphasize customer interactions. Likewise, brochures are another way of interacting with customers. Ensure that your printed brochure should have an interesting pitch, precise information, appropriate graphics, and a call to action.

• In addition, if we compare reading content from emails or websites to a printed brochure, it is far easier to read from a brochure. Brochures are versatile pieces of information utilized for promoting more or less all sorts of products and services and different venues like reception desks, academic events, and any other promotional event in that matter. 

By now, we have become familiar with the power of a brochure. But choosing the best brochure design and fold to get the perfect result is a real deal! Because there are different types of brochures available in 6 folds.

Let’s take a look at some compelling brochure folds-

• Gatefold Brochures – This type of brochure is durable as made up of premium quality paper. Gatefolds are for high-end marketing. However, its unique feature of inward folding makes it compact, and thus, it becomes easy for a person to carry around. It has an 8-panel structure with adequate space for describing your product and services. It also contains complementary images. 

The other specification of a Gatefold is –

1. It has graphics-heavy designs and menus with comprehensive visuals like landscape images and architectural layouts.

2. Its standard size is 8.5’’ * 11’’.

3. A Gatefold is also known as the Window fold. It usually works great for a single product presentation. The width of its central panels’ measures doubles from the side panels.

• Bi-Fold Brochures- The extended version of the Bi-Fold brochure is a booklet. A booklet contains multiple pages, and it looks more like a magazine. However, as the name suggests, the Bi-Fold brochure has 2 folds that form 4 panels. It consists of- two internal panels, a front panel and a back panel. You can describe your product and brand in the space given on the inner panel. It is the most conventional type of brochure as it contains more space for product description.

Its other specifications are – 

1. It is inclusive of a single sheet of paper. The single sheet of paper gets to fold twice and is also known as the Half Fold.

2. The standard brochure size is similar to the GateFold, that is, 8.5’’ * 11’’.

3. It suits best for manufacturing product sheets as they have rich content, specs, and photos. Also, it is convenient for simple product presentations, pricing, programs, city maps, and real estate offerings.

• Tri-Fold Brochures– These brochures are the next version of bi-fold brochures as it contains 6 panels. The Brochures with more panels contain more information. Because of this feature, Tri-fold brochures seem to be the muse of most large organizations. 

Some other specifications are-

1. Since it has 6 panels, a single sheet is divided into 3 folds, as the name is suggesting. The three sections of the brochure will be outside, inside, and both zipped.

2. Its popular sizes are 8.5’’ * 14’’, 11’’ * 17’’, and 11’’ * 25.5’’. 

3. It does not contain many visuals hence is used for a simple product presentation. 

• Flyers and leaflets- These brochures are different from other brochure formats. They are generally used to target a large audience. Flyers and leaflets are single-page brochures used for small-scale marketing. However, they are predominant as they reach many people. If you consider them a part of your promotional campaign, make a distinctive design to create the difference.

Other specifications are- 

1. Its standard size is A4. 

2. Either you hand it out to your target audience or insert it with print media( newspaper, magazine)

3. They are one of the most effective ways to promote your product. These leaflets contain product information and announcements only.

• Folders and Inserts- If you want your event, conference, or exhibition to gain attention, then folders and inserts are the best way to advertise your enterprise uniquely. These brochures have an appealing feature of folders within them. Further, the printed sheets that contain information about the topic go inside the folders and are called inserts. 

Other specification-

1. You can insert feedback and free coupons in the folder as well. They are considered ideal and credible for presenting business material. 

• Z Fold Brochure- This brochure, as the name suggests, folds like the letter ‘Z.’ It has a 3-panel zig-zag fold, exemplary to show lists, user manuals, and technical specifications. 

Other specifications-

1. Since it is a 3-panel fold, it folds using the document folding method that includes two parallel folds to create six panels(three panels on each side). These six panels have equal sizes. 

2. The way this brochure fold gives an aesthetic appeal, like the Accordion! Its 3 panels have ample space to write about your product.

Well! By now, you are aware of the types of brochure fold you will use for your next campaign. But what about the design? It is crucial to give attention to your brochure design as the perfect design will enhance the appearance of your brochure.

Here are some of the best brochure design tips- 

1. Do not try to infuse many colors. Although your brochure should look appealing, a simple color correction can make you achieve the target. Always use brand colors to design the brochure.
2. Try not to use an artistic font. Too artistic an approach for a font would spoil the readability. And eventually, that can lead to a blunder. Choose a classic style of font to give an appealing look. 
3. Put graphics, images, and illustrations in an equal proportion. Too much of any one thing will spoil the visuals. 
4. Always add the Call-to-Action! Do not ever forget that.

Although, if you need a little professional help, take help from Kaizen Brand Evolution! We have expertise and knowledge of the brochure designs and folds. 

Moving your business online is an obvious step for most people, but choosing the right type of website for your business is another question. 

Brochure Websites and EComm Websites couldn’t be more different. And so choosing the right one for your business is essential. 

In this blog post we will endeavour to outline what a brochure website is, what companies they work well for and finally, the advantages of using a brochure website.

What is a Brochure Website?

A brochure website is what you would call a static website in terms of content. This means that site content does not change much, if at all. This kind of website usually has a small number of pages and these pages are structured on one level, only rarely utilising a hierarchy of subpages.

A brochure website is useful when there is something you want to share with the world outside. This could be a small business, a start-up, yourself (think of a CV or portfolio), a future event, something you sell (e.g. a house or some second hand items from your attic), etc. Your first objective is to make something known as soon as possible, first to a circle of people you know, then to a broader target audience. With a brochure website you can’t go wrong; Populate it with clear information, compelling text and photographs and you have a quick, successful receipt of how to promote your business or event.

The Benefits of a Brochure Website 

For some businesses, an eCommerce website just isn’t appropriate to your business model, as a professional web design company, we understand this. If you’re interested in a website that will promote your products/services but you don’t want to integrate an eCommerce platform into your website, here are a few reasons why you should opt for a brochure website.

• Almost Everyone Is Online – A simple reason, but still nevertheless true. We live in a generation where almost every business has a website. If your business doesn’t have a website or if your website is poorly optimised or is sparse in content, you’re missing out on a range of opportunities.. 
  
  
• Advertising Opportunities – It’s similar to a billboard advertisement, only it’s sitting in the most high traffic area in the world, search engine results pages. By claiming your online space, you’re gaining a lot of publicity.
  
  
• Open 24 Hours A Day, 7 Days A Week – Unlike other forms of getting information. The internet is always open. This is fantastic if you’re looking to expand your audience. The internet is always open and can be everywhere at once, enabling you to reach a much larger audience. 
  
• Ideal For Service Focused Businesses – Often many businesses provide services, some of these can’t be easily sold through a simple online transaction. Often the service you provide is different for every customer and one size fits all approach just isn’t appropriate for the type of services you provide.  This is where brochure website design really shines.
  
• Easier To Update – A brochure website is very easy to maintain, unlike a static website. The content is easily updated. Which means you can very easily (with the assistance of a skilled copywriter) optimise your website for search engine results. 
  
  We live in an age of information. Brochure websites, being very simple to update are a great way to share information with your customers. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing love it when websites frequently share relevant information. They want to provide a good user experience for both businesses and consumers. The nature of a brochure website makes it a great candidate for various digital marketing techniques. 
  
• Far More Effective Than Social Media Alone – Whilst social media is a fantastic way to boost your online presence, you might not see that directly translate into sales. Social media is all about interacting with your audience and brochure websites are about informing your potential customers and converting them into customers/clients. 
  
  This means that a brochure website and social media can combine into the ultimate engage and inform combo. Social captures their attention, whilst the brochure website gives them all the information they need. Ideally, the potential customer then thinks “wow! What a great business” and calls you for a quote or purchases your product from a retailer. 

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Creating a brand identity adds value to your business. It contributes to building powerful recognition, credibility and boosting sales and revenue generation as well. 

However, creating a powerful brand identity is not a cakewalk, and it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes several months and sometimes years. 

Some people think that branding is all about creating a powerful logo and other branding elements combining text, colors, and some attractive graphic elements together. It is not true! Branding is much more than just about creating some attractive visual elements. It is a long strategic process that consists of:

• Comprehensive market research
• Competition analysis
• Strategy-making
• Business analysis
• Setting up business goals and objectives
• Designing branding elements using graphic designs 
• Combining branding elements together to create a presentable brand identity
• Launching and promoting brand 
• Maintaining brand value 

It requires a lot of effort and a relevant set of skills to proceed through the brand-making process and successfully complete it. Typically, this strategic process is done by professional brand designers or brand designing agencies. For better results, it is a great option to hire their services instead of trying to design your brand by yourself without having a relevant set of skills and experience. 

Here we have comprehensively defined the step-by-step process for creating your brand identity or evolving your business as a brand. Check out the guide below!

Comprehensive Market Research and Competition Analysis

Conducting comprehensive market research and competition analysis gives a broad idea about the market trends, demands, and scope. This further helps in making powerful result-driven strategies for designing a brand. 

Before making any decision on brand designing, dive deep into the market data by conducting comprehensive market research. The market data will help you find out the answers to many relevant questions, like:

• Who are your top competitors?
• Who are your target audiences?
• What customers love the most about the product or service you offer to them?
• Which type of product has broad potential in the market? 
• Which is the best-selling product?
• Which time period is ideal for boosting sales?

There are many ways you can find the answers to these questions. Some of the most effective ways are:

• Taking professional assistance from a reliable brand designing agency
• Browsing on the web 
• Conducting offline and online surveys 
• Interacting one-on-one with potential customers or interviewing them
• Collecting data from social media platforms
• Buying customers’ data from data selling websites or companies

A couple of things that you must take out from your research are: 

Lowest-Hanging Fruits- The lowest-hanging fruits refer to those potential customers to whom you can sell your products and services easily. 

Your Real Competitors- There will be many companies that deal with the same products and services you deal with. It is not necessary that all of them are your competitors. Your real competitors are those brands and businesses that are well-established and well-known in the market. 

Interest- The interest of your potential audience: which type of product and quality they like to invest in the most. 

Developing Brand Building Strategies 

Before designing branding elements, such as a logo, business theme, and punchline, it is essential to develop effective branding strategies. With branding strategies, you can smoothly and hassle-freely proceed through the entire brand-making process and develop a really powerful brand identity for your business. 

The data, stats, and information collected from the market research will help you develop powerful branding strategies. 

For making effective branding strategies, you need a team of highly skilled and experienced strategists, market analysts, and graphic designers. 

While making branding strategies, you need to keep a couple of things in mind, such as:

• Your branding strategy will guide your entire brand-making process. You should develop it considering all the factors in mind. If anything goes wrong with your strategy-making, it will affect the entire brand-making process. And maybe you do not get the desired results eventually. 

• You should design your branding strategy sequentially so that it helps in smooth proceeding through every step of the entire brand-designing process. 

Designing Branding Elements 

A brand or brand identity is made up of various tangible and intangible elements, including:

Visual Design Elements- A business logo, name, corporate design & color, background pattern, text, tagline, labels, packaging, etc.

Features- Sensibility of design, relevancy, balance, personality, quality, and the message. 

These branding elements play the most important role in evolving a business as a reputed brand. They must be designed carefully. 

While designing visual design elements, you have to ensure that those elements should clearly convey your message to your potential audiences. They must be compelling and engaging enough to leave a huge impact on your potential audiences and influence their decision-making. 

Your business logo, corporate design, and tagline should complement each other and be relevant to your business. They should have relevancy, design sensibility, and define your business personality. 

For designing compelling and engaging branding elements, it would be a good idea to hire a branding UK agency as they are specialized in this. And the best part is that you get an assurance of getting the desired results. 

Reviewing and Launching the Brand

Once you have done with designing all the branding elements, it is essential to review them before launching. Reviewing your branding elements helps to find the areas that need significant improvements. It also helps ensure that all the elements are designed as per the branding strategy. 

After reviewing and finalizing your brand identity, schedule a brand launch. You can launch your brand using mediums like advertisements, press releases, press briefing, etc. 

Promoting the Brand 

Designing branding elements is not enough to make your brand popular among people; you have to promote it. Running advertising campaigns, using print marketing tools and digital media are some of the best ways to promote your brand identity. You should make full use of them. 

The promotion of your brand increases the recognition and credibility of your business among people. It also helps in maintaining your brand value.

 

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Are you looking to increase awareness about a new or existing product or service? Well, billboard advertising is the best way to do it right. Just like other marketing methods, there are some costs associated with billboard advertising. Here’s what you need to know about the pros of billboard advertising before venturing into it.

Pros Of Billboard Advertising

Accessible Location 

If the billboard is placed in a location where people can see it effortlessly, you can rest assured that bikers, drivers and anyone walking in the area will see it. You should also include your contact information to make sure that potential customers can reach you whenever they want to do it.

Creating Visual References 

Most people have a strong memory for images compared to large texts. Therefore, billboards are the best way to communicate to potential customers because they will increase brand awareness for your product with a particular image. If the images are attractive and enticing, you can rest assured that the potential customers will pay attention to what your company has to say.

Increase In Sales 

Billboards are unique advertising tools because they can create impulse purchase. A potential customer might be driving and notice your billboard then decide to make the purchase immediately. If they can get the product immediately, you can improve the value proposition of your business as well as the products thus leaving the customer completely satisfied.

Enticing New Customers

Numerous billboards have provided the directions to the store in question. Upon reading the billboard the customer can decide immediately whether or not to proceed to the store to make a purchase. They might decide to proceed to your store immediately or visit it later but whichever the case, providing information about your store on the billboard is a good way to entice more customers.

Targeting Those With A Buying Power 

Anyone viewing your billboard and finding a little interest in it wants to purchase your products. Therefore, you are targeting people with a buying power, especially people who can visit your store and actually purchase products. With a billboard, you can make a blanket advertisement that covers anyone in the target audience and actual customers will proceed to make the purchase.

While all of these benefits may seem pretty easily achieved, without the correct Billboard Design, you run the risk of wasting your opportunity. At Kaizen Brand Evolution, we have a team of designers who are experienced in designing billboards that grab attention and get your message out infront of your customers. 

To speak to our team about your billboard design, you can email us here or visit our website and fill our the contact form.

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Rebranding offers the opportunity to clarify your image and new business goals, which in turn could lead to a more productive discussion of your key benefits and solutions.

A company rebrand is something which must be considered very seriously before the decision is made. If the change is well thought out, well-researched, and carried out properly it can yield positive results that can make a substantial impact on your company now and with future growth.

There are several reasons why a business might choose to start rebranding itself. It may need to connect with its customers on a more significant level. Some companies may need to change different components of their brand message because of current events or preferences. It is a process which can be proactive or reactive depending on what the goals of the organisation happen to be for this effort.

If you are thinking about a rebranding for your business, then here are the pros consider today.

1. Staying current

Keeping your business relevant and current is one of the most common reasons for a company to decide on a rebrand. The perceptions and opinions of brands and industries are constantly evolving, meaning that what was once considered successful and effective, may start to feel dated and out of touch with modern advances.

A successful rebrand can be just the thing a company needs to bring their products and services into the modern world and to the attention of the modern consumer.

2. Differentiating yourself from competitors

Successful businesses will find that after a while other competitors may start to become so much like you and your USP that customers forget what makes your company unique. Similarly, conditions in your industry could mean that it has become so saturated with competition that it’s difficult to distinguish yourself from the next company. 

Consumer perception is paramount and a rebrand can benefit your company by bringing its strengths and successes to light ahead of your competitors.

3. Connect with audiences old and new 

It’s imperative that your company stays ahead of the curve to ensure that your brand values, attitudes and preferences are fully in line with your existing demographic. Much like technology, culture and society also evolve, so it’s likely also that your position within the market may no longer hold appeal to your original audience. A rebrand in this instance could position your business more in line with your demographic and their new expectations whilst also opening your business to appeal to a completely different set of demographics.

4. Shift the company focus 

The best companies are innovative enough to be able to adapt to changing times. As well as staying current, you will need to be able to see a new opportunity for growth and to forecast where this will take you. 

5. It can help you to achieve new goals.

Rebranding gives you an opportunity to shift the focus of your organisational efforts if there is a new goal that you wish to achieve. When your company has the privilege of serving customers for a long time, there is a need sometimes to improve your existing product lines or develop new ones. 

6. It can increase engagement levels with your customers.

If you add a product or service to your existing line of options, or make a change to your brand, then there is an opportunity to create a significant splash of interest in what you offer. The process of rebranding offers a chance to engage with people on multiple platforms about your new value proposition. It is a way to encourage social media communities to share and discuss this important moon for your company. You will also have new ways to show people how your changes will benefit them in the future. You get to explain why the alterations to your brand were necessary, and why you as a business decided to implement them.

Client Testimonial

“When our business first started, we created our own logo and brand, however as a company we had huge plans for growth and development and realised that we wanted to take our business to the next level, and to do so, we needed a new brand that was professional looking.After a few initial discussions with Kaizen about our business and how we wanted to be seen, Ryan and the wider design team at Kaizen presented our new brand to us. We went into this meeting knowing we would be pleased with the outcome, but we were blown away by what we actually got. Our new brand now represents our company well and is more desirable to our clients and customers. Having our brand on point will be very beneficial to us in the longer run as we aim to grow and build on what we have already achieved as a company.

– Chris at Energise Sales

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In today’s business world more and more marketers have taken it upon themselves to draw up and design their own assets and campaigns. This trend has increased in recent times for a number of reasons. Some of the motivations behind this include; 

• Business owners demanding more for less
• Marketers taking initiative and learning new skills
• Free design platforms increasing accessibility
• Free design platforms improving in capability
• Business filling resource gaps (either temporarily or otherwise)

There are a number of reasons why many marketers choose to opt for designing their own assets. Many of them out of necessity and many simply because, why not? After all, designing your own assets is an admirable initiative to take. This being said there are a number of reasons why you might want to invest in seeking professional help. A graphic designer can help in a number of ways;

The finer details

Ability in regards to design varies among amateurs. Many amateur designers can complete work that ranges from passable to actually rather good. Without years of training and experience of completing design work day in and day out however, there will almost always be a discrepancy in quality. And it is in the attention to the finer detail that this can make a big difference. A good graphic designer understands their trade and can manipulate design tools to create designs that go that extra mile towards achieving superior end results. 

Consistency

Being consistent in your design is one of the primary sticking points for amateurs. Professional design pays attention to your brand guidelines and always abides by them. Without the technical training, many amateur designers can attempt to follow brand guidelines but will invariably fall short. Brand guidelines can be very particular and exacting in the expectations they set. If your design is just a few pixels out you can fall short in producing something that drives engagement or increases enquiries and sales. 

Professional insight

Many of us consider ourselves to have a creative eye. The difference when it comes to hiring professionals is in the experience of creating high-impact design day in and day out. Professional graphic designers have cut their teeth by working with brands every day to solve design problems. Professional graphic designers understand what works and what doesn’t. Design is about more than just creating something that looks nice, it’s about getting results. Work is granted to designers on their capability to bring a return on investment. Designers understand this and they know how to create designs that really deliver. 

Scope

Another major difference between amateurs and professionals is in their ability to cope with all manner of design tasks. Amateurs may be able to create high-quality designs for web pages, social media posts or email campaigns, but this may not stretch to whole websites. While an amateur may be able to fill in the gaps for design here and there when it comes to the bigger stuff, it can soon become overwhelming. For projects where you may need to invest more time and money, having a professional on-hand can provide reassurance. By opting for a professional graphic designer you can minimise risk and maximise reward. 

At Kaizen Brand Evolution we have worked with numerous brands to help them create stunning designs that work. Our professional design team work with you to understand your challenges and find design solutions for your problems. Whether for big or small brands, we know how to maximise ROI and help you get more bang for your buck. To find out more about how you can benefit from help from our team of graphic designers get in touch via our contact form or by calling 028 9507 2007. 

A blog is a common feature of many modern websites. Whether writing about industry news, sharing best practices or updating customers on what’s been happening in the company, blogs can be used for publishing a wide range of content.

Blogs need to be updated regularly with value-adding content. This can be quite a task, especially if you don’t have an abundance of time on your hands to get it done. Therefore, many small businesses are often left wondering whether it is worth having a blog at all.

What is a Business Blog?

A business blog is a part of a brand’s website where content is published that helps educate the company’s target audience about their products or services. A blog is a marketing channel and is an essential part of a brand’s content marketing strategy in that it helps attract potential customers via search engine listings.

How to Get the Best Results From Your Blog

Consistency is Key

Consistently producing blog content helps build your thought leadership, subscriber list, and your inventory of content to promote on social media. Your readers come to trust the information you share when they see that you are continually adding value to your community of followers.

Blogging consistently is also crucial in building your domain authority. Following a good link building strategy, you will link your blog pages to your company solutions pages of your website. Other blogs will begin to link to your content, as well, if it’s authoritative and helpful. Over time, this web of links will build and Google will determine that your site is relevant and useful to searchers.

Use Keyword Research to Determine Topics

Keyword research will help you determine the topics that are relevant to your target audience, the questions they are searching in Google and other search engines, and the topics your competitors are writing about. Use keyword research to select topics that your customers want to read about, as well as topics that your competitors are not covering. Those content gaps are an opportunity for you to provide valuable content that answers common questions.

Use Images

Add professional, engaging images and infographics to your blog posts. And, blog articles with infographics get 12% more views. Images will also help your blog posts stand out when you and your followers share them on social.

It is not necessary to have a graphic designer or photo researcher in order to create an attractive and fitting visual. You can also use free stock images for this purpose. What’s important when selecting an image for the blog post is to make sure that it fits the content of the article and is not cut out on smaller screens.   

Remember to add alt text to your images when you upload them, Google image search is on the rise and alt text will help your images surface in searches.

Amplify Your Content

Content creation is not a one and done event. You want to use your blog content to expand your reach and build your brand visibility. Get extra mileage out of your blog content using these tactics:

• Share your articles on your social channels
• Repurpose your blog articles into videos
• Reach out to the sources you included in your articles and ask them to share on social
• Create pdfs with highlights of data from your article and post them as pdf carousels on LinkedIn
• Combine several blog articles on a similar topic into an eBook, available for download
• Add structured data to your blog articles to help search engines understand your content

The Advantages of Writing a Blog

Blogging is a great way to create regular fresh content. Perfect for boosting your SEO. But a blog has more benefits than just increasing your Google ranking.

1. Increase organic traffic to your website

As we’ve just mentioned, by posting regular content you will be easier to find on Google. Therefore, creating opportunities to attract new customers. 

The more fresh content you upload to your website, the more brownie points you will score with Google’s little Internet-crawling spiders. Happy spiders mean more visibility for your site.

Equally, the fact that there is physically more content to find means you are more likely to be found. Especially when it comes to long-tail search queries – those where the query is more specific.

2. Strengthens your authority in your industry

Writing thoughtful articles on appropriate topics helps to highlight yourself as an expert in your field. It will encourage people to see your company as trustworthy. In time, you could become the go-to resource for whatever it is you specialise in.

3. Humanises your brand

The personality of your brand is really important. It is what makes you different from your competitors. Having a brand personality that matches yours will make sure that you attract your ideal customers.

Having a blog is perfect for getting your brand personality across. It allows you to talk about topics and issues important to your business in a way that your customers will understand. Whether that is in full technical detail, or simplifying a subject down for a wider audience.

4. Perfect content for sharing

It goes without saying that social media forms an important part of the marketing strategy for most modern businesses. It can be hard to regularly come up with engaging content. This is where your blog comes in. Share it on your social media channels and reach an even wider audience.

In doing so, you will increase your brand awareness too. Which can only be a good thing!

By writing engaging articles you may spark conversations with your followers. This helps to build solid relationships and loyal customers.

So, is it worth having a blog on your company website?

The simple answer? Yes, absolutely. The benefits you can reap from writing, and maintaining, a company blog are huge.

Just remember, it is not worth having a blog if you’re not going to maintain it.

An annual report is a detailed report of a company’s activities performed throughout the preceding year. It typically involves:

• The summary of the company’s financial data
• Financial statements
• General corporate information
• Auditors’ report 
• Accounting policies
• Some highlights of the financial transactions
• A letter from the company’s CEO to shareholders and other interested persons
• Portfolios of the company’s partners and members, etc. 

An annual report is mainly designed for giving information related to the company’s financial performance to the investors so that they show interest by investing in your company. Therefore, an annual report design must be impactful. 

In this blog, we have been discussing some of the best tips to make your annual report presentation impactful. Let’s check them out!

Best Tips to Make Your Annual Report Presentation Impactful 

Use High-Resolution Compelling Photographs

Photos are visuals, and visuals are one of the most effective mediums of communication. With high-resolution photographs, you can clearly and effectively convey what you want to convey to investors through your annual report. Visual representation is a great way to make your annual report attractive and engaging enough to grab the investors’ attention. So, it would be highly recommended to use compelling high-resolution photographs in your annual report. They will make your annual report presentation impactful. 

Graphics

Graphics are also visuals. You can use graphics to make your annual report look attractive, exciting, and engaging for the investors. Typically, a well-designed annual report includes charts, graphs, infographics, and illustrations. You should also utilize all these graphic design elements effectively in your annual report to make it impactful. 

Add a Short Note by CEO 

Typically, an annual report includes a short note to the investors from the CEO of the company. This note motivates and influences the Investors to invest in the company. So, don’t forget to add an influential short note of your company’s CEO in your annual report. Additionally, it would be best to frame your CEO’s short note using some graphic designs and dedicate an entire page to it.  

Highlights the Benefits For Investing in Your Company 

Investors invest in a company to gain huge profits. Apart from this, nothing matters to them. So, when you pitch your annual report to them, they look for the benefits you provide to them. They analyze the entire data and stats, then decide whether to invest in your company or not. 

So, it would be suggested that you should highlight all the benefits you are providing to the investors in a single slide. It will help you grab the investors’ attention and influence their decision-making. 

Add Less Text and More Visuals 

Investors are not interested in reading lengthy paragraphs and sentences because they are typically too boring. They just make an annual report presentation lengthy and less interesting. 

So, make sure to avoid adding too much textual content in your annual report. If you have too much content to share with the investors, it would be good to create a separate annual report presentation and send it to the investors via email. 

Your primary annual report should contain less textual content and more visual content; it is ideal for designing a primary annual report. 

Pitch Your Annual Report Presentation Effectively 

The decision-making of your investors highly depends on the way you pitch your annual report presentation to them. If you have designed an impressive annual report but fail to pitch it effectively in a room full of investors, all your efforts will go in vain. So, after preparing your annual report, practice pitching your presentation several times till the time you find yourself confident and ready. Some best ways to effectively pitch your annual report presentation are: 

Greet Warmly- Before starting to pitch your annual report presentation, greet warmly, welcome all the investors, and thank them for coming and joining you. Additionally, it would be exciting to have some laughter to make the ambiance energetic and active.

Run a Motion Graphic Video to Introduce Your Company- Typically, an annual report contains a slide introducing the company. But if you want to pitch your annual report effectively to the investors and promote your brand design, it would be a great idea to create a compelling motion graphic video and run it before getting started to pitch your annual report presentation. It will surely make your annual report presentation impactful. 

Make It Interactive- While pitching your annual report presentation, don’t frequently look at your presentation; it may make your entire presentation boring and ineffective. Maintain your eye contact with the investors and keep it interactive; it would help make pitching impactful. 

Give Satisfying Answers to the Investors’ Queries- During the annual report presentation, the investors may ask you hundreds of questions. You need to give satisfying answers to their queries on the spot. It will definitely make your annual report presentation impressive enough to influence the investors’ decision-making.  

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A well-written logo design brief is what puts designers on the right track towards designing the perfect logo for your business. Before you start your brief, it’s important to understand the key components of a creative brief, as well as some useful design language to help you describe what you want. By the end of this guide you will be capable of writing logo briefs that empower designers to create the perfect mark for your company.

What is a logo design brief?

A logo design brief is a document that provides a designer all of the information needed to create a logo for you. It commonly outlines fundamental information about the business, the desired design style, the project timing and the budget. Any miscommunication on these points could lead to a disconnect between you and the designer (and a logo that’s off-mark), so let’s make sure you are prepared to write each step!

1. Provide information about your business

While it’s easy (and fun) to jump into the visual aspects of a logo design brief, it’s always better to start with the why. In this case, background information on you and your business. After all, graphic designers are more than just computer operators: they understand people, products, industries and how to choose compatible aesthetics for these aspects.

Describe your product, target audience and industry

Good designers know which design techniques work well for different types of products, audiences and industries, so this is a good place to go into detail. Think about sharing your product materials, manufacturing process, customer lifestyles or other industry competitors you have.

Describe your brand values

Different brand values also translate to different design styles. When explaining your brand values it might help to think of different value spectrums, such as modern vs vintage, fun vs sophisticated or young vs mature. Designers can render these values visually with design elements. Notice the stark difference between a fun logo and a sophisticated logo:

Provide your company name

While this one seems obvious, it’s often overlooked. Make sure you specify exactly how it should be presented: what case do you want the letters in? Are there spaces between words? Does it matter if everything appears on one line or multiple lines?

Provide your company slogan (if needed)

In some cases, slogans are embedded into a design and can’t be removed from a logo. Think long and hard about whether you want one in your logo. Or, if you want something more flexible, you can make sure to let your designer know you need it to be removable.

2. Communicate your desired logo style

Express what logo type you need

Wordmark? Emblem? Abstract mark? Specifying your desired logo format will save you and your designer(s) a lot of time during the design process. If you’re not totally sure on the format, feel free to suggest a couple formats that you think might work. Your designer(s) might be able to show you a couple different options.

Design style

In addition to logo type, you can mention style as well. Some examples of logo design styles are vintage, flat or minimal.

Colors

Good designers will know exactly which colors are right for your company. With that said, color suggestions are welcome in a brief. Your suggestions can be as general as “blue and black”, or for a more specific suggestion you can include images containing examples of specific color values your are seeking.

Inspiration (e.g. mood board)

A mood board can be a place for many things. Here you can include photos featuring nuanced color palettes, photos of logo applications you have in mind (beer coasters, wooden signs), photos featuring elements of other logos you like, or even a pre-existing logo your business might have that you want to evolve.

3. Clarify timing and budget

Timing

The design process is just that: a process. While creating a great logo design can happen unexpectedly in a few hours, it often requires a period of experimentation and exploration on the part of the designer. For this reason, allowing more time to designers will increase your chances of receiving amazing designs.

While our designers are more than willing to work rush jobs, do your best to plan ahead and start the design process well before your business launch. Give your designer(s) a time frame that allows for revisions. It’s best to budget 2-4 weeks (or be willing to pay more for a rush!)

Budget

It can be awkward to talk about money, but it’s necessary if you have a budget and need to stick to it! If they work hourly, like we do at Kaizen Brand Evolution, ask them approximately how long they think your project will take.

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What is a business rebrand?

When a business rebrands itself, it changes the way it presents itself to the public through every channel (not just the website). A rebrand can impact the design of the brand (logo, color palette, typography, photography, icons, etc.), as well as the messaging of the brand (company name, value proposition, slogan, content, voice and tone, etc.) to more competitively position itself in the marketplace.

Like website redesigns, company rebrands are initiated and shaped by business goals and market realities.

Does your business need a rebrand?

Deciding when to rebrand isn’t as difficult as you might think. It’s relatively easy because rebranding is about change. When your business has changed to a certain extent, it’s time to make that change. But how do you decide whether your business has changed enough to warrant a rebrand?

If you suspect that it’s actually a rebranding that your business needs, then ask yourself these questions:

• Have the products or services we offer significantly changed since our last rebranding or inception?
• Has our target audience evolved (demographics, perceptions, goals, budget, etc.)?
• Is our brand out of step with current design trends and market expectations?
• Is our messaging and/or design aesthetic inconsistent across channels (e.g., website, sales materials, business cards and email signature)?
• Does our business lack a strong point of view?
• Are our key audiences unable to understand what we do?
• Are our key audiences unable to understand what we stand for?
• Are our employees unable to consistently and succinctly say what it is that we do and the value we offer?
• Are our internal marketing and sales teams asking for brand assets and guidelines to communicate with external audiences?
• Is it difficult to distinguish our business from our competitors?
• Is our brand more of a liability than an asset?

More than three yes’s indicate that you should probably consider a rebranding for your business.

What to do next?

If you have identified that your business needs to rebrand, your next step will be to find a branding agency who can help you to do this. But it can be hard to find one that suits your business and what you want from your rebrand.

Ask them questions about their processes, experience in your industry, and how they measure success. This will get you started on the path to finding the right partner that can help you execute the right project.

The investment of resources will be worth it, as it will allow you to best position your business for success in the years to come.

Looking for some inspiration?

Check out some of our favorite website redesigns and rebranding projects in our gallery of client work. If you’re interested in how Kaizen Brand Evolution can help you reach your business goals with a rebrand then you can get in touch with us here.

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A pitch deck is a presentation or proposal that startups and entrepreneurs prepare for raising funds from investors. In general, they prepare a pitch deck using either Microsoft PowerPoint or Keynote. 

On average, a standard business pitch deck consists of a minimum of 10 slides and not more than 19 slides. However, the number of slides can vary depending on the startups’ requirements. 

As described in an article published in Forbes, startups need at least two different versions of a business pitch deck, including a text-heavy pitch deck and a visual-based pitch deck. 

Text-Heavy Pitch Deck

As the name suggests, a text-heavy pitch deck focuses on providing textual information rather than visuals. It contains detailed information, and so it cannot be presented in a room full of investors. If entrepreneurs try to pitch this version of the pitch deck to the investors, it could be boring and ineffective. Therefore, they send a text-heavy pitch deck via email to the investors. 

Through a textual pitch deck, investors can get detailed information about a business, its objectives, future plans, etc. 

Visual-Based Pitch Deck

Visual-Based pitch deck is absolutely opposite to a text-heavy pitch deck. It contains a visual representation of important information and data. It is prepared by the entrepreneurs using infographics, pictures, bullet points, and other graphic design elements.  

The entrepreneurs prepare this version of the pitch deck to pitch to investors their business proposal face-to-face. This pitch deck’s version is much more important than a text-heavy pitch deck. 

Three Key Points to Design a Compelling Business Pitch Deck 

A pitch deck must grab the investors’ attention, and for that, it must be: 

Clear and Simple

While creating your business presentation deck design, keep the delivery of the message clear and simple so that investors can easily understand it. If you add hard-to-understand words and sentences in your pitch deck, it won’t work for you. Use the most commonly used simple yet powerful words; it will definitely work for you. 

Compelling

A business pitch deck must be compelling enough to grab investors’ attention and engage them with the proposal you want to offer. To make your business pitch deck compelling, you must add attractive visuals, present the data in an organized and attractive way, and highlight the major points. Apart from this, using infographics, pictures of your business environment, and other graphic elements can be a great addition to your business pitch deck. 

East to Act-On

Your business pitch deck must be impressive enough to influence the decision-making of the investors. It would be useful to highlight what benefits you are going to provide the investors and how your business will successfully dominate the market in the upcoming years. 

The Slides Your Pitch Deck Must Have 

Problem

A slide covering the problem must be at the beginning of your business pitch deck after the introductory slides. This slide usually contains an actual problem (a painful problem) that you will be going to focus on. The problem must relate to real-life issues and easy to understand.  

In this slide, you need to comprehensively describe the problem, its consequences, major effects, and negative possibilities. You also need to describe that no one is taking this issue seriously except yours. It would be impressive for grabbing investors’ attention as a commoner. 

The Solution

The solution slide must be right next to the problem slide to create a sequence. It must be concise and clear. In this slide, you need to effectively describe what you aim to solve. This is the problem that you mentioned in the problem slide. You can also describe your plans and strategies to cope with the problem in this slide. It would be impressive for investors. 

The Market Scope

In this slide, you need to describe your startup’s market scope comprehensively. It is one of the most crucial slides of your pitch deck as it influences the decision-making of investors. Therefore, You can describe it well with an attractive visual representation of market stats and data. 

Competition

In the competition slide, you need to comprehensively explain your planning and strategies to face the competition and come out as a winner. This slide also plays a crucial role in influencing the decision-making of investors. 

Product or/and Service

The product slide contains your product pictures, information, and services. It must involve the benefits and usage of products. 

Growth Rate

If you represent your startup through your pitch deck, you need to explain your business’s expected growth rate using other related companies and the market’s stats. On the other hand, if you represent your established business, you need to show your company’s month-over-month growth rate. 

The Team

In the team slide, you need to introduce your whole team, including board members, the CEO, and other prominent members of your company. Add a complete portfolio of each team member and explain their roles in your company. It would be helpful for investors to know the faces behind your company. 

Finance

Finance must be a conclusion slide in your pitch deck. In this slide, you need to explain to investors how much fund you want to raise and how the fundraising process will go on. Make sure you keep all the information in this slide clear and concise so that investors can easily understand what you actually want from them. 

These eight slides are a must for your business proposal. However, you can add more slides in your presentation, depending on your business requirements and preferences. 

Whilst some marketers may be consumed by digital platforms and channels in the modern age, there remains a significant demand for Out-of-home (OOH) advertising amongst UK business-owners. 

Billboards arguably represent the most versatile and cost-effective OOH marketing channel in the current climate, whilst these types of ad can help entrepreneurs to achieve a significant ROI. The key lies in your execution, however, and in this post, we’ll look at the dos and don’ts when designing one or a number of billboards! 

Do Develop Concise Text 

It’s fair to say that not all billboards have been created equal, from 16-sheet posters to 48 and 96-sheet adverts (which provide a larger-than-life marketing presence at the side of major roads).  So, although this allows marketers an opportunity to target customers at a time when they’re most likely to engage with brands (such as during the daily commute or a day’s shopping), there’s a relatively limited window in which to promote products or present clear messaging. 

In fact, six seconds is noted as the industry average for reading a billboard, so it’s important to design adverts that are both compelling and easy to comprehend.  

Concise written messaging is central to this, and as a general rule, your billboard should contain no more than seven or eight words.  

There’s some flexibility here depending on the precise presentation of the billboard and the size of the font that you use, but keeping the total number of words to a minimum will help you to achieve the optimal impact. 

Do Create Consistent Branding 

Whilst billboards represent an effective advertising channel, they tend to work best when used as part of an overarching and integrated marketing campaign.  

In fact, there’s ample evidence to suggest that billboards are effective drivers of assisted conversions, which refer to the various interactions that an individual has with a brand before they’re converted into a paying customer. 

In this respect, billboards work by building brand awareness and recognition amongst your target audience, compelling customers to engage further with your messaging through mobile and online channels. 

In order for billboards to realise their full potential, however, you need to ensure that they’re branded in a consistent and familiar manner.  

This means deploying the same logo, colour palette and overall brand identity that define your existing online channels, whilst leveraging similar fonts and campaign messaging. 

Your billboard’s design and messaging should also clearly reflect the brand’s core values where applicable, as this can help to drive recognition over time and potentially create a foundation of loyal customers. 

Just remember, consistent branding and messaging tend to rely heavily on your attention to detail, as even the smallest discrepancies can undermine your campaign and negate the effectiveness of individual billboard ads. 

Do Use More than One Billboard 

On a similar note, it usually makes sense to design more than one billboard and target several different areas when investing in OOH advertising. 

So long as each location has been researched and identified as having strategic importance, this can help to optimise your exposure and generate a far higher number of leads. 

Of course, there are challenges to designing multiple billboards as part of a single campaign, including cost and the need to vary your messaging when targeting alternative audiences. 

In terms of the former, you should prioritise traditional billboards over digital alternatives. Whilst there’s nothing wrong with digital billboards, these entities are far more expensive, whilst they also require advertisers to share space with up to five competitors during each 60-second period. 

Conversely, traditionally billboards feature a single exclusive ad during the course of your booking, whilst they also cost considerably less on average. 

Don’t Become a Huge Distraction to your Customers 

If you follow our first few tips, you should be able to design a series of engaging and cost-effective billboards that work as part of an integrated campaign. 

However, there are still several pitfalls to avoid when creating your billboards, especially if you don’t run the risk of upsetting potential customers or causing a major disruption with roadside ads! 

The latter point is particularly important, with billboards commonly used to target cyclists, drivers, bikers and pedestrians as they go about their daily business. Now, whilst you may want to create an eye-catching and engaging advert that captures the attention of your target audience, you must avoid using content or imagery that’s overly shocking or disruptive. 

This can be a challenging balance to strike, especially as the notion of being disruptive and distracting is central to any successful advertising campaign. Not only this, but there’s often a need to use vivid colours that help your billboard stand out, as this type of advert is non-intrusive and tends to blend seamlessly into its natural environment.  

Once again, one of the best ways to achieve this balance is to use a traditional billboard, as this prevents you from featuring sudden animation or distracting lighting as part of your advert. 

Instead, you can rely on intelligent messaging and relevant imagery to target customers, whilst using brand colours and contrasts to help the advert pop.

Don’t Be Too Clever! 

This may sound counterintuitive, but it’s possible to be a little too clever when trying to engage an audience within a relatively restricted window of opportunity. 

In the same way that a boring or unimaginative billboard may be ignored, an advert that tries to be too clever or overly ambitious in terms of its messaging is likely to be lost on the audience. 

The last thing that you want to do is leave people uncertain about the core message behind your billboard ad, particularly as the main purpose of advertising is to promote a commercial solution to a specific problem.  

If your customers aren’t even sure about the issue that your product or service is trying to solve, how can you expect your marketing spend to generate a viable return? 

To avoid this issue, you’ll need to ensure that your concise messaging is also clear, both in terms of how it relates to your brand and the core product or service that has been advertised. When combined with relevant imagery, this can also present a clear value proposition to customers, and one that encourages them to continue their journey with the brand. 

Above all else, you’ll need to keep in mind that complex visual metaphors simply don’t work when designing billboards. This means that you’ll need to retain a semblance of control over the design process, whether you’re working with an in-house team or an external marketing specialist. 

Don’t Make your Logo Too Big or Too Small 

We touched earlier about the ability of billboards to build brand awareness and drive recognition, so long as they maintain a consistent visual identity. 

The use of your brand’s logo is central to this, as established companies such as Nike, Coco-Cola and Apple have proven over time. All of these brands can be instantly recognised through their simple and iconic logos, so featuring this prominently as part of your billboard can deliver outstanding results over time. 

However, you need to ensure that your logo is ideally sized on any billboard canvas, whether you’re using a 16-sheet poster or a 96-sheet roadside ad. After all, it needs to be large enough for customers to recognise and associate with the billboard messaging, without compromising on the integrity of the ad or distracting from precisely what you’re trying to sell. 

Clearly, you need to scale the size of your logo to suit the dimensions of the billboard used, as those used on large-format ads will need to be seen clearly from a considerable distance. 

Take some time to consider the exact layout of your billboard too, as placing your ideally-sized logo in corner of the advert will provide you with ample space to feature the text and imagery that will shape your campaign! 

The Last Word 

As you can see, there are several dos and don’ts when designing a billboard, and in truth, these represent the tip of a large and omnipresent iceberg that can sink your marketing campaign! 

By following the tips featured here, however, you can hopefully avoid the most common pitfalls when creating a billboard ad, as you look to engage your target audience and achieve a viable return on your marketing spend! 

An annual report is a crucial part of a business marketing strategy. It plays a vital role in attracting and engaging investors and influencing their decision-making. 

It also helps a business stand apart from its competitors and expand its market to local and global markets. Therefore, it is crucial to design a stand-out annual report to help your business achieve its goals within a targeted time. 

When it comes to annual report design, we predominantly focus on designing a text-heavy annual report. It is a traditional approach to design an annual report. But these days, this method is no longer followed by most businesses and companies. They follow a new way of designing an annual report that involves elements of infographic-inspired designs, such as data visualizations, illustrations, and icons. This new method is predominantly focused on visual content as the visual content is a much better medium of effective and engaging communication than text-heavy content. 

In this blog, we have compiled the top six strategies to design an infographic-inspired annual report. You should follow all those. 

Let’s go deeper to explore. 

Feature the Stats Using Infographics

Stats are never featured in text form. They are featured either in bullet form or infographic form. So, make sure you do not present your company’s stats in text form in your company’s annual report because text-based stats can be difficult to understand for the audiences.   

First, to feature the stats in infographic form, collect all the stats, and organize them appropriately. After that, choose particular infographics that can present your company’s stats effectively and engagingly. You can select any of the following infographics. 

• Statistical infographics
• Timeline infographics
• Process infographics
• Geographic infographics
• Informational infographics
• Hierarchical infographics
• Infographic template etc. 

If you don’t know these infographics, you should consult with an expert and experienced annual report designer. He/she can help you with this. 

Illustrate the Data Like a Story 

The illustration of the data is as important as the presentation of the data. So, make sure you illustrate all your annual report’s data effectively. It would be best if you illustrate it like a story. 

First of all, design a unique cover page (like a movie poster) that awakes your audiences’ interest. Your annual report’s cover page must be full of infographic elements and photographs, including icons, characters, graphs, shapes, 3D shapes, etc. It will be best to leave a long-lasting impression on your audiences’ minds. 

Secondly, share some of the main highlights of your company’s annual report in the beginning. You can present these highlights in bullet points, arrows, or a template. It will also be helpful to attract your audiences.  

Apart from this, you should illustrate all your company’s annual report data sequentially. And every data, stat, and the transaction must connect to others. It will allow your audiences to understand what you want to make them understand readily. 

Use Photographs Effectively

Photographs are the true visual element. They are effective and attractive more than any other visual design element. They bring your goals to life as they add a human element to your annual report. 

It would be best to use high-resolution photographs in your annual reports. First of all, find out all the pages of your annual reports in which you can use various pictures. After that, consult with an annual report designer and select high-quality pictures you want to feature in your annual reports. Then place them perfectly to grab the attention of your audiences and engage them.

Using photographs effectively in your annual report, you can readily attract investors and stockholders and influence their decision-making. 

Make It Interactive 

If you want your audiences to read or see your annual report, you need to make it interactive using various interactive elements. Use subtle animations, characters, and graphs to make your annual report interactive. Apart from this, you can add relevant video presentations, image presentations, GIFs, etc., in your annual report’s digital form. It will help you keep your audience engaged during the whole presentation. 

Comparison Infographic

If you want to show your company’s performance is getting better than the last year, you should use comparison infographics. With these infographics, you can efficiently and effectively demonstrate how your company did better than the previous year. Apart from this, you can also show the growth expectation of your company through comparison infographics. This method of visual content can also influence the decision-making of investors and stockholders. 

Create a Short Motion Graphic

As part of the introduction, it would be impressive to create a short motion graphic to thank and welcome your audiences. You can also give a brief introduction of the company and annual report in a short motion graphic. It will be exciting. 

These are some of the best strategies you should follow while designing your company’s annual report. These methods will help you create a powerful and result-oriented annual report. 

Recently, we were engaged to review the Ashton Recruitment Brand Identity, Web Presence (https://www.ashtonrecruitment.com) and create a Billboard Campaign for them. Our aim was to create a new Brand Identity for Ashton Recruitment, one that would reflect where they were as a business today. 

With any project of this size, our first task was to understand Ashton Recruitment and what differentiates them from their competition and why. 

Through both interviews with their leadership team and research by our own studio team we were able to develop an understanding of their business and the market they operated in. We also identified what opportunities were available and what threats the business may need to navigate in the coming years.

Ashton Recruitment Brand Identity 

Through a brand audit, we developed a narrative for the new brand position of Ashton Recruitment. With careful consideration to the brand a new typography and colour palette was chosen to accurately reflect their business.

Use of the Brandmark

The brand mark uses lines and shape to draw into the wordmark to give it character and embody the brand message “talk to us”. With the use of the typeface and graphic accent, the two marry each other to make up a speech bubble.

Use of Photography

Engaged, happy, and authentic are the main components of the art direction for Ashton. The models should always look as if they are

fulfilled and happy in their job. The goal is to not look like models at all, instead, look like a snapshot of everyday life in a working environment. 

Use of the Website

The Ashton website should feature large imagery of working people that are seemingly very happy with their job. This joy brought through with the principal photography will set the tone and subliminally tell you how Ashton will get you a job that is fulfilling and one you will be happy with. The text should be used sparingly and be straight to the point, not cause confusion. The website

should flow through with ease, and the layout should be kept dynamic and engaging yet user friendly for the purpose of finding and posting a job.

Use of colour

Deep and Highlight purples are used throughout the brand as complementary brand colours. These colours reinforce the inviting, fresh, yet modern, and architectural feel of the logo and art direction.

Use of Typography

The typeface used for the wordmark and throughout the brand direction is modern yet architectural, which adds character and incredibly legible to read. The slabs in the typeface complement the speech bubble accent in the logo itself. The secondary font is from the same font family but without slabs and at a lighter weight for legibility and hierarchy. The typeface highlights Ashton as a modern, inviting, yet trustworthy recruitment company.

Label Design is a key marketing tool for any product at the point of sale. No matter whether you’ve been crafting a recognisable brand for years, or you’re a new company just setting up, the design of your packaging and any associated labels is a key way to generate new interest amongst consumers.

You’re bound to have experienced the power of product labels at some point – maybe you picked up a new bottle of wine because of its fancy label, or you finally tried a new food after it had a packaging refresh. Simple scenarios such as these demonstrate the importance of packaging and labelling for product perception, and show how important it is to ensure your label design and quality is the best it can be.

Why do some product labels seem to jump out at you while others are hardly noticeable? Some characteristics, combined with various psychological factors, can easily determine whether your label catches someone’s attention or gets lost in a sea of similar products. Studies have shown that the most successful of all product labels tend to share some very simple, common attributes. Stick with us as we explain what they are and how you can use them to your advantage.

In this blog post, we’re highlighting essential tips for your product label design, showing how you can promote your product with thoughtful and clever label designs.

1. The Use of Fonts in Label Design

Fonts are a crucial piece of the puzzle when creating a product label. They are the voice of your label, acting as the first line of communication during a customer’s perception process. It’s on them to relay your product’s most important information. Here are some things to keep in mind as you design your packaging:

• Limit the number of fonts you use. Don’t use any more than two fonts on a product label. Too many fonts dilute the message and make it difficult for a potential customer to read.
• Make sure the font size is readable. Too large of a font may overwhelm the label and consequently your product. Too small of a font size almost guarantees the information will be overlooked. This requires a search for the perfect balance of size.
• Use a font that relates to both the product and your brand. If your product is a sophisticated, you want to use a more refined font. If it’s a children’s snack, consider one that’s more playful or fun.

2. Using the Right Images

An image or logo gives your customer a quick and familiar way to differentiate your product. A properly positioned image can both identify what your product is and make your customers’ decision process even easier.

• Incorporate your brand in your images. All great companies do this and you should too. Branding your product labels is very important for building relationships between your product and a customer. Make sure you keep the style consistent. If your brand uses illustrations, don’t go putting photographs on your product packaging.
• Use images to convey characteristics of your product. Think about a lollipop with a picture of a cherry on it, almost instantly you know what flavor it is. Make associations between your product and its distinctive traits, so customers can easily seek out things they need, want, or can relate to.

3. Material Preferences

A label material is an easy upgrade to make and one that can add a polished look to your label. Something unique or eye-catching cam add another dimension to your product.

• Stop doing what everyone else is. Take a look around next time you’re surrounded by products — many of them are dull and ordinary, right? What does it say about your product if standard white paper is the best foot you can put forwards? Using different materials, such as brown kraft or foil, can play an important role in the interaction with your product and a potential customer.
• Add textures and distinction. Engage with consumers on more than a visual level. Appeal to their sense of touch or intrigue them with something new and innovative.

4. Colour Considerations

The colours you use when creating a product label are very important to the way your product is received in the marketplace.

• Utilise your brand colours. Make sure to incorporate your brand’s colours into your product label. The more easily identifiable your products are with your brand, the more likely you are to increase brand recognition and repeat customers.
• Use vibrant colours. The use of vivid colours in your label, such as bright reds and yellows, will help differentiate your product label.

5. Use Customised Die-Cut Label Shapes

Circles, rectangles, and squares make up the vast majority of label shapes on products, but have you considered using customised die-cut label shapes? By going for a special custom shaped label, you’re making a statement that you care deeply about your label design, and therefore your product. 

6. Luxury Metallic Embellishments

Foil Blocking is a popular way to help enhance a label. Not only does it make a product look more premium and luxurious, but the foil reflects light in a different way to the rest of the label to help the whole product become much more eye-catching. If you combine the print with the optimal colour palette, you’re on to a winner!

Despite claims that infographics are just a passing fad, they’ve managed to stick around.

And why wouldn’t they? Infographics are great for engaging and educating audiences, especially in Annual Reports. If you’re trying to explain something complex, infographics are a non-intimidating way to walk your audiences through an explanation, step by step. If you want to highlight facts and figures in a report, a sidebar of infographics is a great way to give those stats their day in the sun.

How infographics can help with your Annual Report;

Emphasise a key fact or message

It should be immediately clear what the key message is, if it isn’t then you will have seriously handicapped your design. Most infographics will need a viewer to read more to fully understand the graphic, but the high level – instant take away must be there. All too often an infographic is challenged with delivering too many messages, if this happens it is guaranteed to say nothing to everyone. Keep it Focused.

Easy to understand

The purpose of an annual report infographic is to communicate simply and clearly what the copy alone can’t. If you ask one infographic to convey multiple meanings to a variety of audiences it is most likely going to become confused and disordered. Keep it simple – using a clever visual device or icons help people relate to the key facts, don’t over complicate things with unnecessary graphics that might confuse.

Quick to extract key information

Your average annual report reader will at some point skim through looking for key information or sections they are particularly interested in. This type of reader is looking to get the most information for a limited amount of time spent or effort. Make it easy for them.

Format follows function

Creativity is essential when creating infographics but it must never override the need to convey the key message or information. If you have an infographic in your annual report and it looks wonderful but doesn’t convey the information it should, it is just a pretty picture and should be replaced. Infographics should always have a purpose and should never be used as a visual distraction, doing so compromises all the other infographics and potentially the annual report itself by creating distrust or confusion for the reader.

An annual report is a necessity for companies as it acts as a medium to share information to inform stakeholders on how your company is different from the others. It displays information on the investments and returns obtained on those investments along with profits gained by the company. But nowadays, the way of presenting a company’s annual report has changed completely. There has been a significant change in the annual report design as many unique elements have been incorporated. Infographic-inspired designs are gaining popularity which includes illustrations, data visualisations, and icons. Brands are depending more on visual content to communicate their message.

We have seen a trend of people moving away from  more traditional and heavy-text reports as no one has time to go through them. If you are planning to create a report this year, transform it into an engaging piece of content with the below techniques.  

·         VISUALISE YOUR DATA

There are so many ways in which annual reports communicate. Infographic inspired elements in the report will offer a different perspective to the readers. They will witness the change. Using bold charts and graphs to break up the content is a good way to display the data. Moreover, such a representation makes it easier for readers to make quick decisions and distinguish trends in the data. If you display the same information in the paragraphs, then it would be hard to understand.

·         DEMONSTRATE A STORY

If you think there is not much data to show, you can still add other visual elements. You can compel readers to continue reading your company report with a unique cover page. You can also use diagrams and pictures to break your report into clear sections. Use icons as they will draw the eye to key concepts. All these elements can work in tandem to communicate a bigger story and help your readers draw conclusions. If you have some business data to share, it would be great as it can form a critical piece of the visual story.

·         HIGHLIGHT PHOTOGRAPHS

Photographs are a highly functional visual element in any annual report. It can bring your products or services to life by adding a human touch to it. The use of machinery, groups of people, and others may add a dynamic feel to it. With bold photography, you can easily balance longer blocks of text. It is important to choose only high-resolution photos to make sure that your annual report looks its best. You must know that the annual report design somewhat contributes to brand design. It can go outside the box. You can choose subtle cropping or screening that can elevate the whole design. No need to go overboard.

·         CREATE A COLLABORATIVE EXPERIENCE

 If you really wish that more and more people should read your report, consider a communicating microsite. Check out examples online as you will learn how to display the most relevant data. Find out how the delicate and smart graphics encourage scrolling. Even simple movement can increase the reading experience.

·         DISPLAY MULTIMEDIA ELEMENT

 Your annual report is no less than an opportunity to showcase the best of your work from the previous year. It would be great to make the most of what you have already made. Making an interactive piece will also allow you to insert new content or existing assets such as videos or social media posts. Then linking to blogs, videos, and other highlights is a great way. It is premeditated and appealing at the same time.

·         IMPLEMENT MULTIPLE FORMATS

The more data you have, makes it even more important for you to carefully watch how you present it. So if you bury your graphical data in a long report, readers would never be able to find it. Maybe your idea behind making complete data available is to appeal to casual readers who are interested in getting deep knowledge of the company. Using multiple formats will make it easy for the readers to choose the one that appeals to them the most.

·         CHOOSE AN ANNUAL REPORT INFOGRAPHIC

An annual report infographic uses a variety of visual procedures. This tactic trims down text; relies on pictures, icons, and data. This less-is-more approach always works better compared to text. The result is reader-friendly and driven by data.

·         CREATE A MOTION GRAPHIC

Annual Reports on paper don’t live more. If you really wish to make your reports engaging and boost their friendliness, consider a motion graphic. Your audience might not have enough time to read a long report, but you can say a lot in just 30 seconds using motion graphics. In fact, the majority of video marketers believe that video has improved user understanding of their product or service.

Design The Best Annual Report

Use the above techniques and create a business annual report that can say more than what your readers expect. You can take professional help in designing and developing annual reports for your stakeholders. Professionals know how to develop an engaging yet desirable report that can give a piece of good information about your company. Your company’s impression also depends on how good or bad your annual report is. Don’t hesitate to get professional annual report designing assistance.

When it comes to the visual identity of your brand, consistency matters, from your website design and your social media pages to your storefront sign and your business cards. Consistency is what helps to strengthen your brand identity. As such, it’s important that consumers can recognise your brand from the packaging design of your products. If the packaging is consistent with your brand, people who are already familiar with your brand will identify it right away. This makes it easier to stand out from the crowd.

Keep in mind that it works the other way as well – those who purchase your product will become familiar with your brand as a result and be able to identify your brand when they see it elsewhere — as long as there is consistency with your branding efforts.

Think about it: when you are picking out a bottle of wine, aren’t you drawn to the bottles with interesting labels? Your product’s packaging can be a consumer’s first point of contact with your product, and a well designed package may make someone try a new brand or product line they’ve never heard of. 

Your package design is one of the most important elements in a successful product launch (or re-launch). But there are so many things to think about when designing a package – it is design that has to function. It has to protect what’s inside. It has to allow for easy storage and distribution. It needs to display information about what it is and draw attention to itself on a shelf full of competing products. 

No matter how good a product is, poor packaging can keep it from selling. Here are some important questions that need to be asked when creating a successful packaging design:

3 Questions to Ask When Designing Packaging for your Product  

1. How will the packaging represent your brand?

What is your brand’s personality? This can be conveyed through colour, fonts, and textures. Good design uses these elements to convey a brand’s story. Great design goes even further…consider the shape of the package – whether it’s a bottle or a box, make it stand out with a unique silhouette. Consider metallic foil stamps, embossing or varnishes.

2. What is the desired price point for this product?

We make assumptions on a product’s price point before we see a price tag. Once we’ve made those assumptions, we look at the price and decide either “this is a really good value” or “I can’t believe they are charging that much for this.” Your product’s increase in desirability and perceived value can help you charge more for it.

3. What types of materials are you going to use?

How durable does this packaging have to be? How long does this package have to stay intact before consumer use? Plastic, aluminum, glass, and paperboard are traditionally used, but we also need to think about your target audience. Are they environmentally conscious? If so, it’s probably best to look at alternative materials such as bioplastics. Sustainability also means using the least amount of material possible. An eco-friendly package will be ingeniously designed to function well with minimal materials.

A new £3 million fund to help retail micro-businesses in Northern Ireland looking to grow their business online. Many of the Kaizen Brand Evolution Clients who are looking to develop their online selling ability and capacity may be eligible for this support.

Get in touch with our Client Services Team. They’ll only be too happy to help with your application and provide guidance on the most suitable opportunities for your business.

The COVID-19 Micro-business E-commerce Grant (MBEG) is open to any micro-sized retailer that wants to prepare for growth, develop their customer base and find new markets by enhancing their digital offering, building e-commerce capability and increasing online sales. The scheme was developed and is operated by Invest Northern Ireland.

What is available?

Businesses can access up to a maximum grant of £5,000 to support 80% of eligible costs (projects must have a minimum of £1,250 of eligible expenditure).

Eligible activities include the services of a supplier(s) providing expertise to:

• – Review current digital marketing capabilities and online sales channels.
• – Develop a digital marketing/e-commerce strategy to drive sustainable growth in online sales.
• – Implement an enhanced online e-commerce system or improvements to your existing e-commerce solution for the business.
• – In-house training and knowledge transfer to develop the digital marketing and e-commerce capability of the employees for the business.
• – Improve integration and automation with existing e-commerce systems.

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How Can Kaizen Brand Evolution Help?

Research to Identify Relevant Benchmarks

Our analytics teams will conduct a thorough in-depth review of the markets the organisation operates in. We will identify relevant benchmarks through which to compare effectiveness of the proposed activity and to set a baseline for this project. A report will be provided to present a user-friendly interpretation of the data.

Review of Current Digital Marketing Capabilities and Online Sales Channels

Taking an objective view of current presence and activity, we will respectfully review the sales and digital marketing channel. We will analyse the data collected where available and where not available make suggestions to support data collection for future projects.

Where available we will review the sales channel analytics data to understand how and where customers visit the site as well as what they do on their sales journey.

Develop a Digital Marketing Strategy to Maximise Online Presence

Using our extensive experience in this area we will focus on the relevant digital marketing activities suitable to your organisation. We will deliver a strategy that will have the greatest impact and value addition to the organisation. We will build off-site and on-site processes and plans that can be adopted by your in-house team for output. Where current systems in use are to be retained, we will be respectful of obligations and integrations they may support.

Develop an e-Commerce Strategy to Drive Sustainable Growth in Online Sales

Our team will provide the strategy and plan across a suite of areas all focused on delivering increased sales. This will include increasing traffic, reducing store abandonment, reducing cart abandonment, increasing customer retention and engagement.

Implement an Enhanced Online e-Commerce System or Improvements to Your Existing e-Commerce Solution for the Business

Reviewing current e-commerce functionality in line with the organisations objectives we will review if it is the most suitable option for the organisation. In the case where the system requires optimisation or development to become more effective we will provide suggestions and costs. Our team will provide a report to support and justify our suggestions in this area.

Training and Knowledge Transfer to Develop the Digital Marketing and e-Commerce Capability of the Employees for the Business

Our digital marketing and web development teams will provide a training series to support the knowledge transfer of all systems used to deliver and develop the online capabilities of the organisation. We will ensure adequate reporting guidance is provided to support the organisation as a whole

Improve Integration and Automation with existing e-Commerce Systems

Where existing e-commerce functionality can be improved upon, Kaizen will make suggestions and act where appropriate to deliver enhanced integration within systems and automations to support increased efficiency.

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As a micro-sized retailer, you are eligible if:

• Your business operation is based in Northern Ireland.
• You are a micro-sized(link is external) business, trading at least two years and employing less than 10 full-time equivalent staff in Northern Ireland.
• Your business has physical, retail premises in Northern Ireland (e.g. high street shop, sales/trade counter, etc).
• If your business is not exclusively retail then more than 50% of your turnover must come from the retail part of your business (i.e. you are not primarily a manufacturer or producer, etc).
• Your business has an existing online presence such as a basic business website, online marketplace or social media channels.
• Your business has a physical product, or a range of physical products, that can be sold online and shipped to customers.
• Your project is not receiving any other public funding such as government or European Union funding.
• You are able to complete your project, pay your supplier and make a claim within the next 6 months.

If you are a business, which is part of a group structure with the same ultimate ownership, you can only submit one application across the group.

Who cannot apply?

The following are examples of businesses that are not eligible to apply:

• Businesses that cannot demonstrate they have a viable and profitable operation.
• Businesses involved in the primary production of agricultural products, fisheries and aquaculture.
• Businesses providing hospitality and leisure services such as hotels, pubs, cafes and restaurants.
• Businesses primarily involved in the provision of a service such as travel agents, mechanics and tyre fitting services, grooming and beauty services, hair salons, tattoo artists, funeral directors, medical, dental and veterinary practices, accountancy, legal and financial services and insurance broker services.
• Franchisees of retailers for whom the franchisor provides material online support such as online marketing or e-commerce expertise.
• Businesses involved in activities that Invest NI considers as ineligible or as involving an unacceptable reputational risk, such as gambling, adult entertainment, tobacco products and cannabis-based products, which are not, authorised as medicines.

How to apply

The COVID-19 Micro-business E-commerce Grant is open for applications.

Making an application

The online application process takes approximately one hour to complete.

If you meet the eligibility criteria, you will need the following information to complete the online application form.

• Your business name.
• Your contact name, email and phone number.
• Your business address and postcode.
• The date you established your business in Northern Ireland.
• The number of people you employ in Northern Ireland.
• The financial year-end of your business.
• The annual turnover of your business.
• The balance sheet total of your business.
• Annual accounts and financial position including offline and online sales.
• Details of the project with costs, tasks/work to be completed and timelines of when the work is to be started and completed.
• Your company registration number (if applicable) issued by Companies House, beginning with NI followed by six numbers, for example, NI123456.
• Details of any De Minimis funding your business (if applicable) has received in the current or previous two fiscal (accounting) years.

You will also need to provide three types of documents electronically:

• A valid form of Photographic ID as proof of your identity, such as a scanned or photograph copy of a valid passport or a current (full or provisional) driving licence. All driving licences with an expiry date between 1 February and 31 August 2020 will be treated as valid for a further seven months;
• A scanned or photograph copy of proof of the business address such as a bank statement dated within the last three months for an account used by your business that clearly shows the address;
• A supplier quotation(s) for all the project costs included in the application form. The costs should be itemised and sufficiently descriptive to allow us to determine which costs are eligible. To get the best value for money you are expected to shop around and get quotes from other potential suppliers with a track record of delivering similar services but please only attach the preferred supplier quotation(s).

*If there are any queries over value for money Invest NI may ask for your alternative supplier quote(s).

Further information

For more information on the scheme and applying, read the Micro-business E-commerce Grant – guidance notes (PDF, 450K).

If you have any enquiries about the COVID-19 Micro-business E-commerce Grant complete the online enquiry form(link is external).

Company annual reports provide information on the health of your company to shareholders, stakeholders, the media and your community. Annual report design can come in many formats, ranging from basic typewritten pages to full-color, glossy publications. Understanding the purpose of the annual report can help you ensure that your report contains pertinent information for your company.

Simple design tricks can help you create a more engaging report which is easier and more interesting to read. Let us check a few in detail.

7 Key Elements to Create Pleasant Annual Report Design

A Clear Format

Usually, when we talk about annual report, we expect a booklet of information which would require a lot of reading. At times, this can be boring. Therefore, it is very important for you to select a format that is interesting as well as provides all the required details. Traditionally, the annual report design has to be a booklet-style. However, a lot of contemporary formats are also used today that aren’t boring. These might include, a website page, an app, other digital mediums, or print formats with more visual designs.

The basic idea behind selecting a particular format or medium is to give the viewers/readers a sense of appeal. If the booklet-style is also tried and made attractive, they wouldn’t mind reading it.

Purposeful Story-Line

Once the format is finalised, the second and challenging step is to think of a story-line that you would use for the report design. Along with the finance and figures, the story must highlight the company’s success and learning experiences. Moreover, envisioning the coming year is also a major component here. 

A story-line also depicts the seriousness and hard-working attitude of a company. Hence, choose the best way to tell your story.

Add More Visuals & Infographics

This makes information easy to digest!

Text when combined with infographics, charts, graphs, and other visuals give clarity and lucidity to the report. Therefore, find new ways and designs to highlight the data and information with the most impactful visual effects.

Be Careful With Colors & Highlights

It is advisable to use a single highlight color in the report. Too many colors can often take away the charm of the design. Also, bold typography is an important way to highlight important information. This draws attention to key information. 

Using the colors carefully is also essential when you highlight different information. Although connected with each other, giving every idea a unique theme creates a visual impact that is easy to understand.

Typographic Hierarchy

Along with color highlights, text also plays an essential role in guiding the readers to key information in the report. Therefore, using text with correct size and style makes the report easy to navigate.

The entire document should consist of text hierarchy: Header Text, Sub-header Text, and Paragraph Text. The first is normally big and bold as it helps to grab attention of the readers. Sub-headers are comparatively smaller and not as stylish as headers. Paragraph text is very important as this is the main section that contains all the information. Therefore, keep it simple, clear, and readable. 

Space Utilisation

It is very essential that you use the space wisely. An annual report consists of information that needs a lot of room in the design. Everything should not look too clumsy or disorganised. Leave space where required, as this would give a decent and clear visual impact. 

Divide The Information

Annual reports usually contain a lot of information. Everything should be connected well with a natural flow as you form the story to make some sense. Therefore, it is recommended to divide the information into small sections. Also, use common themes to connect pages. 

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Branding is an important marketing practice in which a company decides its name, logo, and design. These all are elements that are associated with the identity of any business or company. They help to identify a business product and differentiate it from others. Branding is necessary for a memorable impression on consumers. It decides the expectations of clients and consumers. It is a great way to tell others what makes you a better choice. Your brand is built to show a true representation of who you are and what you are and how you wish to be perceived.

There are so many areas that are used to develop a brand such as:

• Advertising
• Customer Service
• Reputation
• Logo
• Promotional Merchandise

All these elements work together to create a unique and fetching business profile, creating a great reputation online. In this blog, we will discuss the different design and branding elements that help businesses grow their identity online. These are not a complete list of elements but a few of them just to give you an idea of how these elements play an important role.

BRAND DESIGN

From startups to multinationals, a great brand identity design can help in shaping an organisation, its products, and services right across the world. A brand identity is the collection of resources that support your company image all through the business functions. Generally, the logo is considered as your brand; however, people don’t know that it is just one part of your brand. We keep focusing on the following elements combined to make up your brand. These include:

• Brand Guidelines
• Brand Narrative
• Branding Design Process
• Colour Palette
• Illustrative Direction
• Language Set
• Logo Design
• Photography Styling
• Tone of Voice
• Typography

If you choose branding experts like us, the very first thing they do is research your market and recognise the key stakeholder requirements. In addition to our own research, we discuss the requirements and creative briefing from the company itself. Nothing is left to chance. We evaluate every bit of competition and find out what is working and more what is not. A well-crafted brand character emphasizes engaging and efficiently communicating to your customer base.

After completing the brand identity design, we then move further to discussing and planning the roll-out of your new branding.

LOGO DESIGN

The logo is important to any business or brand. It is the main identifier of any business organisation. Most of the clients associate the logo with the experience they had with your business. Whenever you think of your favorite company or brand, the very first thing that you will be able to imagine is the logo of the company. Logo design is the first step towards brand development.

WEBSITE DESIGN

Website is the next big thing. It would not be wrong to say that it is the first thing a business should consider as it is no less than the identity of any business. People who could be your potential customers are looking for you online and they expect to see you through your business website. No matter how big or small your business is, you can start with a small brochure style website in the beginning and extend it as much as you can with the response and sales.

A strong website is vital for any business and organisation. Considering this, we focus on designing websites that direct your customers efficiently towards the desired goal. We believe in matching imagination and passion with the technical ability to build a website into the one that customers would love.

Online business has never been so competitive and that’s the reason why a customer chooses an experienced company through their complete online journey. An experienced web design and development company uses its in-depth knowledge to understand what customers want to create the most effective business website. So, make sure you get someone experienced and reputable for the website-related task for your business.

ANNUAL REPORT DESIGN

When you do your best to take care of your customers, then it’s your responsibility to keep your stakeholders updated about the company’s performance and profits through annual reports. It is an integral part of any business which comprises a text-heavy document with complete financial data of the company. It can be overwhelming to the stakeholders therefore it needs to be prepared well or in a professional manner.

We have a separate team of annual report design that is experienced in creating, engaging, and exceptional report design to deliver a clear financial report of your company. We will include attractive infographics wherever required and make the best practice of typography. We include a great type of layout to make sure a consistent and easy to follow content structure.

The Building Blocks of a Great Annual Report

As part of our annual report design process, several different design concepts are considered including:

·         Brand Guidelines: A good company always acts as guardians of your brand and delivers a design that matches well to your brand guidelines.

·         Digital & Print: Within any organisation, consistency of the brand is key to consolidation. This includes annual reports and other stakeholder materials that are time and again ignored. We have great experience in both traditional printed outputs and digital interactive annual reports. We provide the most suitable output formats for stakeholders keeping their needs in mind.

·         Typography: To maintain the perfect balance of design and functionality, we offer best in class typography.

·         Infographic Design: Taking an idea from the data-heavy information and bringing it to life through infographics is a great way to understand the intent and your target audience.

For any kind of branding and designing help, feel free to contact Kaizen Brand Evolution.

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Graphic designer skills are important for all businesses. A skilled graphic designer will translate your company’s message, services and product information using eye-catching visuals. Graphic designers strategically use a combination of technology, art, text, and images to convey messages that attract consumer attention.

HOW CAN A GRAPHIC DESIGNER BE OF VALUE TO YOUR BUSINESS?

Take a moment and look around you. Look at the cover of a magazine or book. A magazine or book cover may give you a hint about what you might read or find inside. It is designed in a way to capture your attention. 

Now think about the packaging of your favorite bag of chips versus the care instructions on your shirt. The perfectly designed bag of chips is enticing you to eat a delicious snack. The care label on clothing is to simply inform you. Notice the billboards you see on the way to work. Take note of the advertisements you view on Facebook and Instagram. Every graphic design has the intent to lure you in for more. 

Graphic designers are used for all sorts of marketing communication. Consider graphic design as a necessary part of your business. Graphic design isn’t just about being creative; it’s also about achieving a set of objectives using text, images, and symbols.

HOW DESIGN CAN TRANSFORM YOUR COMPANY

Businesses use graphic designs for almost everything they do. Graphic designers create a brand image or logo to convey a consistent and unified look so that your customers can identify with you.

Business identity items keep your company name and brand image in the forefront of your customers’ minds. Items like business cards, stationary, envelopes, and logos are apart of your business identity.

Business cards are still relevant. Invest in a good business card and quality card stock. You’ll want to make the best impression possible when giving out your business card. Graphic designers also create local advertisements. In addition, a graphic design company creates artwork for billboards and van wraps. Direct mail is still a common form of marketing. You could send your customers unique catalogs and brochures. Consider sending promotional items such as t-shirts, hats and tote bags. A graphic designer can provide you with low and high-resolution files so you can reproduce anything you need to promote your company.

Digital graphic design services can be used on a daily basis. Websites need to have up-to-date visuals. When you launch new products or services your online store should reflect the changes. Consider the images that are used on social media, and within email blasts. Each visual is carefully constructed and pieced together to drive your defined agenda. A graphic designer can edit images using Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. Maybe the photo you took is not professional enough to be uploaded on social media or your website page. A talented graphic designer can edit colors, remove or sharpen objects to make your image come to life.

WHY HIRING A GRAPHIC DESIGNER IS SO IMPORTANT

Have you heard of the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words?” Graphic designers use advanced design software that will translate your message and make your company stand out. A professional graphic designer will use a combination of typography, photography, illustrations, colours and design expertise while keeping your message and target audience in mind.

An advantage of hiring a marketing and graphic design company is that your business message will be clear and concise. The company branding will be coordinated across the board. When a company does not work with a professional graphic designer, they may use a printer. As a result, the company branding may not be consistent.

As a business enthusiast or entrepreneur, you better know that you need financing to start or keep running your business. It is often not possible to raise that fund or capital from your own capital and your partners’ capital. It is so because generally, a business needs a large amount of money or capital to get started and keep running. Therefore, you need to raise capital from external sources to start or keep running your business. 

Now, you might be wondering what external sources are from the perspective of raising capital for your business. If you have enough knowledge and understanding of starting a business, then it (external source) might not be a new term for you as it is very common in business. But if you are new to the business field, it might be an unknown term for you. If it is so, we are here to guide you. 

What Are External Sources to Raise Funds For Businesses? 

A business mainly depends on two major sources to raise its capital. Those include internal sources and external sources. 

Internal sources include the capital of business owners and partners. While the external sources majorly include shareholders or stakeholders and investors. 

Generally, a company or business sells its shares to stockholders and investors and alongside gives them certain rights of the company. That’s how a company raises its capital from external sources. 

However, to attract investors and stakeholders to invest in your company, you must have a well-prepared business plan. And that you can display using a powerful business pitch deck. 

What is a Business Pitch Deck?  

A business pitch deck is a brief yet detailed presentation of your business plan, the thought behind starting your business, products, services, potential growth in the market, benefits, possible challenges, solutions, etc. These days, it plays a very crucial role in growing a business as it attracts stakeholders and investors and influences their decision-making. 

So, it is very important to have an effective business pitch deck if you want your business to flourish in the market. 

To create your presentation deck design, you can take professional assistance from brand designing agencies or printing companies. They will certainly professionally help you with this. 

But before you hire a brand design agency, you must prepare effective and engaging content for your business pitch deck. 

Here we have compiled four different questions of investors and stakeholders that you need to satisfyingly answer in your business pitch deck. Let’s have a look at those four questions. 

Four Common Questions of Investors That Need To Be Answered 

Generally, investors want to know a lot about your company, products, services, future plans, benefits, etc. before making their investment. And so, they often have a big list of questions. As a business owner, it is your responsibility to answer all their questions and that too in a satisfying manner. If you fail to do so, you can lose many potential investors and stakeholders. So, you must keep this in mind. 

Here are four common questions of investors that you need to clearly answer in your business pitch deck. 

1. What are the potential benefits of investing in your business?

This is the most common question that investors ask business owners. So, you must be well-prepared for answering this question. 

Of course, as a business owner, you will be having some potential benefits on offer for investors. You just need to pitch those benefits impactfully to investors. Try to focus on those benefits which you are exceptionally providing to your investors. This will certainly help you influence the decision-making of investors. 

Apart from this, make sure the list of benefits must be both in your mind and on slides. 

2. What makes you stand out in the market? 

Investors have a number of options in the market to invest their money. And so, they can invest in any company as per their preferences. They will ask you why they should invest in your company and what are the things that make your business stand out in the market. So, you must have logical answers to these questions so that you can satisfy them and convince them to invest in your business. 

3. What are your strategies to outperform the competition?  

Investors want to know how you will beat the competition in your market and what are strategies you are focusing on to outperform your competitors. You have to answer this sensibly because a single mistake or irrationality in your answer can result in losing a number of investors. So, use the data, reports, and surveys logically to explain your strategies to outperform your competitors. 

4. How can your business survive for the long-term?  

This is another very crucial question. Generally, this question is asked by those investors who plan for doing investment for a long time. So, if you want them to invest in your business, you need to clearly explain to them how you are going to survive for the long-term in the highly competitive market. And for that, you have to do good preparation.  

Apart from these four questions, there are more you should include in your pitch deck presentation. You can explore those questions on the internet. 

A pitch deck matters a lot for startup companies and businesses as it is an important marketing tool to attract investors and impact on their decision-making. It helps them raise capital from investors, establish their business, and start operating their daily business operations smoothly. So, it is crucial to design a killer business pitch deck that has some interesting and effective content to attract investors and impact their decision-making.

Generally, most business owners prefer to hire a trusted brand design agency for designing their business pitch deck. It is a good option if you don’t have in-depth knowledge and understanding of pitch deck designing or if you want to have the highest quality pitch deck. You can hire them, but alongside, you should also have enough knowledge and understanding of business pitch deck designing because ultimately, you will be the one who will be pitching in a room full of investors. If you don’t have enough knowledge and understanding of business pitch deck designing, this ultimate guide is for you. 

In this ultimate guide, we have comprehensively explained every step of designing a killer business pitch deck. Let’s have a look at those pitch deck designing steps. 

Pitch Deck Designing

Pitch deck designing is a strategic process that requires a lot of internal and external research to be done. Referring to internal research, we are talking about deeply exploring your business, the thought behind starting your business, the short-term and long-term goals, and the benefits you are offering to your customers and investors. When referring to external research, we are talking about deeply exploring the market, market trends, scope, and potential customers. And this is the first step of designing a business pitch deck. Let’s discuss it in more detail.

Step 1 – Do Proper Research  

Doing proper research is a must as it helps to prepare the base of a business pitch deck. It helps you know some important points and factors that provide extra value to your business and potential scope for investors. You should focus on them while designing your business pitch deck because those points can be key to grab the attention of investors and stakeholders. 

So, before you start designing your presentation pitch deck, make sure you do in-depth research both internally and externally. 

Step 2- Create Compelling Content 

Content is the main part of a pitch deck as you pitch it to investors and audiences. So, it is very important to create compelling content for your pitch deck. It will help you impress the investors and stakeholders and make them invest in your business. 

To create interesting and engaging content, you must first consider the outcomes of the research. Based on those outcomes, you should prepare your content making strategies. You should focus on those points which show the strongest side of your business. For example, if your business is doing something differently from other businesses and that is beneficial for both the customers and investors, you should highly focus on that. Apart from this, you should involve the following things in the content. 

• Who you are- (a brief introduction)
• The basic idea behind starting your business
• A message for investors and other audiences from the CEO of your company
• The faces behind your business
• Products & Services
• Potential market scope of your business 
• Potential benefits for investors 
• Some historical data and metrics about your business category
• Short-term and long-term future goals

Step 3 – Design a Professional Presentation 

Once you prepare content for your business pitch deck, the next thing you need to do is to design a professional pitch deck presentation. Here is how you should design your pitch deck presentation. 

Select a Professional Layout or Theme – Firstly, you need to choose a particular theme and layout for your pitch deck presentation or you can design a new one. Here you need to consider a few things that are:

The aspect ratio of your selected slide or layout must be 16.9. It is an ideal size for a professional pitch deck presentation as it covers the whole screen without leaving space in the sides, top, and bottom of the slides. 

The layout and color palette of your pitch deck must be attractive enough to grab the attention of investors and other audiences. 

The theme of your presentation must be professional. 

Add Content to Pitch Deck – Once you select a professional slide design for your presentation pitch deck, the second thing you need to do is to add content. The content you prepared earlier, you need to add that in your pitch deck. 

While adding content to your pitch deck, you can use different features of the pitch deck to make it more attractive and interesting for your audience and investors. You can use bullet points, graphical presentation of data and metrics, infographics, pictures, videos, etc. 

Apart from this, while adding content to your pitch deck, you should avoid using lengthy paragraphs as they can trigger boredom. Instead of length paragraphs, you should use two-four lines paragraphs and bullet points. You also need to nicely align and organize all your content so that it looks pleasant to the eyes. 

Step 4 – Review Your Presentation Pitch Deck 

Once you have completed designing your business pitch deck, the last thing you need to do is to review your pitch deck. You need to ensure that every single detail you mentioned in your pitch deck is correct and doesn’t have any false information. If you find any irrelevant and unnecessary content in your pitch deck, you should remove that. Now, your business pitch deck is ready to share with investors and stakeholders. 

In business, nothing ever stays the same. Fresh competition could be hot on your heels, your business may have grown, or you’re identifying new trends in the market. The world’s most successful businesses learn to reposition and evolve their brands to stay relevant to audiences, time and time again. It’s a proven model for continued success.

All that being said, there are times when a rebrand is in order. With a comprehensive rebranding strategy and the help of experienced brand strategists, the rebranding process can be smooth and efficient. However, it’s important to understand the pros of rebranding. It’s also critical to recognise the importance of having a carefully developed rebranding strategy, in addition to having a well-organised timeline for implementing the rebranding process. You can also evaluate your reasons for rebranding, and whether it truly makes sense to go through the process.

The Benefits of Rebranding

The positive effects of rebranding a company are pretty clear. After all, the purpose of a rebrand is to improve your image in one or more ways, with the goal of becoming more relevant, more competitive and more profitable in your target market. If there aren’t many positive outcomes of rebranding, then why would anyone spend the time or effort to go through it?

Reinvigorate your business image 

Rebranding is not just a vanity exercise but a calculated business decision. It’s a conscious decision to improve your business reputation and image. Dated branding not only damages the perception of your business but does nothing to motivate your team. A fresh new brand identity can add energy to a business, both inside and out

Attract New Customers

After you’ve been in the market for some time, your image and company message may have become stagnant, and maybe even irrelevant to your audience. While your goals and mission as a company may have adapted over time to your customers’ unique needs and challenges, your brand may not clearly reflect that anymore. By rebranding your image, your company personality or your target audience you can attract new customers and rekindle an interest from your existing audience.

Achieve New Goals

Another benefit to rebranding is that you can significantly shift the focus of your efforts, allowing you to achieve new goals. Some of your new goals may be to develop new products or to improve existing ones. Or, you may decide to have your employees become more involved in advocating on behalf of your company, in which case a rebrand is a great excuse to get everyone in the company involved.

Increase Engagement

Whenever you add something new and exciting to your product line, or make a change to your brand, you have the opportunity to make a big splash. You can use a rebrand as a chance to get people talking about your company on social media. Instead of fearing the change, you can show existing and potential customers what is great about the changes you are making, and why you are making them.

Streamline Messaging

Somewhere along the line, your message and brand may have become diluted or inconsistent. A rebrand offers the opportunity to bring everything back to the main focus again. If getting your online reputation under control has been on the back burner this could be the perfect time to get to it, and kill two birds with one stone.

In conclusion..

The importance of branding to a company cannot be overstated. The world’s top companies are successful because they use their brand to communicate their products.

If your branding isn’t right, then it’s important to consider rebranding your company. It might seem like a long and difficult task now, but by following the pointers in this post, you should find it a lot easier!

Your brand is the core of your business, and it’s important you get it right. Getting your branding right will play a key role in the success of your business.

Now that you know the benefits of rebranding, and how to run your rebranding project, what do you think?

To speak to our team about your rebrand in 2021, you can call on 02895072007 or email us at studio@kaizenbrandevoltuion.com.

Rebranding your business can be a tough decision.

It’s a little bit like when your favourite item of clothing becomes too tight or worn out. You know it’s time for an upgrade, but nostalgia makes it difficult to make the change. Furthermore, if you spend every waking hour managing the day to day aspects of running your business, it’s easy to miss that its time to shake things up.

Rebranding your business at the right time can breathe new life into your marketing, help you to reconnect with lapsed customers and widen your base to reach whole new market segments. Launching a rebrand when it is not necessary, however, can be very expensive and may actually have a negative impact on your marketing and sales.

It is, therefore, important to consider your move carefully and make sure that you launch a rebranding campaign at the right time. Here are some key signs it may be time to rebrand your business;

1. You Aren’t Attracting the Correct Market

If you started your business in the correct way, chances are you were targeting a very specific target market at the start. However, you may have found that this market wasn’t as interested in your products as you thought. Maybe they are, but your price point is wrong for them. Maybe your idea of this target market was too broad, and you actually need to target one of several sub-markets that you are now much more aware of.

Rebranding can be a great way to either increase your brand’s appeal with your original target market, or to change your brand’s identity and target an entirely new one

2. Your Company Feels Stuck and You’re No Longer Excited By It

This is more of a personal point than a business one, but if you don’t feel proud of your business when talking about it to others, or you don’t feel motivated to keep growing it, it may not quite be the right kind of business for you.

This is more important than you might think – you need to be motivated and passionate to do your best work.

If it is possible to rebrand your company to something that will make you excited again, this is one of the most important things you can do – and who knows, it might have the same result for your customers!

3. To Represent a Change of Ownership or Merger

If you have purchased a business from somebody else, then rebranding it to suit your own goals can be a great way to take ownership and align the business with your own goals for it. Equally, in the case of a merger, the goals and objectives of the newly created entity can be quite different from your original targets.A rebranding can represent this change in direction and help get across the message of what your business can offer.

4. The Business is Becoming Unfocused

Maybe scope creep has you offering more for your clients and customers than you originally intended. Maybe you’ve invested in too many different areas and the company’s focus is no longer as narrow as it should be.

You could even be losing sight of the original aims you had when creating the business. This is all too common in business, especially as companies begin to scale and grow. In the busy day-to-day grind of running a business, combined with the pressures of a competitive marketplace, it is easy for your focus to shift so that you suddenly find yourself focusing on services and goals that are completely different from your original intentions.

As you start the rebranding process, begin by returning to your business’ original mission, vision and core goals. Build your new brand strategy so that it is completely instep with these elements and will position your perfectly to meet your goals.

5. The Marketplace has Evolved

Some industries stay the same forever, whereas others are in a constant state of change. Competition can also drive changes in the marketplace and force you to react.

If you feel like customers are looking for something slightly different to what they were when you first began operating, it may be time for a change.

Similarly, if competitors have begun to offer unique propositions that are getting the attention of your target market, it might be time to respond with your own new offerings.

Regular rebranding is a crucial part of staying competitive and appealing in a competitive and changing industry.

6. You Don’t Stand Out Enough

This can be a big problem – if your branding is too similar to your competition, it needs to be adapted to allow you to stand out from the competition and grab your customers’ attention. It may be that competition has grown and developed significantly since your business started, or it could just be that you didn’t give branding as much thought as it deserved.

Either way, blending in with your competition is a strong sign that it is time to rebrand your business. Look for a way to appeal to your ideal customers while being authentic to your brand’s identity and values.

It is important to find a way to differentiate your business from your competitors while not losing sight of who you are. Don’t try to make your business stand out by pretending to be something you are not. Instead, think about your unique selling points (USPs). What are the products or services you offer that your competitors do not? What makes you different from them?

The answers to these questions should form the basis of your rebranding.

If you are still on the fence about a rebrand in 2021, why not arrange a call with our studio team on 02895072007, use our contact form, or email us at studio@kaizenbrandevolution.com.

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Motion graphics are one of the most powerful tools for branding and marketing.

Video marketing and animation grows year on year. It’s effortless to consume, it’s effective at conveying information, and when done well, it’s a joy to watch.

But with so many video marketing options available, why would you choose to use motion graphics over another method?

Let’s start by looking at exactly what motion graphics is. We’ll then go on to discuss the benefits of motion graphics for branding and marketing.

What are motion graphics?

Motion graphics is a type of animation that uses text, graphics, colour, and movement to create visually striking video content.

In general, motion graphics is used for videos that do not feature characters and do not have a strong narrative. For that reason, it’s often used for logo animations, product animation videos and explainer videos.

For decades, motion graphics have been used by leading brands across industries. They are a proven, effective method of conveying key messages clearly, concisely, and beautifully.

Why use motion graphics

Almost any business can benefit from video marketing, but it’s important that you choose the right type. In order to do that, it’s good to have a basic understanding of the different types of animation available. With that in mind, here are six of the key benefits of motion graphics.

1. Motion graphics are perfect for logo animations

Motion graphics are ideal for logo animations. If you need your logo to jump out, a simple logo animation is a tried and true method to achieve it. From Coca-Cola, to MasterCard, to Hewlett Packard, logo animations are used by every major brand.

The advantage of an animated logo is quite simply that it catches the eye. If you want people to remember your brand name and logo and with some particular video content, then an animated logo is the proven way to do it.

2. Great if your product isn’t visually strong

If your product or service does have a strong visual side – for example, an app, a software product, or a technology component – then motion graphics can come to your aid. By using graphics, you can brand a product or service so that even the least visually appealing product becomes attractive.

In the world of digital products, motion graphics are increasingly important for branding and marketing. Consider brands such as Uber, Spotify, or Headspace, whose visual identity is consolidated with careful and consistent use of graphics and animation – the user remains immersed in the visual world of the brand as they use the product. It’s powerful stuff, and it’s helped to build some of the biggest tech brands in the world today.

3. Enables sophisticated and elegant visual branding

For some brands, 2D and 3D animation can seem too casual. One of the advantages of motion graphics is that it can enable you to create a sophisticated feel for your visual branding. This is more suitable for many corporate brands, as well as a lot of technology companies.

By choosing the right typeface, font, colours, voiceover, and even types of movement, it’s possible to craft motion graphics that perfectly represent the personality of your brand. It’s simple and powerful and it means that engaging and visually appealing video can be a reality for literally any sort of brand.

4. Ideal for clear communication of facts, stats, and benefits

Motion graphics are great for conveying information in a simple and pure way. They enable you to remove clutter, forcing you to focus on your core message. For marketing, this is extremely valuable. By restricting you to basic yet powerful visual elements, motion graphics get straight to the point.

This means that motion graphics are often ideal for explainer videos. If you need to convey complex information to customers, then the purity and directness of motion graphics are often just what’s needed.

Our design studio have created thousands of brochure designs for businesses, charities and other organisations spanning every conceivable market sector. Our experience and knowledge of type, layout and photography ensures we position your brand perfectly, while  providing opportunity to meet the strategic goals of the project, whatever they may be. We understand that the delivery of your brochure may take many forms and so our team of graphic designers can expertly output your brochure design for both print and digital delivery.

Do you still need a marketing brochure?

The marketing brochure is one of the oldest tricks in the marketing playbook.

While digital strategies are dominating the modern marketing trends, traditional techniques like the trusty sales brochure aren’t going anywhere.

In fact, physical marketing media may be more powerful than ever. One marketing research firm suggests that physical media is more memorable, more persuasive, and more likely to drive behavior than digital media. 

The best marketing strategies of today integrate the digital with the physical, focusing on flyers, brochures, and posters just as much as websites and social media graphics.

How do you make a brochure that is worth keeping? 

Designing a brochure is easy. But designing a brochure that your recipient will keep for future reference is no easy feat. Effective brochure design is crucial in creating one with accessible product and service information. The more useful your brochure is, the longer its life with your recipient and the higher the chance it could be passed on to other would-be customers.

Brochure design is not entirely limited to the images or layout that you want to use. Rather, it is a mixture of elements working together in harmony that makes your brochure effective. Elements such as the font you used, the content, and even the type of paper on which you print your brochure should be given careful consideration during the planning stage.

Here are 7 things that you need to consider for effective brochure design.

1. Determine your purpose.

As with all planning, the very first step is to identify your brochure’s objectives. This will determine how the entirety of your brochure marketing will go, and by extension, the design of your brochures. 

Which segment of your target market are you going to distribute your brochure to? Will it be distributed by hand or sent through direct mail? What benefit do you hope to get? Answering these questions makes for an effective brochure design.

2. Know your brochure folds.

One of the distinguishing features of a brochure is its numerous folds. In fact, these folds control how your product and service information is presented to your recipient.

Picking the right brochure fold is challenging. You want the fold to complement the type of content that you include in the brochure and the way your intended recipients read it. Things like product features, or a sequence of steps, would benefit more with a brochure that folds open to reveal each step sequentially.

PrintRunner currently offers seven types of brochure folds, each with their unique features and best applications. To learn more about them, check out our blog post on brochure folds.

3. Review your copy.

A lot of people think that only the content of a brochure is important when it comes to the creation process. While I agree that the content is important, how it is presented to your reader is more crucial, in my opinion. This is where understandability comes into the picture.

Review your copy with respect to your reader. Is it giving too much information that could overwhelm your reader? Is it too short? As a general rule, concise writing isa must for brochure marketing. You have to give valuable information in a short amount of time. 

Aside from this, you should also review how your copy relates to the overall visual design. Too much text and your brochure would not be enticing to read. Also, always check for spelling and grammar mistakes.

4. Choose your fonts.

The copy for the brochure is usually outlined with a heading, a subheading, and the body of the text itself. You should keep this in mind when choosing the fonts that you are going to use for your brochure. I highly suggest that you limit your font choices into just three, one for each. 

Fonts determine the readability of your text, sets the tone of your brochure, and influences its visual appeal. If you are new to typography, I highly suggest looking for font combinations that work together. To start, check out Canva’s Design School compilation on the basics of typography and suggested font combinations in their Ultimate Guide to Font Pairing.

5. Know your paper stock and coating.

Consider the paper stock your brochure is printed on, as well as the coating that you can apply. For most customers, your choice of paper stock and coating can influence their perception of your company. A brochure with a thicker paper stock and a glossy or matte coating will be perceived as more upscale than one with a thinner stock.

Your choice of paper stock and coating will also affect durability. Heavier stock usually lasts longer than lighter ones. Coating can protect your brochure from smudging and abrasions. It will also make your colors more vibrant. These options can make your brochures shine, literally. 

6. Use high resolution photos.

It is a crime at this point to use blurry, jagged, low resolution photos when there are a lot of high quality images on the internet. For effective brochure design, image quality is very important. If you are going to use stock photos, try to select ones that do not look like stock photos. Using those corporate images with one person on the foreground staring directly at the camera is laughable nowadays and might negatively affect your brand image if used.

If you are going to use product images, make sure that they are arranged in a visually appealing way. I suggest hiring a photographer to ensure the quality of your product presentation. If you plan to go DIY, there are plenty of tutorials on the internet on how to create an ideal product photography setup.

7. Include a call-to-action

Arguably, the call-to-action is the most important section of your brochure. This is the part where you lead your recipient to an intended action. Whether it is to buy your products, check out your website, or avail of your discounts, it is important that you always include a statement that will lead your customers back to you. 

Make your call-to-action immediately visible to your recipient. I suggest using visual cues, such as a bigger font or larger white space around it to make it stand out. Be specific with what you want from your recipients. 

For better response to your call-to-action statements, include an incentive to readers. Things like coupons or exclusive promotions will encourage your customers to take this action after reading your brochure.  

How many times did you stop to check out a product simply because the packaging design caught your attention?

When you had to choose between two similar products, did the way those products look influence your decision?

While we should try our best to not judge things by appearance, the truth is, we care a lot about first impressions. And in a world like this, the way a product’s packaging looks matters just as much as the product itself. Because no matter how good your product is, poor packaging design is going to drag sales down.

There are a lot of things to take into consideration when choosing the packaging of a product. It needs to protect what’s inside, allow for easy storage, display information about the product and catch the attention of customers when displayed on a shelf. 

Why does packaging design matter?

Product packaging is, above all, a practical tool, but it also means much more than that for the product and brand it represents. It is the packaging that, through its design, convinces a consumer to purchase a product or not.

Packaging design matters for many reasons, but here are those we believe to be the most important:

Gives a strong first impression

As we’ve already established, first impressions matter a lot, especially when your product needs to stand out in a sea of similar products. Eye-catching packaging design will differentiate your product from others on the market, be it on the shelves of stores or on the pages of an eCommerce website. This is your first chance to win consumers over and get them to know your brand, so take as much advantage of it as you can.

Creates and supports brand identity

Your brand has a story – an identity you have been working to create. What better way to emphasize on brand identity than packaging design? After all, it’s what consumers see first. To ensure packaging design tells an accurate story of your brand, make sure it clearly displays your company logo and makes use of fonts, colors and trademarks associated with your company. This way, consumers will be able to recognise your products anywhere.

Communicates with customers

No matter how much you play with packaging design, don’t forget that it must also be informative. It must communicate with customers and tell them everything they need to know to convince them of the product inside. Good packaging design needs to be able to answer the following questions:

• Who is this product created for?
• What is this product used for?
• Where can I learn more about the manufacturer?
• Does it expire? When?
• How will this product improve my life?

Packaging Design Agency

Considered packaging will ensure your brand is developed at every touch point of the purchase process. With great experience in B2C moment of choice decision influencing, our creatives will ensure your brand has the best opportunity for purchase and engagement.

We have an excellent team of dedicated and world class designers, who have helped many a products evolve their packaging, ensuring that their products are the best looking on the shelves.

Packaging Design Outputs

When it comes to packaging design, consideration to the printed output and knowledge on how to achieve this is critical to the project success. We work in tandem with packaging printers all across the UK & Ireland to ensure our packaging and labelling designs can be expertly output in the most effective manner. From gift boxes, to gift bags, food packaging sleeves and outer for all types of products, we have a wealth of experience in packaging design.

Within our studio, packaging refers to any labelling, boxes, sleeves that are used to identify or protect a product. We generally leave bottling and food grade packs to the experts in their respective fields.

You’re almost nearing the end of presenting a pitch deck design to a room full of suited and booted individuals. In your mind, everything was covered in your presentation, you spoke and deliver with confidence and the end result is in sight – which, in this case, is the required funding.   

Your presentation ends.

But you’re met with silence. No applause. No nods of approval. You don’t get the ending you had imagined.

Where did you go wrong?

Perhaps your content and core ideas were great.  But you didn’t pay attention to your pitch deck design.

You see, while the content of course is king in a pitch deck, how effectively and efficiently the message is communicated can have an impact on the recipients. We are experts in presentation and pitch deck design, working with some of the countries leading brands and most innovative startups, creating engaging presentations.

So the next time you want to see sparks of interest among investors, pay attention to your pitch deck design. To help in your endeavor, we’d like to share some incredible pitch deck design tips with you.

Lets start from the very beginning…

What is Pitch Deck Design?

A pitch deck is a presentation, often created using Indesign, PowerPoint or Keynote, used to engage your audience with a snapshot of your business plan. A pitch deck is usually a digital file presented on screen but also commonly provided in print format. Many of the most recognised brands today sourced funding through the use of pitch decks.

Our Pitch Deck Design Process

Our design process is tried and rigorously tested. Whether you are starting from scratch or have a draft ready for review, our designers are specialists in the enhancement of presentation documents. Once we receive your initial document, a member of our team will get in touch to talk through a design brief. 

Armed with an understanding of the project and its intent, we begin our process of design. We’ll design the deck cover and an agreed number of pages / slides to ensure we’ve grasped the concept fully. On approval of our first drafts, we roll the agreed styling out across all pages quickly and efficiently.

Here are our Do’s & Dont’s for Pitch Deck Design

Dos For Pitch Deck

Narrate the Story

People love to listen to well-constructed interesting and engaging stories rather than long-lasting boring speeches. Even investors love stories. So, whenever you start creating aPowerPoint pitch deck, make sure the narration of the content flows like storytelling. Try to organise all the content in a sequence so that the audience can understand your point of view and engage with your vision. This is one of the most important aspects of making investors think about your proposal. 

One Slide – One Idea

We know content is the king, but the well-constructed presentation of content is equally important. So, never forget this point. No doubt, the best way to make a pitch deck presentation powerful is to use new customised feature-rich templates. If you don’t want to spend on buying customised feature-rich templates, still you can create a powerful presentation of a pitch deck. For that, you need to follow a few simple steps which are mentioned below.

Use one slide for one idea only. Whether the idea you want to put on a particular slide has only a few words or only an image, don’t put other ideas on that page. 

Avoid repetition of content or specific words. It will decrease the excitement level of the audience. 

Use different colors, highlighting features, underline, outline, and other features to make the slide look attractive. 

Focus on Making Great First Impression

There is a saying “the first impression is the last impression.” This is very true. You must dedicate all your skills, creativity, focus, discretion, and experience in making a great first impression. A great first impression will aid you to engage the investors and other audiences to your business proposal. They will take interest in your proposal and respond better than as per your expectations. So, make sure you leave a long-lasting impression on investors through a few first slides of yourPowerPoint pitch deck. 

Prepare Yourself Before Presenting Your Business Proposal 

Once you complete creating your presentation, prepare yourself accordingly. You must know all the calculations or metrics mentioned in the slides so that you can confidently present them. The best advantage of the preparation of the presentation is that you can confidently present all the data with just having an overview of slides. You don’t need to read all the slides word by word if you are prepared. 

Don’ts For Pitch Deck

Avoid Using Too Many Bullet Points

Presenting the content in bullet points is a great idea. It is an effective way of presentation. However, if you use too many bullet points in your PowerPoint pitch deckpresentation, it will be a poor presentation. So, avoid it by limiting the uses of bullet points in the pitch deck’s slides. In replacements of too many bullet points, you can create short 2-3 line paragraphs. This will increase the value of your presentation. 

Don’t Make Your Pitch Deck Too Long 

This is a really very important point. Make sure you create a short and average slides pitch deck. If you don’t have enough knowledge about creating a PowerPoint pitch deck, you can take assistance from professionals. 

Remember always, the words and statistics you say by your mouth is more important than what slides show. People are not interested in slides, they are interested in what you say about your business proposal by referring to your pitch deck. So, make your pitch deck not longer than 30 slides. 

Don’t Create a Picture-Poor, Text-Reach Presentation

The investors sitting in the conference hall to listen to you cannot read and listen at the same time. So, create a balanced presentation that has more pictures and graphical statistical content than text content. This will allow investors to listen to you more than paying attention to slides. So, make sure you follow this step wherever you create a pitch deck for a business proposal. 

Don’t Use Small and Too Many Fancy Fonts 

Sometimes, people use small and fancy fonts in presentations to make it more attractive. However, they don’t know that small and fancy fonts will only create disturbance in pitch deck presentation. You should not use these types of fonts but you should use simple and commonly used fonts such as Ariel and Times New Roman.

These pitch decks do’s and don’ts are very effective to help you to create a powerful pitch deck presentation. At the same time, these points will help you to present your pitch deck confidently and make investors accept your proposals. So, whenever you have any business proposal and you want to create a pitch deck for that, make sure you follow these effective dos and don’ts tips. 

The KBE Studio 

We appreciate that pitch decks may be required in a hurry. With a team of 12 dedicated pitch deck designers, all in-house, we can work to almost any deadline.

For speed, we design all presentations in Indesign primarily and then transfer the presentation to your chosen software. This ensures deliverability and the ability for you to edit your presentation deck after receipt.

Our most common pitch deck and presentation outputs include: Powerpoint, Visme, Prezi, Keynote and slides. Other outputs of course are available on request. Please just let us know at the time of briefing.

To speak to our team about your Pitch Deck Design, you can call us on +44 (0)28 95 072 007 or email our team on studio@kaizenbrandevolution.com.

So what does a Graphic Designer in Belfast do….

We have worked on hundreds of graphic design projects in Belfast. From working with clients in the Hospitality industry, to the Medical Industry and from Professional Services to Sporting Governing Bodies, and pretty much everything in between.

The term graphic in graphic design literally means a visual that is proper and accurate. The designing part in graphic design is for creating a specific message in a professional and artistic way. The aim here is to produce a piece of visual information for a target audience. The term graphic design also stands for visual communication or communication design.

The creative process involves the client and graphic designer. To create memorable design pieces, the designer uses different visual arts, typography skills, images and layout techniques. The arrangement of various design elements in a graphic design depends on the media such as posters, logos, package, website, etc.

By applying visual hierarchy and page layout techniques, designers use typography and pictures to meet users’ specific needs and focus on the logic of displaying elements in interactive designs, to optimise the user experience.

Why do you need a Graphic Designer in Belfast?

No one can do every work individually without any help. Everyone requires some professional help and ideas to make things better and alluring. Graphic Designers are trained in their ability to attract customers through design. Also, to portray a message effectively through design. To be done correctly, it requires a creative expert. Someone who can combine design, creativity and technology in order to communicate a message. 

But if you’re not convinced just yet, here are our top 5 reasons why you need a Graphic designer in Belfast:

First Impression is the Last Impression

Graphic designing is important for a positive and lasting impression of any business. Good graphic design will ensure you make the right one. A business card, an online ad or a page on your website may be the first business graphic that a prospect may encounter, so any business may need an expert graphic designer.

Creativity to stay ahead of competitors

Graphics Designing is necessary for any business looking to stay ahead in the competition. Create content in an innovative way that may solve a problem or promote an idea. Moreover, great business comes with great showcasing.

For Building Credibility

Graphic designing is important for any business who wants to build credibility in their respective fields. A good content that solves the problem of the audience will make them trust your advice and start to regard you as an expert in your field. Thus, create content consistently to build a dedicated following of people who believe in your messages.

Efficiency and Productivity

If the graphics are badly designed, it can have a negative impact on the worker’s productivity and the workplace’s efficiency. A business’ website is an area that should be perfectly designed and doesn’t create any headache or customers to surf your website. A practical design must have easy navigation, legible fonts, and attractive colors.

Your message signifies

Every business has a story and it needs to be communicated to the audience rightly. Every single element in your design matters and signifies any emotion or feeling that supports your message.

Types of Graphic Design 

At Kaizen, we have worked on a huge range of graphic design projects in Belfast. You name it, we have done it. Anything from business card design right up to billboard design. And everything in between. 

All our graphic Design Services can be found here on our website. But we have listed our most popular ones below. 

Logo Design 

Logo design is vitally important to any business or brand. It is the primary identifier of your organisation and commonly clients will associate it with the experience they have with your business. Think of your favourite brand, and you will be able to picture the logo clearer than you will the typeface or name. Logo design is often the first step in any brand development and should be considered at the earliest stages of business planning.

Campaign Design 

A great campaign is something that a brand can really shout about. It’s often the cornerstone of the rebranding process, where it brings everything that has been done together, and lets you launch your company to the next level. It’s because of this reason that the campaign needs to be perfect. If just one element is unclear, it can negate the impact of your campaign and the opportunity it presents.

Advertising Design 

Advertising can and does cover a whole host of opportunities; everything from print advertising to digital material such as websites, social channels and PPC advertising. When it comes to advertising design, whether it is a complete campaign review, or just a small one-off advert, it’s vitally important that everything is done to absolute perfection. Your advertising is what your customers see and feel when you are promoting your product, service or business. Ensure the right message is portrayed at every step of the process through considered advertising designs.

Billboard & Adshel Design 

Bigger is better right? Well, you don’t get a much bigger advertising opportunity than 48-Sheet or 96-Sheet billboards. When you are marketing at a local or national level, a graphic design team that understands how to create impactful out of home advertising is critical to your project’s success.

Designing at scale for outdoor advertising purposes requires consideration for many elements not required in other design functions. Visibility while in transit is critical and our team always suggests a less is more approach to your roadside advertising designs.

Poster Design 

Posters have been at the forefront of advertising and marketing since its inception, and are used by almost every company and organisation across the UK & Ireland, not just Belfast. It’s because of this, that it is imperative when designing a poster that you use a design studio with expertise and experience in this field. People that are looking at these posters everyday, need to be able to read them. They need to be able to understand what exactly is going on and act upon your sales message. Whether you need an A3 short run digital poster or an A0 nightclub poster, we’ve created thousands of poster designs for organisations like yours.

Annual Report Design 

Annual reports are an integral part of communicating with key stakeholders in your organisation. They are however often text heavy documents with financial data that can often be overwhelming to stakeholders. To achieve exceptional and engaging annual report design our design team will create a clear system of delivering financial reports. We will create engaging infographics where appropriate and will always use best practice typography and type layout to ensure a consistent and easy to follow content structure.

Pitch Deck Design

Some of the greatest brands in the world were first communicated to potential investors, stakeholders and partners through the use of pitch deck design. While the content of course is king in a pitch deck, how effectively and efficiently the message is communicated can have impact the recipients. We are experts in presentation and pitch deck design, working with some of the countries leading brands and most innovative startups, creating engaging presentations.

Menu Design 

Menus are one of the most important pieces of marketing and sales materials available to restaurateurs. A well crafted menu will not only drive increased sales, but assist in directing customers to the purchases you wish to sell more of.

As a design studio our team understands the psychology of purchasing and how design can influence this. Our team of dedicated graphic designers have undertaken thousands of menu design projects throughout our business and they use this knowledge and skill set to great use in creating your menu design.

So now that you know what we do as Graphic Designers, we have a blog post dedicated to ‘Why You Should Hire A Graphic Designer’.

If you are in need of a Graphic Designer in Belfast, please don’t hesitate to contact our studio by calling us on +44 (0)28 95 072 007, emailing us at studio@kaizenbrandevolution.com or filling out the form on our contact page.

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After having some time to reflect on our own site over the past 6 months, we decide it was time to redesign and rebuild our website. Evolve it, if you will.

Our internal team got to work on what would become the new online home for Kaizen Brand Evolution. Now here we are, a few months later with a brand new site that truly reflects our recent work and where we are as a company today.

If we didn’t have the spare time over lockdown to explore the idea of developing a new website, would we have done it? Would we have spent the time designing and building it? Who knows. What we do know, is that while the past 6 months COVID-19 has caused a huge upset for most businesses, us alike. It forced us to press pause, re-evaluate and learn to do things differently. So while there have been huge downsides to the past 6 months, this is one positive we can take from it. Having the time to work on our new website.

So now we ask you – Is it time for a new website design and build?

Gone are the days of finding companies in your local print Yellow Pages. Now, people do nearly all of their product and service research online. However, this doesn’t mean you can have a website quickly slapped together and forget about it afterward. It takes time and knowledge to create a good website, and it’s well worth it if done correctly and maintained over its lifetime. Is your website losing you business? According to a new survey, 81% of internet users think less of a business if the website is not updated, and 39% would think twice about using a product or service if the website is not fresh, user friendly and current.

So, if you’re wondering how your site compares, here are some warning signs that it may be time to for an upgrade.

You’re getting traffic but no sales

You may well be in the position where your website has previously worked for you and your business, but you have noticed that sales seems to have dried up. If you find yourself in this situation then it’s time to take action. A large amount of traffic without sales suggests that you have an established website in the search engines, but there is something blocking your visitors from buying with you.

Before you go spending on a new website, it’s important that you make sure that there isn’t anything simple that you may be missing. There are many reasons why your customers may not be buying through your website that could well be because of a specific issue on your site. Rather than a more general usability issue, it could be that you are experiencing one of the following problems;

• Part or all of your payment gateway is broken
• Vital information isn’t displaying or is broken
• Your site works on some devices and browsers but not others
• You experience regular server errors or problems
• You haven’t updated the website in a long time
• Competitors are offering something you are not

If however, after looking closely at possible problems, you can’t find any blocks like the above, then it may well be time to think about investing in a new website. If you’re getting traffic but no sales then you are leaving money on the table. Here’s when it’s time to spend some cash;

No Clear Call To Action

One of the most common design mistakes is a lack of a clear call to action. Things like “contact us”, “shop now”, “watch video”, “sign up”, etc. are important for driving potential customers further down the buying funnel. These elements will encourage them to take an action that will benefit your business. Getting traffic to your site is nice, but it doesn’t mean much if people leave without taking any meaningful action.

Not Optimized For Google

A big sign that you need to update your website is if it wasn’t designed with search engines in mind. If Google can’t easily index your site, you likely won’t be showing up on the first page of search results. If your customers can’t find you, then they’ll likely go with whatever business is showing up at or near the top, as these companies are seen as more legitimate by many people.

Your website is unresponsive

Over half of web traffic is now made via mobile. And depending on your industry, it can be much higher than this. If you work B2C then your customers will invariably access your site via mobile phone. If your website isn’t responsive then you may as well be cutting off over half of your audience. 

Your site is difficult to navigate

Besides responsiveness, navigation issues are the next biggest killer when it comes to your sales. Your customers are not patient when it comes to their experience with you. If you can’t fulfil their requirements in a few shorts seconds or within a few clicks then they will disappear into the ether never to be seen again. Making your website as easy as possible to navigate is vital to ensuring you convert the traffic that is coming to your site. 

You are getting left behind

With ever-advancing technology comes ever-increasing expectations. While your website may be more or less functional, is it capable of providing the solutions that your customers expect? If you’re not looking forward then you will soon be left behind. Make sure you keep ahead of the curve and seek out the advantages made possible by new technologies. 

If you think that it may be time to invest in a new website but you aren’t quite sure, then don’t hesitate to get in touch with our friendly team. At Kaizen Brand Evolution we can help you diagnose any issues that may be affecting your site. So, if you’re looking for honest and open advice on whether or not to take the plunge then get in touch today via our contact form or by calling 028 9507 2007. 

The Minister for the Economy has launched a new £1 million COVID-19 Digital Selling Capability Grant (DSCG) from Invest Northern Ireland

Aimed at helping retail and wholesale businesses grow online sales, DSCG is part of a wider COVID-19 support package to help eligible businesses progress recovery plans, strengthen supply chains, develop new products and access finance.

At Kaizen Brand Evolution we can deliver each of the eligible activities for your organisation to create a capable and robust selling platform, supported by industry leading digital marketing strategy.

Our approach to such projects will be led by the data we can use to make informed decisions about the current digital marketing efforts, how this creates traffic and then how this traffic converts effectively into transactions. Below we outline our activity in each of the eligible sections available within the grant.

Some of digital clients already include: Boojum, Kaizen Print (obviously), RHK Cocktails & Slims Healthy Kitchen.

To discuss a digital selling capability project please get in touch with our client services team on 028 9507 2007.

For more information on the grant itself, please visit the NI Business Info website.

Research to Identify Relevant Benchmarks

Our analytics teams will conduct a thorough in-depth review of the markets the organisation operates in. We will identify relevant benchmarks through which to compare effectiveness of the proposed activity and to set a baseline for this project. A report will be provided to present a user-friendly interpretation of the data.

Review of Current Digital Marketing Capabilities and Online Sales Channels

Taking an objective view of current presence and activity, we will respectfully review the sales and digital marketing channel. We will analyse the data collected where available and where not available make suggestions to support data collection for future projects.

Where available we will review the sales channel analytics data to understand how and where customers visit the site as well as what they do on their sales journey.

Develop a Digital Marketing Strategy to Maximise Online Presence

Using our extensive experience in this area we will focus on the relevant digital marketing activities suitable to your organisation. We will deliver a strategy that will have the greatest impact and value addition to the organisation. We will build off-site and on-site processes and plans that can be adopted by your in-house team for output. Where current systems in use are to be retained, we will be respectful of obligations and integrations they may support.

Develop an e-Commerce Strategy to Drive Sustainable Growth in Online Sales

Our team will provide the strategy and plan across a suite of areas all focused on delivering increased sales. This will include increasing traffic, reducing store abandonment, reducing cart abandonment, increasing customer retention and engagement.

Implement an Enhanced Online e-Commerce System or Improvements to Your Existing e-Commerce Solution for the Business

Reviewing current e-commerce functionality in line with the organisations objectives we will review if it is the most suitable option for the organisation. In the case where the system requires optimisation or development to become more effective we will provide suggestions and costs. Our team will provide a report to support and justify our suggestions in this area.

Training and Knowledge Transfer to Develop the Digital Marketing and e-Commerce Capability of the Employees for the Business

Our digital marketing and web development teams will provide a training series to support the knowledge transfer of all systems used to deliver and develop the online capabilities of the organisation. We will ensure adequate reporting guidance is provided to support the organisation as a whole

Improve Integration and Automation with existing e-Commerce Systems

Where existing e-commerce functionality can be improved upon, Kaizen will make suggestions and act where appropriate to deliver enhanced integration within systems and automations to support increased efficiency.

To discuss a digital project with our team or to find out more how our web development and digital marketing teams can assist your business, please get in touch with us on 028 9507 2007.