Tag: brand identity belfast

The Many Elements of Brand Identity

Posted on by Ellen Turbett

With any organisation, brand identity is essentially the most important tool in the road to success. From brand new companies to established firms, brand identity is revolutionary; shaping businesses, products and services worldwide.

Dedicating time and effort into creating an authentic brand identity is paramount for organisations in the modern day. Placing importance on developing a brand identity will be an extremely rewarding investment for your organisation and implementing this correctly is key.

Brand Identity: Explained

A brand identity brings a sense of individuality and uniqueness to your organisation through recognisable and engaging design assets. Consistent across all platforms, your brand identity is a familiar suite of assets. This suite supports your company image and overall boost brand recognition and engagement. When creating a brand identity, there are a variety of areas to focus on. Kaizen Brand Evolution place careful consideration and importance on these.

Brand Identity Guidelines

The most identifiable organisations in the world all maintain a tight set of brand guidelines, in which they stick to in everything they create. A key element to brand identity is the brand guidelines, which essentially is a bible for your brand to adhere to, including instructions, guidance and things to avoid.

Elements within brand guidelines include logos, colours, imagery, typography, tone, narrative, language, illustration and depending on the brand, potentially many more. Although time consuming at the brands conception, creating and sticking to brand guidelines is an extremely beneficial tool in the long term. Brand guidelines enable organisations to develop and enhance their brand easily and correctly; reducing time, research and avoiding potential mistakes.

Logo Design

A company logo is a vital brand design that will engage with the public and boost brand identity. A representation to promote brand recognition, logos speak a thousand words, hence the importance it engages with your target audience and enhances identity.

Like everything in branding, consistency is key. This is no different when it comes to logo design. Inconsistency promotes an unidentifiable business reputation.  A brilliant logo will aid your organisation in boosting brand identity through many ways, including convenience. Once the consistency is established through developing a brilliant logo design, this will reduce the time, effort and resources needed when creating additional design elements.

Colour Palette

When developing a recognisable brand identity, colour palette is one of the most important elements in the suite of assets. Many identify brands based solely on their colour palette used to develop elements such as advertisements, e.g. Coca-Cola and McDonalds. This recognition is developed through consistency and is something to be admired.

When creating your own brand identity, it is important to consider your colour palette, attempting to develop a theme through your artwork. Implementing this will contribute to your developing brand identity in the future.

Typography

Holding a consistent font and typography is imperative in the identity building process to ensure clear readability as well as a steady theme. The typography essentially explains your brand to the consumer, through outlining the product or service information, hence the importance of getting it correct is second to none.

When developing the typography, font must be considered, decided on and stuck to. It is advisable that the use of alternating font design is limited within your organisation as an overflow can reduce the standard of the design and make the product difficult to read.

As part of the typography, the size and positioning of fonts should be intricately decided and added to the brand guidelines for future direction. Ensuring a consistent and carefully measured typography will ensure your brand identity is visually striking and avoids a disorderly and distasteful reputation.  

Photography Styling

As part of an attainable brand, a photography styling is required to achieve the desired visual display for your organisation. Many organisations obtain an impressive reputation based on their photography styling alone.

In the modern world of social media, particularly linking to Instagram and Pinterest, an unwavering aesthetic is paramount to achieve a high status in the eye of many consumers. The success of these photography based social media platforms alone proves the power of imagery, hence obtaining a consistent and recognisable photography style within your brand identity is advised.

Illustrative Design

When building a brand, involving a professional graphic designer with experience in developing a dependable illustrative design is advisable. Over time, your organisation will undoubtedly create numerous campaigns, require promotional assets and social media content, all of which require a design.

To achieve a premium brand identity, create an illustrative design that is unique to your brand. Doing this will ensure all content developed for your brand maintains a familiar set of in-house design features and will appear recognisable for viewers. Additionally, creating an illustrative design package will allow your organisation to create content at a faster pace, with reduced planning, briefing and preparation.

Brand Narrative

The 5 W’s: Who, When, What, Where and Why?

As human beings, we are all curious and explorative. We want to know stories, reasons and explanations. The curiosity within us is important to incorporate in the development of a brand identity through a story or narrative. Presenting a brand narrative that will engage with people and present them with an understanding of your organisations values and goals is key.

Brand loyalty stems directly from brand narrative and relatability. If a consumer, shareholder or investor relates to your story or admires it, they are likely to show interest and engage with your brand.

An example of an inspiring brand narrative that has boosted the success and popularity of a brand is Gymshark. Started by 19-year-old student Ben Frances, Gymshark has developed into one of the fastest growing brands in the fitness world. The unique narrative that Gymshark obtain is key, placing them as a driven and unique brand that will be remembered.

Language and Tone of Voice

The language and tone of voice used by a brand is extremely important, creating your theme and unique position in the market. Brand language and tone involve the words, phrases, statements and type of conversations that your organisation starts and takes part in.

With access to a constant stream of information via social media, it is important to stand out from the crowd and create a unique and engaging communicative style. As part of your brand guidelines, all members of your company should be aware of the type of language and tone of voice to use in communication, in order for all messages to appear genuine, on theme and appropriate to your brand identity.

Promoting a unique selling point (USP), using words and phrases that relate to your brand and maintaining clear copywriting rules to uphold consistency will boost customer awareness and incidentally boost brand identity in turn.

Brand Identity Design at Kaizen Brand Evolution

Supported by research, experience and knowledge, our professional team of graphic designers will develop a brilliant brand identity for your organisation. Through collaborative discussion and justification of decisions, your identity will adhere to agreed business objectives and represent your brand faultlessly.

Please get in touch with Kaizen Brand Evolution about the creation of your brand identity. 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.

Eye-Catching Label Design you will Love

Posted on by Ellen Turbett

The importance of an eye-catching and engaging label design is significant. Labels are not only informative and explanatory, they are a gateway into the exploration of a product or service.

Label design is a key marketing tool for any product or service at the point of sale. After the detailed creation, development and finalisation, your product requires an exciting and attractive promotion to catch the attention of consumers and generate the desired sales.

A Label Design that makes you LOOK

It has happened to us all… the lure of an eye-catching label has sucked us into interest. From pester power at the toy store, with beautiful barbie dolls boasting bright labels to curiosity at the convenience store, picking up a bottle of wine, simply for its ‘lovely’ label.

Situations like these are all too common for consumers and it is paramount for organisations to target this area of interest, creating labels that simply cannot be ignored.

Getting a label design right is no simple task. It requires detailed consideration and execution, incorporating the all-important characteristics that will generate interest and sales.

Uniform Branding in Label Design

When developing a label, it is important to stick to your in-house branding style as much as you can, ensuring your existing customers instantly recognise your product and potential new customers gain brand recognition and familiarity.

Maintaining a uniform design in all of your label designs will be a rewarding process. A uniform design will ensure consumers instantaneously recognise a product. This familiarity can persuade consumers to purchase it if they hold favourable opinions towards your brand. For example, although Kellogg’s have an endless selection of cereal products with unique design, they remain uniform and recognisable due to the familiar Kellogg’s logo and in-house design.

Figure out your Font

When it comes to branding, it is crucial to maintain a consistent design. This is no different with label design, particularly when it comes to font. Fonts are a vital element in the process, delivering arguably the most important details on the label, the product outline and information.

It is advisory when developing a label to limit the number of different fonts used. An overflow of font designs will make your label look cheap and difficult to read, this will immediately appear off-putting and reduce product interest.

Secondly, the size and positioning of fonts is also important to consider. Ensuring the font is the correct size avoids a crowded or difficult to read label. A balanced and visually attractive label will boast carefully measured font distribution.

Does your Label Design need Images?

When developing a label design, as previously mentioned, it is important to incorporate your in-house branding and design. Different companies will have different elements as part of their design package, some will have a stand-out logo, others will include a mascot or a catchy slogan.

Whatever your organisation boasts as part of your brand identity, it is important to incorporate this, where possible in label design. Implementing this gives your consumer a quick and familiar way to differentiate and recognise your product from its label.

Colour Co-Ordination

To put it quite simply, we are all attracted to colours, particularly bright and exciting colours. The way your product is perceived on the shelf in a store or through a scroll on a website, initially depends on the colours used in the label design, therefore it is paramount that this is implemented correctly.

Similarly to fonts, images and logos, your organisation will host an in-house colour scheme, that is recognisable to customers and unique to your brand. When developing a label design, it is advisory that you utilise your brand colours, to boost brand identity and engage in a recognisable way with consumers. Additionally, the brighter the better when it comes to colour. The goal is to make the product jump off the shelf to the attention of consumers and the incorporation of bright and joyful colours will certainly contribute to an engaging label design.

Mesmerise with Metallic Label Design

If your brand is promoting a premium product, why not go that extra mile to promote luxuriousness through your label design. Foil blocking is a beautiful embellishment used to showcase products of a high-standard in a deluxe fashion.

When a product is of a premium standard, it is important to showcase this through label design, ensuring it stands out from the crowd and is promoted to a high-standard, as deserved. Moreover, when consumers are seeking goods of a luxury status, they will expect and seek-out a refined and sophisticated label.

Label Design at Kaizen Brand Evolution

Our team of graphic designers have extensive experience working with a wide range of business to create exciting and attention-grabbing labels. We can design a label that elevates your brand, without compromising on design or performance. Labels are a popular way for every business to add a personal touch to their product. On top of that, they can be a cost-effective method with a great return.

To discuss a creative project for your business, get in touch with our team via the contact form or on 028 95072007.

Rejuvenate your Packaging Design in 2022

Posted on by Ellen Turbett

A new year brings endless opportunities. It is a time for change, a time for evolution, a time for doing better. This should be no different in your business. As your organisation enters 2022, take time to consider the areas that could do with a revival and refresh.

An asset in organisations that often gets overlooked is packaging design. Yes, it is essentially the final step in the buying and selling process for your company but is a massively important asset to your brand identity.

Whether it is packaging that will appear pride of place in your retail store, packaging that will be photographed and promoted through your online store or packaging that will be used for online orders and delivered to your valued customers door, it is important to stand out, remain consistent and boost your brand identity.

They say “don’t judge a book by its cover” but believe it or not, we all do it, especially as a consumer. Often, a packaging design alone is enough to draw your attention to a product, be it online or in-store. Incidentally, the design of your packaging has the power to make or break a customer’s buying decision.

Make a Stand-Out First Impression with your Packaging Design

First impressions are key. This is no different in the buying process. We often find ourselves gravitating towards products that hold exciting designs, be it online or instore, the likelihood is, if the design stands out, you will investigate.

On the other hand, we often find ourselves overlooking products that have poorly designed packaging. This often links to our belief on first impressions – ‘if the packaging isn’t exciting, the product inside probably isn’t either’.

This is an area wherein many organisations face issues. You can invest a fortune in your product, website, brand identity, but if your packaging fails to showcase how brilliant your product is, it is likely to fail.

Let your Packaging Design Tell your Story

When developing a packaging design, it is important to consider a brand-new customer, one who has never heard of your products or services. Taking this approach will ensure your packaging tells a story about your brand, guaranteeing that customers will understand what you are aiming to achieve.

Packaging must be educational and informative in order to work. Although it is desired that customers recognise your brand identity, this is not always the case and you must be prepared for this eventuality.

The 5 W’s

Who, When, What, Where and Why?

When creating a design for your products, it is advisory to incorporate the trusty 5 W’s. Who are your target audience? When are your target audience going to realise what the product is based on the packaging? What is the product inside the packaging and does the design represent this? Where are your target audience going to come into contact with your packaging? Why have you chosen to design your packaging in a particular way?

Consider the Logistics

Although the design is our primary focus with your packaging, it is paramount to ensure that it is a manageable design, boasting the correct elements to guarantee functionality. Your packaging must be a protective shield for the product inside, as well as providing the necessary information for a customer to know what the product is. Additionally, your packaging design must be eye-catching on the shelf or the web page, this is so important, ensuring it draws the customers attention to your product, over a competitor’s product.

Packaging Design with Kaizen

At Kaizen, we recognise the importance of packaging design. We hold esteemed relationships with packaging printers across the UK and Ireland to guarantee our packaging can be proficiently developed to ensure success for your product.

Kaizen can create packaging design for a wide variety of products, including food packaging sleeves, gift bags, gift boxes, labelling and essentially all types of outer packaging.

With esteemed clients such as Bushmills Whiskey, Slims Healthy Kitchen and Thompsons Rum, Kaizen have an outstanding team of experts, who have advanced packaging design for many products, ensuring they appear pride of place in-store and online.