There are 3 things that make up the image of a business, but these are often confused and blurred together.
Branding, identity, and logo design are all integral to a memorable and trustworthy business. They are what first comes to mind when anyone thinks of your business, and each of them holds a huge weight.
Each of them plays a different role in the perception of your business. Let’s go into how they work together to do so.
Brand
A brand is a lot more than most people think it is. When you think of what Nike’s brand is, you might think about their logo, font, or tagline. But a brand is not just defined by how a company represents itself.
The thing about a brand is that you cannot choose it. You can have a large influence on it, but ultimately, your customers are the ones who decide your brand for you.
The brand of a business is defined by how their personality, values, and aims are perceived by their audience. It’s all about perception.
The personality, values, and aims of a business partly make up their brand. But what’s even more important, is how their audience perceives them.
Summed up, a brand is:
- intangible and undecidable by the company
- their complete ‘corporate image’
- the relationship between a business and their audience
- how people feel about your intentions and purpose
Logo
A logo is the simplest way to identify and remember a business. It’s like your name – people don’t remember you as “that guy with the brown hair who works in finance”. They remember you as Joe, or Alice, or Steve.
A logo isn’t there to explain what a business does, it’s there so that people can remember and recognise it.
Ultimately, it is:
- a visual icon or mark
- an easy way to remember who you are and what you do
- what people see every time they interact with your business
- essential for a business to be memorable
Identity
Identity design is based around all the visual aspects of a business. It is made up of many things – the logo, stationery, website, products & packaging, uniform, and more.
To keep a consistent identity, a business needs guidelines for visually representing themselves. This means colour theme, fonts, layouts, and so on. Using these along with the logo allow a brand to be recognisable just by looks.
In summary, the identity of a business is:
- every piece of visual imagery that people will see
- the physical media that people come in contact with and interact with
- the look of all physical materials and digital platforms your company uses
Outline
Brand is how a business is perceived as a whole – what people think about them.
Logo is the simplest way to visually represent a business, using an icon or mark.
Identity is the complete set of imagery that people see when they look at a business.
So, now you know what all three are and how they work together. If you ever decide to brand or rebrand your business, this should help you to plan out which order to do things in. Creating a consistent image and perception for your business can build brand awareness, improve reputation, and inspire trust. These are going to be essential ingredients in your recipe for success.
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