How to design your own brand?

Just as you read it … in this article, we will discuss with you to design your own brand. It is a matter of giving a few brushstrokes on the fundamental steps you must take to give identity to a company, project or personal brand.

Yes, nobody has said that it was easy and above all, we do not take responsibility for the results …

#1 – Make a brand workshop

Every creative process must begin with a reflective and participatory period. Your brand, your company, or your project will coexist in a market full of competitors, customers and suppliers. It will coexist in a constellation of names, that’s why a good naming is so fundamental and analyze where the project is going to be located.

It is not enough to lift your finger and predict where the wind is blowing. There has to be a more in-depth analysis. Find out about methods and tools that can help you make decisions. It is not unreasonable to initially make strategic proposals that can later be used for the marketing plan or even for the strategic plan.

#2 – Conduct a research

Once you have decided on the competitive environment in which you will live, it is time to start thinking about concrete ideas. Do an inspirational search. Take a look at what the competition has done. Look beyond borders and discover new international projects.

Make a presentation with these inspiring ideas as a collage to have the clearest ideas. Once you’ve gotten soaked in the spirit of the project, it’s time to take the next step.

design your own brand

#3 – Do you have the necessary tools?

First of all, we hope that to create the logo do not have in mind to use paint, which more than one scare has already given to some. The most convenient thing is to have all the Adobe applications, including Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and others, so you can apply the brand to all media

It is true that there are also other free or less expensive utilities that allow vector drawing and replace Illustrator, such as Inkscape, Gravit or CorelDraw. However, they have many limitations. To illustrate, you can use a graphic tablet that will allow more freedom of stroke than a mouse.

(Optional)

Before continuing, you can consider studying some notions of design. Because unless you are self-taught and there is a Picasso inside you, you will hardly be able to capture what is in your head.

#4 – Poses 2-3 lines

Now that you have decided which software to use, it’s time to start design your own brand. Surely the first thing you draw is not what you finally choose, so it is essential that you consider several lines or alternatives. Creating between 2 or 3 different is normal.

Try to make each one unique, with different personalities to cover the different tastes of your target audiences. To make it easier to imagine which one will finally be chosen, make a couple of applications for each of them. The typical thing is to present mockups of business cards, stationery or the website.

#5 – Consult with the nearest people

It is not good to work alone. The opinions of others should always be welcome. Especially because it is the people outside the idea who in the future will be potential customers. Do not cut yourself and do the participatory process, make a vote even if you see it necessary. The more feedbacks you have, the better.

design your own brand

#6 – Develop the winning proposal

Now that you know where the brand creation project will go (because you still do not have a definitive one), it is necessary to polish those defects typical of the production phase. Leave the logo clean, finished and in high quality. When you look at it, you say: it has been well and you do not need to make any more changes.

Finally, you already have your own logo! It seems that the time and money you have invested finally pays off. Only a small nuance: although you do not have to make changes, the work with the brand has only just begun.

#7 – Design a brand manual

Now that you have what you were looking for, if you want you can frame your logo or you can use it. It is clear that the brand will need to be applied in different formats and surfaces. It will be on web pages, on social networks. It will even be used by third parties as customers or suppliers. Therefore you have to make clear what the rules of use and application are.

The first of the 10 commandments of graphic design defines that every logo will be accompanied by a brand manual. The applications on different colors, materials and corporative elements among others are contemplated. You will determine what can and cannot be done with the brand.

#8 – Develop all the applications you need

This is the most exciting moment of the design your own brand. This is the time to apply it to those elements that you have thought about in the brand manual. For each of them you must perform some final arts that you will send to production.

You will have to take into account cutting margins, printing methods, kind of inks, materials … In short, fundamental considerations so that in the printing house or the place you go to do not ask you to come back where you came from.

Cost Of Hours

Brand workshop:  5-10 hours + Research: 2-4 hours + Tools: 3-6 hours + Line development:  32-48 hours + Consultation: 1-3 hours + Final proposal development: 7-10 hours + Manual brand: 10-15 hours + Application development:  15-20 hours

Estimated total (for low): 75 hours

Conclusions

There you have an estimate of the hours it will take you to develop a brand. Now translate it into money, because only you know what it costs an hour of your time. It’s time for you to take accounts.

As you have seen, design your own brand is not a task that lasts, much less a working day. We have already presented you with the necessary tools and steps so that you can create a brand on your own.

, , ,

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.