When you think of a company brand, what comes to mind?

Your initial thoughts might be the logo and tagline of the company, and you’re not wrong. But those two elements only scratch the surface of the various pieces that must come together to form an entire brand. The biggest focal points when developing a brand are ensuring consistency across the board (for all marketing collateral and for any representation of the company) and ensuring the messaging and theme match the point that the organization is striving to get across to its audience. One excellent method for setting up a company for successful brand implementation is through the development of brand standards. Below are elements to consider in your brand standards:

Corporate Colors
You might already have a company color in mind based on your company logo, but not every marketing piece or photo used will have that color. What colors complement your main corporate color, and how would you like to see these colors implemented into your brand identity and image?

Logo
How your logo is used and what it looks like is essential, as it is a direct representation of your company. Using the logo consistently will help build brand strength. The logo can be available for use in multiple formats such as stacked, horizontal and icon. Depending on use, the logo may appear in full color, reversed to solid white, or solid black.

Typography
The fonts used in advertisements, website copy and other brand elements say a lot about how the company is portrayed. Will you use a clean, standard font such as Helvetica Neue? Do you want headlines to be in script, or perhaps always in a sans-serif font and capitalized?

Photography
Do you want to use active lifestyle photos, professional business photos with ambient glows on them or stock photography with overlaying graphic elements? Would you rather stick to only using in-house photography instead of using stock images? Deciding which style of photography to use will help maintain a similar look and feel for all of your marketing collateral.

Messaging
What your company says and how it says it is imperative. Decide what tone you want (professional, educational, humorous, etc.), what style of writing you want (informal, formal, etc.) and under what guidelines (AP Style, Chicago, etc.). Then, most important of all, stick to it! Consistency is key in maintaining a clean and professional brand messaging look and feel.

Mission and Vision
At the end of the day, every employee and every piece of content should reflect your company in the same light. One of the best ways to begin this process is by developing a clear mission and vision for your company that details what the company does and what it stands for. Getting everyone on board with these statements to live by will assist in creating consistent messaging and getting the company’s point and purpose across.

If you’re interested in discussing how to incorporate a consistent brand theme, message and image into your company to effectively reach your target audience and increase visibility and recognition, contact us! Our strategy and design team would love to help.