What are the best ways to design a brand that stands out?

If you don’t know your audience, you won’t appeal to them and you definitely won’t convert them! They need to be attracted to your visual identity, resonate with your brand voice, relate to your storytelling and feel ‘seen’, etc. You can only do that once you *know* your audience. Your brand will always have rival in the same space, solving the same problem.. but it’s *how* you do it and the experience you offer that will make you different. So give it some personality! Mix in a bit of you because people buy from people. If you stay true to yourself and most importantly, true to your audience, you won’t have to worry about rivals. Because no one else will have that unique blend Hence my tagline - BE alternative SO there is no alternative

Conflicting. Are you designing for the brand and the ethos of the brand? Or are you designing for what is attractive visually to the audience? Or as a design purist? Somewhere between all 3 is where you should find the answer. Value proposition, promise and voice are not part of the visual identity.

Define your target audience.?Before you start designing your brand, you need to know who you are designing for. Develop a unique and recognizable brand identity.?Your brand identity is the visual representation of your brand, including your logo, fonts, colors, and imagery. It should reflect your brand personality, values, and purpose. Create an authentic brand voice.?Your brand voice is the tone and style of your communication, both written and spoken. It should match your brand identity and your target audience, and convey your brand message and story.

To be consistent and honest in the process with your brand, make a connection between storytelling and feeling that enhance your changes

Every design should be relatable and should respect the norms and values of the community it's targeting. People love being respected, if brands do that, they are the right ones.

Note: By ‘style’ they mean ‘visual identity’ When you get to this point, purpose goes out the window and preference takes over. You choose colours that *you* like, fonts *you* think are cool, images that *you* think might work. But you need to base it on aligning to your values, triggering the right emotions and attracting the right audience. Yeah, you may love the colour red, but red is alarming, passionate, bold, and angry. So if your brand is for a calming spa, it’s not appropriate. The font may be cool, but is it legible and accessible? Can’t it be read from a distance? Once you’ve got your visual identity down, be consistent and don’t stray from it! You’re building a presence in your audiences subconscious & gaining brand awareness

Find your style first. Defining your unique style as a freelancer helps you stand out by creating a distinct and recognizable identity. And then be consistent Consistency in your style builds trust and credibility, making it more likely for clients to choose you based on your distinctiveness and the quality of your work.

In addition to the mentioned factors above, you also need to take into consideration usability. - Is it legible once fitted in a circular space or do you need a secondary logo for social media profile photos? - If you’ve aligned left, you may need a central or right-aligned version to fit well on documents or layering in content - Can it be inverted for a full white-out version? Can it be understood without the aid of colour differentiation? & so much more There’s a lot you need to make sure the logo works well as once you have the idea. If it’s not versatile and useable - it’s back to the drawing board.

A logo acts as a identifier of a brand but is not the brand itself. Avoid trying to explain the whole company or services with a logo but instead try to communicate a simple concept, idea, or name of a business in as little detail as possible.

Logo has to tell the story of the brand but not the whole story of the brand. It has to be subtle. Logo always comes down into 1-3 major points of the brand values that reflect the brand. During designing logo, we also have to make sure that we don’t add or show to much stuff in the logo because it will cause readability and understanding issue for the viewer. Logo also have to work on multiple platforms and on different sizes. So, we make sure the size and dimension of the logo. It is necessary to choose typography that suits your logo. You can’t serif typeface with bold icon. It will not be appropriate.

Brand guidelines are a NECESSITY! It’s a clear set of rules, regulations as well as general information that should be able to turn a stranger into a brand ambassador with a single read. They explain the ins and outs of your brand and set the boundaries of what can be done with it. When referring to these guidelines, there will be no room for doubt when crafting content for your brand. No matter whether the Founder is creating it, or a new staff member. Because when there room for doubt, there’s room to go off-brand. Once you do that, your brand identity will lose purpose, your visual identity will become less recognisable, your brand voice will become less authentic and the authority and credibility you’ve built will begin slipping away.

Brand guide is the bible of the brand. It defines boundaries, limitations and show multiple perspectives what can be achieve by working in the define boundary. By using Brand guide appropriately, we can give a brand consistent image. Brand guide includes brand story, logo and their variations and their usage, Color choices and each Color percentage in the brand. The typography choices in digital and print assets. Other design assets that can helps brand to give a unique look.

Just designing the branding is the half work done. ?? Many times just branding doesn't do justice if the brand itself doesn't align with the broader vision & objectives. ?? I have even seen average branding but still people remember the brand due to the services or the vision that the people working there follow. ?? So it's like a team spirit. While half work is done by the designer, the latter half have to be done by the brand & people themselves. ??

Collect and Utilize Customer Feedback: If you're creating a brand for people, then it is important that you actively seek customer feedback and use it to refine and enhance your brand. Customer insights can provide valuable perspectives on how your brand is perceived and opportunities for improvement.

Define Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP): Clearly articulate what sets your brand apart from others. Identify your unique strengths, values, or offerings that make your brand distinct.

To stand out, you must first know your competition. Also remember a brand is more than just a collection of logos and colors. It is a story, a promise, and an emotion, all wrapped into one. Every element, from visuals to experiences, must work together to create a cohesive brand that resonates with your target audience.

While I believe branding is crucial in today’s oversaturated markets on almost all areas of life and I believe so especially because before and besides building my own brand I helped building other brands, I still believe that the core of it is the genuine uniqueness of the product/service. While providing similar products/services to others can be best sold by an outstanding branding strategy, a truly unique offer mostly just needs to be elegantly presented, so that others can also see what you already see.