How To Create Brand Consistency

When it comes to most things, consistency as a best practice is no big secret. Whether you’re trying to shed those extra kg’s, achieve your next financial goal or even just trying get up an hour earlier in the mornings (me at the moment...!), consistency is the key. However, it often gets overlooked especially when it comes to your brand identity. Every element of your brand’s design aesthetic should look like it belongs together. Each piece compliments the other, so that information is balanced and easily consumed.

I don’t want to overwhelm you with the multiple facets of branding & have your eyes glaze over & close exit this article, but I want to give you some key, basic tips on how to create consistency when it comes to the visual aesthetic of your brand identity. 

What does consistency in design actually mean?

Consistency in design refers to maintaining the alignment of values and visuals developed for your brand identity. It’s about making sure that when the users interact with your brand and its design multiple times, they intuitively and unmistakably understand that it represents you.

Who creates my Brand Identity?

Your brand identity will consist of two different aspects.

One – your marketing plan, the plan identifies the target market, the value proposition of the brand or the product/service, the campaigns to be initiated, and the metrics to be used to assess the effectiveness of marketing initiatives.

 Two – Your Visual Brand Style created by a Graphic Designer who specialises in branding aka a Visual Brand Strategist. Your Brand Style is documented in a Brand Style Guide that will consist of your logo/icons, fonts, colours, photography style, signage, social media templates & more. It’s an organic document that will grow as your business does

The Foundations – These elements of your branding are outline in your Brand Style Guide, that is to be shared with anyone working with your brand. This ensures brand cohesion. When sharing your Brand Style Guide, I’d recommend sharing the appropriate files too – logos, fonts, photos, etc. 

Your Logo – a great Graphic Designer will give you the various file formats of your logo for you to use across the various marketing platforms for web, print and social media. Make sure to get the vector file of your logo, this is your print ready file that you can blow up to the size of a billboard or put on a 5mm wide pen and it will not pixelate or distort. When making a choice on the Graphic Designer for your logo design, make sure they give you the vector file of your logo. If they have a story as to why they cannot give it to you, I’d reconsider working with them, as this is the mother of all files from which all other files are created. If you don’t have it… your business branding life can be rather pixelated & complicated. It’s also important to note that Canva does not give you a vector file of your logo…

Your Fonts – Usually you Brand Style Guide will consist of 2-3 fonts, 4 if the Designer was feeling super adventurous… Your Brand Style Guide will outline which font styles are to be used where, i.e., headings, subheadings, and body text.  Don’t use any other fonts other than the ones outlined in your Brand Style Guide. Make sure your Graphic Designer gives you your font files to install on your computer. Whether it’s an Instagram post or a letterhead, only use these fonts. 

Your Brand Colour Palette – Like your font choices, your brand colours will usually consist of around 3 – 5 colours (it varies), with 3 colours as your main hues and one or 2 as the accent colours. Your Brand Style Guide will have a breakdown of these colours for a digital colour space (RGB), for print (CMYK), for pantone and the hex colour code. Only use these colours across your brand marketing materials – Website, posters, business cards, social media templates, signage, the curtains & the drapes!  No guessing colours that may be “closest to” or choosing what colour suits your vibe on the day, only use these colours. The codes are there so you or whoever is working with your brand, can create the same colour in a digital and/or print space. 

In Conclusion - From a workflow perspective, maintaining consistency is highly efficient for your budget and for your time. Consistency in design makes it so that there’s no time wasted in discussing the overall aesthetic values of each design & reinventing the wheel everytime. From posters to websites, there’s no second-guessing on how best to present your brand - the building blocks are already established. Instead, the focus is on the concept and message.