How to Choose Your Brand’s Visual Language

Everything you need to know about the elements that make up a rich and accurate visual language for your brand can be found right below in the text.

Whether you’re a small business owner or managing a personal brand, chances are you’ve dipped your toes into social media content creation. You may have a website or a landing page, a LinkedIn or Facebook cover, and perhaps even a business page.

Possessing these digital assets grants your brand visibility. But have you truly honed this visibility with a clear grasp of the messages you wish to convey? Have you meticulously considered the elements accompanying your images in the digital landscape?

This article aims to equip you with the foundational knowledge to embark on this journey and cultivate a design language that amplifies your brand’s messages.

Let’s kick things off with a straightforward experiment…

Take a glance at the two logos below and try to instinctively grasp what each logo represents to you. Look into the target audience of the brand, the product or service offered, and the industry it operates in.

Attempt to understand the intended audience for each brand.

What is visual language anyway?

I assume most of you thought that the first logo is for a store selling handmade baby and children’s products or at least organic products.

Products found in a flagship store but not sold in pet stores or pharmacies.

The second logo is probably for a spa or lifestyle treatments with techniques and influences from the Far East.

So what do we actually know?

Visual messages inundate us all day long, and as a result, our brains are adept at categorizing colors, textures, compositions, and fonts into various product types and markets.

If you understand this process, rest assured your audience does too. Therefore, crafting the right visual and design language for your business holds a lot of importance.

Now, it’s essential to mention that while I’m not a graphic designer, I managed to develop all the branding for my business through research, trial and error, and guidance from professionals.

I firmly believe that our brand’s narrative begins with words, values, vision, and mission, coupled with continuous business storytelling. However, it’s bolstered by visuals, making it crucial to invest in this aspect.

The good news is, you don’t need to break the bank to achieve this. With some effort, you can create your visual language (up to a certain point) in a manner that benefits your business.

Remember, your brand’s visual identity is omnipresent – on social networks, websites, sales pages, product materials, customer communications, and more.

It serves as a communication system, conveying messages through visual elements like colors, fonts, recurring shapes, and element hierarchy.

A brand’s visual language enables our audience to internalize its values and interpret its world, speaking directly to the intended audience.

For about 85% of people, visuals are paramount, signifying that aesthetics and appearance hold significant weight. Consumers are often willing to pay more for products with attractive packaging, assuming it reflects superior quality.

As business owners, we must grasp how appearance influences brand perception and leverage it to showcase our brand in the best light possible.

For clarification: Luxury branding isn’t always superior. If there’s a disparity between a brand’s quality and its branding, it becomes apparent to the audience. Similarly, if I run a fast-food restaurant, my visuals should resonate with the target audience and reflect the cuisine served.

Ultimately, the visual language should bolster the business, not befuddle the audience about what they’re getting.

Let’s talk about logos

In my opinion, not every business needs a logo.

These are not the kinds of things we can’t succeed without at the beginning of our business.

But it is important to create something that will be memorable. That is, even writing the name of the business in a fixed font and using it as a logo is enough.

If you want to invest in a logo, start by asking what values you want to convey and what is important for people to understand about your brand.

Then, make sure the logo is simple on the one hand and memorable on the other.

I really recommend doing competitive research and trying to understand what is relevant to your market, but not to create a logo like your competitors, but specifically to get out of the mold and find something unique that will resonate with the target audience and make your brand stand out.

I really love logos that are gray or black, and then you can use them on the brand’s colorfulness and also turn them into white on a dark background.

If you want a colorful logo, it’s important to choose your color palette first.

Color palette

Your color palette should evoke emotions and create loyalty to the brand.

Whenever I write “loyalty” it feels like I’m a smooth politician looking for blind loyalty. But the truth is that my intention is to create a deep relationship with your audience so that when they need something you offer, it’s clear that they will choose you because they already know the value you have to offer.

Used correctly, colors can create psychological and subconscious connections with your audience.

Although there is real science behind color selection, if you are a brand of a man or woman leading the action, I would ask you which colors you like and why.

Try to answer why you are drawn to a particular type of color. This way, you can know how to incorporate them into your brand.

My brand’s colors are colorful and diverse.

I consider myself someone who is both, both, and both, so it didn’t suit me to choose just one leading color.

The versatility of my personality is expressed in colors and the different messages they symbolize.

Fonts

Similar to colors, fonts say something about our brand.

This doesn’t mean you have to buy fonts for thousands of shekels like big brands do, but you can actually look for a free font that speaks to you.

In my opinion, what’s important is not to use outdated fonts like David and Ariel, but to look for open fonts and to carefully choose a font like this over another font.

For example, ‘Varela round’ is a light and round font that symbolizes flexibility compared to heebo which is more square and gives a more businesslike feeling.

After choosing the font, it’s important to define specific sizes and weights for titles, subtitles, and text. This way, we create guiding lines for the font usage for our brand.

Imitation

Let’s start with the fact that Shutterstock images are pictures that need to be carefully chosen whether they are suitable for our brand or not.

If our value is authenticity and transparency and then we use a purchased image – it can be perceived as lack of credibility by the audience.

Pictures that we take or pictures of ours are always always preferred over using purchased images.

The images and graphics we use for our brand must match the style of the logo, colors, speak to the target audience, and characterize our values within them.

Examples that come to mind >>

If your target audience is tech companies, the design should be innovative, clean, and accompanied by icons and visuals.

If your target audience is women and your product is lifestyle, the design should be soft, with soft elements and atmospheric images.

Try to understand exactly what look & feel you want to create for your brand – and don’t be afraid that it’s not perfect.

It’s really okay to refine the language as we get to know our target audience and the impact of our actions.

I recommend creating guidelines for the brands to maintain consistency.

Graphic designers can really help you both set these boundaries and design templates for you to update easily.

However, this is an expense of several thousand shekels. If you’re not there yet, feel free to join my “Design Without Designers” course that helps small business owners create the visual foundation for their business.

Implementing design in business

Most businesses have many fronts.

Ask yourself if your business is only online or also in print (business cards, letterhead, stickers, packaging…).

Identify the platforms where your business is present, whether it’s social networks, websites, email marketing, YouTube, or any other platform.

Next, consider how your visual language will manifest across these platforms.

Consistency is key. Whether it’s cover photos, videos, email signatures, post images, Instagram carousels, YouTube thumbnails, or any other visual component, maintaining a cohesive visual language fosters brand recognition among your audience.

When we integrate values, purpose, and goals into the About page of our website alongside the business story, we’re weaving a narrative that extends beyond visuals alone.

Crafting our brand strategy, which intertwines visual and verbal storytelling, hinges on deftly merging the essence and actions of our business with our chosen language and visual elements.

This entails integrating the brand’s verbal messages into every facet of our operations – from website design and sales pages to social media posts, email marketing campaigns, advertising attempts, and customer service interactions.

It’s crucial to recognize that as our business evolves, our core values, target audiences, and products may evolve as well. Embrace these shifts as pivotal growth opportunities.

Consequently, our brand identity must evolve too.

Periodically revisiting and updating our brand identity ensures it remains aligned with our business’s trajectory. This doesn’t mean overhauling everything every few months, but rather refining our appearance to reflect our brand’s development.

After three years, I underwent a rebranding process as my business expanded.

The new appearance exudes maturity, precision, and clarity. I’m delighted with the outcome and wouldn’t change a thing.