Never underestimate the power of branding for your small business. Branding is essentially what distinguishes your business from others, which is why being consistent is crucial. Colors, images, designs, and fonts all go into establishing your brand. The goal is for consumers to be able to associate specific stylistic choices with your company. Keep reading for our top tips on developing the best branding for small businesses.
1) Select 2 Primary Brand Colors
An identifiable color scheme works wonders for branding. Make sure to keep it simple, with only one or two primary colors for your business ("primary color" meaning consistent color selection--not the primary colors red, yellow, blue). Don't forget to note the Hex codes for your colors, so you can always use the exact shades. Establishing a color scheme and sticking to it helps reflect your brand's personality and make it more identifiable. As you can see from our website and social media, AWV uses our signature dark purple and white to stay on-brand. It's perfectly fine to have more secondary colors in your branding, as it can create wiggle room with design and enable you to fill out more detailed graphics. However, too many colors can get muddy and leave your brand looking uncoordinated. Stick to establishing a simple, identifiable color scheme before experimenting with more colors in your small business's branding.
2) Select a Header Font and a Paragraph Font
Even your font choices matter when it comes to branding for small businesses. Like with color scheme, the key is to stay simple and consistent. Use one font for headers, titles, and large print. Choose a second font for text blocks and smaller print. These fonts should be used in all of your branding--website, printouts, graphics, videos, etc. When selecting fonts, make sure they are easy to read and versatile across your entire brand's presence. Start by deciding if you want to use a serif or sans serif font. Serif fonts have lines or flourishes added to the beginning/end of a letter's stem, like Times New Roman. These fonts are typically considered to be more old-school and are commonly used in books and newspapers. On the flip side, sans serif fonts are missing the extra flourishes, like the font being used now. These fonts are associated more with simple, modern design. Decide which vibe you want to convey with your branding and pick a font from there.
3) Use a Graphic in Your Logo
While it's quite tempting to make your logo just your brand name in a fancy font, that's actually not ideal. For successful branding, your logo needs to be able to stand alone and be identifiable without your business's (full) name. For example, the red, white, and blue Pepsi "globe" is one of the most identifiable logos in the world. While the company has a full version of their logo incorporating both text and their graphic, their globe can stand on its own as an unmistakable Pepsi representation. Like Pepsi's, the ideal logo is simple, clear, and easy to identify on a variety of backgrounds or media. It should also be able to be used in videos and images as a bug/watermark in the lower corner. This helps keep your small business branding consistent, even with content that is otherwise not able to incorporate your signature color scheme and fonts.
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