What is a visual system in branding?

Visual system is a fancy term that is used for all the branding collaterals that you have for your brand. It is inclusive of your logos, brand colors, textures that make the brand you. Having all these helps to define your brand and helps it to distinguish you from others. A business must always have a visual branding or any type of brand identity to identify themselves from others. Creating an impression with the audience is extremely important. Statistically small and medium sized business have pointed out that having a proper brand strategy in place has helped attract more customers to their business.

There are components put in place which encompasses the visual branding system.

Components of visual system:

• Logo: One of the primary components of visual branding is the logo. Logos are made of symbols, icons or just the business name. Logos are important because it gives identity to a business who has no name. Having a brand identity is very important for the business. Once your business starts to pick up, it easily becomes known and identifiable to people.

• Typography: Typography is ideally the kind of style or shaping that one uses in the logo. A lot of brands come up with their own unique font or can use an existing font to tweak it. Brand strategy requires typography to be in place for the visual system to align with the full package. Typography can help identify the personality the brand matches. Visual branding which uses a sans-serif font isn’t considered to be very modern, whereas a brand which uses a more serif style or a contemporary font can be identified as modern or someone who is new.

• Color Palette: Every brand has a color that resonates with them, in visual branding it is essential to have particular colors which are just yours and unique to identify with your brand. These colors are usually very specific shades and hues, which often creates uniqueness. A lot of industries like restaurants do have to use similar colors which work for them like fast food restaurants primarily use red and yellow because these uplift mood and entice hunger. This is a brand strategy for fast food restaurants.

• Graphics: Graphics are an extension of the main brand. These are icons and shapes that are used to bring out elements which are hidden within the visual branding. These can include icons, drawings, emblems and even full scale illustrations. Graphics can help to shape the entire visual strategy within the brand.

• Imagery: Imagery is a very important component, usually a spokesperson or a person is selected which helps to convey the visual branding and the whole idea of the business. When it comes to images the brand must select proper images which curate the brand strategy which conveys the true feelings of the brand. All imagery will not work in this case.

• Physical brand assets: These are printable assets of a company’s brand. If your company is an online based company with no physical office or presence, this step can be avoided. Having printable assets provides companies an identity. These goodies can be in the form of brochures, merchandise, cups and other miscellaneous accessories. This helps establish a visual system because this contributes to a company’s brand identity in a material way.

Steps to consider when designing a visual system:

• Tell a story through this: Your visual communication should tell a story about how your product or service will be solving problems for the consumer who will consume the product. Graphic design is essential for visual strategy, this is where the visual communication comes into play.

• The brand identity should be defined: This sounds very intimidating but it doesn’t really have to be that tough. You do not need to have all the strategies for the visual identity decided in one round. Branding is ever evolving and can be modified as time goes by. However in order to establish a brand strategy one must at least know the vision and mission of the brand, the principles, core values, problem solving, who is your audience and demographic. These are a few things to consider for the brand identity.

• Keep it as simple as you can: In hindsight, you want to convey a lot of things through your visual system; but this can complicate things for you. Keeping it simple is important because it can confuse the audience if your branding is too cluttered or has too many elements. Simplicity is the key for keeping a simple and easy to interpret brand identity. The message should be crisp, with a good way to help recall the audience what your brand is all about.

• Should work for all mediums: The visual identity must be flexible enough to be on all of platforms. The logo should be scalable from the tiniest of objects to a full size billboard. Today there is no limitation to where the branding identity will go because the scalability of promotion has increased drastically.

Conclusion

Visual system is very important for a business whether you are starting out or an established business. For established businesses, you should always consider to update your brand identity in order to stay relevant in the market. A brand identity is a make or break system for a business. Having a visual system makes the audience related to you far and beyond than just having a logo. Creating a visual system is needed and must be done to help your business thrive.