Brand & design terms explained
So, you know you’re ready to invest in a new brand and website. Butttt there’s just one teeny-tiny thing standing in your way - intimidation! *Dun dun dunnnn*...
You’ve been reading up on web and brand design online and are quite frankly bamboozled by all the design speak you hear getting thrown around.
Before we go one step further I’d like you to know something: YOU DON’T HAVE TO KNOW WHAT ALL OF THIS STUFF MEANS! It doesn’t make you stupid, and it certainly doesn’t make you any less professional than someone who does understand some design terms. Luckily for you - I’m the designer and I totally nerd out on all the technical design stuff you hear on the Interwebs!
I’m here today to explain to you in plain simple human non-designey terms all of those weird design words you’ve been hearing about. Hopefully, this brings you a little clarity and shows you that design stuff doesn’t have to be scary or intimidating!
If you have any questions at all then please do feel free to comment on this post or send me a message on Insta.
So, without further ado...let me introduce you to the glossary of scary big design terms:
Brand:
A brand is quite simply, how people perceive your business. It’s an umbrella term that encompasses all aspects of your brand from your messaging, visuals, experience, tone, mission and all that’s in between!
Branding / Brand Image:
Your brand image is basically like your business's vibe. You can use your brand image to shape the perception people have of your business. What kind of mood do you want your business to give off? What makes your business unique? Who is your target audience? A lot of work goes into establishing your brand image. It can be surprisingly challenging to answer these questions at first, but once you’ve put in the groundwork and got really clear on your brand image - it can serve as an important foundation for building a strong, unique brand that connects with your customers.
My brand and website package covers all of this juicy stuff! I provide all of my clients with a series of workbooks and questionnaires that ask all the right questions in order to help them get super clear on what their brand is all about! If you’d like a taster of the kind of questions I’ll ask you, download my brand discovery workbook below👇
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Brand Identity:
Your brand identity is all of the visual elements and details that appear across all assets of your business. If you’ve done the groundwork and established a solid brand image, then all of the elements in your brand identity will work to show off what your business is all about. A strong brand identity will set you apart from your competitors and will form a strong connection with your target customer. A brand identity typically includes the following elements:
Logo
Secondary logo (also known as favicons and logo marks - do not fear, these terms are explained below!)
Patterns
Colour palette (aka your chosen colour scheme - this one’s explained below too!)
Fonts
Images
Icons
Illustrations
Once you have established all the elements of your brand identity, these can be used together to form the visual building blocks for your brand. This leads me nicely on to my next design term...
Collateral:
Brand collateral is all of the finished materials used to market, communicate and sell your business to the world! Brand collateral (also known as marketing collateral or marketing materials) covers all of the items below (to name a few!):
Social media posts
Website
Price lists
Business cards
Letterheads
Event graphics
Staff uniform
Signage
Packaging design
Leaflets
Flyers
Posters
Email design
Email signatures
You can use all of the elements from your brand identity to create a cohesive, striking set of collateral pieces that are unique to your business!
Target Audience:
These are your people! Your tribe! I like to refer to them as your dream client. Your whole business should be built around how you’re going to serve your dream client and how you can build trust and encourage them to buy from you or book your services.
Establishing who your dream client is can trickier than it sounds, and might not always be who you think it is! If you were to book in with me, I’ll send you a dream client questionnaire to help you do just that! The questionnaire is designed to really dig deep and define exactly who your dream client really is. We’ll be getting really specific here and I will encourage you to focus on just one person and think about exactly what their biggest pain points, needs and desires are, and exactly why they would want to work with you.
Brand Voice:
How you present your brand through your words, voice and communication. This all goes back to your chosen brand image and the vibe you want to give off.
Think about your target audience and how you want them to feel when they interact with your business. Maybe your target audience consists of young, busy female entrepreneurs so your tone is chatty, informal, approachable and relaxed.
Your brand voice feeds into so many areas of your business, whether it’s a blog post, social media profile or your services page.
It can also be referred to as ‘tone of voice’.
Re-branding:
So, you’ve already got a brand and an identity - but perhaps it isn’t feeling like the home you’d like for your business? Perhaps you’ve grown out of it, or your colour scheme needs revising, or your logo isn’t as unique as you’d like - these are all signs that you’re ready for a re-brand.
This is where you’d hire a brand designer to help define your new online home.
Brand Guidelines:
Brand guidelines are a document that includes all of the key elements of your business's branding in one place - everything from your brand voice, target audience and values, to all the visual elements from your brand identity (colour palette, fonts, logos etc). You can see this as your brand bible that you can always come back to ensure you’re keeping everything cohesive and staying true to your brand.
Brand Style Guide:
Have you seen those beautiful graphics on Pinterest that combines all the logos, colours, typography and patterns of a brand in one place? Well, that’s exactly what a style guide is! It’s kind of like a visual version of your brand guidelines - all elements of your brand identity in one place. This is something I’ll create for you if we work together on a brand and website package.
Strategy:
Now, this has got to be the term I hear getting thrown around the most! Sometimes it’s ‘brand strategy’ sometimes ‘design strategy’ or ‘strategic design’. Either way, the term gets used pretty broadly and can often sound pretty darn intimidating.
Put really simply, I like to see strategy as having a plan and intention behind the pretty design. It’s the process of laying the groundwork in order to create a strong, effective design piece that will support your needs and help you to grow in the future!
For instance, my website and branding projects will always start with strategy. This usually involves having a call with my client and discussing the main goals of their business, brand and website. Then I’ll create a plan of action that maps out all of the elements needed in order to support their goals. Once the strategy is in place, the pretty design then gets layered over the top to reinforce all of these points.
Mood Board:
A mood board is a collection of different images that give a visual feel for the direction you’d like a certain project to go in. These images can be anything from colour schemes, logos and patterns, to lifestyle images, interiors and quotes. The main goal here is to pick whatever images really resonate with you and your target audience. In my design projects, I ask my clients to use Pinterest to select these images which I’ll then use to create a mood board for their website and brand.
White Space:
I like to think of white space as a way to let your content breathe! Any section of a design or space around an object or text that is unused is also known in design speak as ‘white space’. This space does not necessarily need to be white.
When used well, it can help to create balance and guide your audience through your content.
White space is your friend!
Logos & Logo Variations:
You may have heard a load of different logo terms thrown around and be wondering - what’s the difference? And why do I need more than one logo? Isn’t one enough?
Well, in my opinion, this depends on the design of your main logo. Usually, your main logo will consist of a few different elements such as a symbol, company name and a strapline. It may not scale down to small sizes very well or work across all the different formats you would need it to work in.
Primary logo
This is your main company logo. The one you will most likely use across the bulk of your materials including the header of your website, brochures, front covers of PDF’s (including workbooks, price lists etc). This version of your logo will be the most complex and take up the most space - so you’ll want to use it where it can have pride of place and really make a statement.
Secondary Logo / Alternative Logos
Secondary or alternative logos are usually a more simplified, stripped back version of your main logo with less detail, but is still recognisable as your brand. See how it’s not a totally different design altogether? All logos and variations are designed to work cohesively together and represent your brand image across a range of different formats. Usually, secondary logos tend to be stacked or more portrait in orientation, this detail means they work well at a smaller scale or spaces with restricted width.
Not only are these alternative versions great to use in smaller, restricted spaces, but they can also add an extra level of detail and depth to your marketing materials by using them as backgrounds, patterns or even little embellishments to social media and blog posts
Marks
Logo marks are like an even more refined, simplified version of your primary logo. They usually consist of just an icon or initials of your brand. They’re designed to be used at very small scales whilst still having an impact and legibility. Think website favicons (these are explained below!), social media profile images, stickers and stamps. Like the secondary logos, logo marks can work really well to add detail to your materials and can be used as a base to create custom patterns for your brand.
Favicon
The small icon or symbol you see for websites in the tabs of a web browser, also known as a website icon or a shortcut icon. Its main purpose is to help visitors locate back to your page easier when they have multiple tabs open. It often consists of an element taken from your main company logo - here’s mine:
Colour Palette:
This is simply the selection of colours that you use to market your business. A colour palette is one of the elements that make up a brand identity. Colours can serve as a hugely important way of setting the tone of your business. Different colours can give off certain moods, along with certain shades and tints of a colour.
Colour palettes are an element that can often get overlooked. In all my years as a designer, I can tell you that when picking a colour palette, you should always keep your target audience top of mind! What emotions do you want your brand to give off? How do you want your customers to feel when they interact with your brand? This all feeds into the groundwork you have to put in when forming your brand identity. If you take away one thing from this post, let it be this: always keep your audience top of mind in every decision you make for your business.
Repeat: Always keep your audience top of mind in every decision you make for your business!!
If we work together, I will select around 5 colours to form your brand colour palette. All colour choices will be intentional and firmly rooted in what would connect the most with your target audience. These colours will then be used throughout your website and across any other materials I create for you. It’s amazing how simple colour selection can help to create a certain style and aesthetic for your brand.
RGB:
RGB stands for the colours red, green, and blue. This is the measuring system used for anything digital or anything to be used on a computer screen.
CMYK:
CMYK stands for the colours cyan (blue), magenta (red), yellow, and black. This is the colour scale used for tangible printed materials or anything that will not be shown on a computer screen!
Hex Code:
A hex code is a 6-digit colour code generally used on the web in HTML, CSS, SVG and other computing applications to represent colours. A hashtag is always in front of the colour code (ex: #5390F5) Hex codes are used as a replacement for a colour name and can be a bit more custom than using RGB.
Resolution:
Resolution refers to the number of pixels on a screen and the sharpness of a design. High resolution means more pixels and generally more space and detail, while low resolution means fewer pixels and often less space
When designing for print-based materials, you will need to ensure your photos are clear, so they will need to be high resolution.
Typeface:
Is a whole font family. For instance, say you use Arial across your brand materials. You use Arial Bold for headings, Arial Regular for the main bulk of your text, and Arial Italic for quotes and other key snippets of information you want to highlight.
Arial is the typeface - whereas Arial Bold, Regular and Italic are fonts that sit within the Arial typeface (or font family, if you prefer!)
Font:
I think we covered this one in the term above! A font is a specific variation (in style, size or weight) of a typeface.
Typography:
The selection and arrangement of fonts used throughout your branding - these can be varying in size, typeface, colour and style to create a certain aesthetic that compliments the rest of your brand image.
Vector:
A graphic created on a computer, that can be scaled to any size without losing quality.
Confession time! This blog post was originally going to include website terms as well, but I got a bit carried away and really went to town on the brand and design terms. So, I’ve decided to split this into two posts. Stay tuned for the website terms post in a few weeks time!
I really hope this post serves a helpful resource for you and makes design feel a little bit less daunting! If you have any questions at all please feel free to get in touch or comment below.
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