Bringing your brand’s story to life can be one of the most fulfilling adventures you’ll undertake. It typically begins with a thunderstorm of great ideas, as you imagine all the things your brand could become. You might ask yourself questions like:
- How will it look out there in the world?
- How might it make people feel when they encounter it?
There’s a ton of creative energy flowing through you right now. So let’s harness that, point it squarely in the direction of your ambition, and unleash it as a supersonic laser beam using Godaddy Studio.
The goal of the brand identity process is to establish three cornerstones:
- Your brand’s story
- Your brand’s design toolkit
- Your brand’s collection of templates
With these in place, you’ll gain a huge head-start towards reaching your brand’s ambitions.
Let’s begin by tackling the first cornerstone below.
Your story
Your biggest challenge will be standing out in a very noisy and crowded marketplace. It’s always been hard to do this, but even more so in a post-COVID landscape. The pandemic has ignited an explosion of tiny new businesses responding to our new reality — and the obstacle course just became much more complex.
But as we say at GoDaddy Studio: It’s a playground, not an obstacle course.
It’s a brand value that’s literally printed and framed on our wall. Additionally, design will be a major component of your small business as you continue to jostle for eyeballs on social media.
With GoDaddy Studio’s branding tools, you can create a system that will make your design process quick, easy, and fun. That’s what we want to do for you.
How to find your voice
There are two fundamental things that are going to help you find your voice and stand out from the crowd. Think about the following questions as your navigate your online branding:
- Meaning: Why are you doing what you’re doing and what value does it add to the world?
- Difference: How are you unique to your audience and why should they choose you from all the options they have?
Figuring out your brand identity
Your story isn’t just about how you got here: it’s also about where you want to go. The vision.
When things feel muddled or overwhelming on your business journey (and they definitely will sometimes), you’ll want to bring your focus back to the vision. This will help restore clarity and motivation.
Your story needs to be authentic, rooted in truth. Being authentic is just another way of saying being original, and that’s where your power lies.
“Originality is an advantage,” according to Matt Riley, Brand Strategist at GoDaddy Studio. “It always has been. But now research shows that originality creates an economic advantage for brands too.”
You’re way more likely to reap the rewards of your marketing campaigns (i.e make money), if consumers think your brand stands out in the sea of sameness.
Related: Make your brand pop — How to pick your brand graphic style
Developing your brand’s truths
Matt also believes that truth is at the heart of everything: “it’s super important. Especially when it comes to an authentic and long-lasting brand story.”
In his view, there are four truths you need to deeply consider at the beginning of your brand journey – or at any point when you feel adrift.
- Your truth: What is the unique product, service or company characteristic that gives your story its roots?
- Audience truth: A truth about your audience. A need or desire that you can meet or satisfy. This is where you really connect with what your audience requires from you.
- Truth of the moment: Something big, important, and possibly exciting in culture or your category that you can support or challenge.
- Truth of your mission: Beyond profit, why are you doing what you’re doing?
Combining your responses to each of these questions, you should arrive at your brand story – a concise statement that sums up your unique offering. Let’s take a look at a hypothetical example to showcase what we mean.
Hypothetical scenario
Acacia is a skincare brand that produces gender-neutral products from organic ingredients. They focus on quality over quantity, leaving the smallest possible trace in their production processes.
Our truth: Acacia is a committed member of 1% for the planet.- Audience truth: The modern consumer needs to create substantial impact with their daily rituals.
- The moment: Intersectional environmentalism calls for the protection of people and the planet.
- The mission: A world where we all live in harmony with nature and each other.
All of this information comes together in Acacia’s strategic storyline:
The end result is a simple, playful, statement that positions Acacia as an eco-conscious beauty brand. It signifies a human heart and purpose beyond selling bottles of lotion.
It’s worth getting all these ideas out of your head and into a few lines. Why not make it your very first design in GoDaddy Studio? Create a basic poster with your brand story, and get it printed for your home office. Radiate that positive energy into your space.
Locking down your design toolkit
With your distinct story in place, you can begin moving towards a distinct visual identity with your online branding. This will not only bring your story to life, but also develop your brand’s personality.
Certain words and ideas within your story might activate visual ideas. Alternatively, you might already have a strong inkling of where you’d like to go.
The power of visual storyboarding
Before you start locking down your unique fonts, colors, and graphic style into a brand identity toolkit, try making a vision board for your brand. This is really just a sketch of what the final painting might look like.
Visual storyboarding allows you play with different design elements like:
- Colors
- Images
- Graphics
- Fonts
Go for anything that you’re naturally drawn to and trust your instincts. Then, start organizing your visual ideas into templates.
Exploring templates that work for your brand’s story
Within the GoDaddy Studio app, you can find plenty of customizable templates to get started. Use them to build out your ideas and help you visualize your unique brand style.
Creating customized template collections
In the Acacia example we illustrated at the beginning of this article, it all emerged from a very rough vision board. But you can imagine how different the end result would have been if the initial vision board looked something like this:
With the Godaddy Studio app, you can create a collection of customized templates to help you play around with different ideas or contrasting brand identities. You can then use these visual tools to help determine which one fits your brand’s story best.
Start creating today
Alright! You’re ready to begin the brand identity journey. Start with a story and a vision that shows the world your meaning and difference. You can get into the logos, images, graphics, fonts, and color palettes in due course. But for now, jump headfirst into the GoDaddy Studio app and start falling in love with the process.
Create your brand new brand with GoDaddy Studio today. Find your story, and share it with the world!
