ShoeBox Creative is a graphic design company in the Northern Beaches of Sydney, and we specialise in communication solutions for businesses. Specifically, we focus on brand design - we help you identify and build a brand that sends a clear message to your customers about your product or services.
A brand is more than just a name and a logo design – a brand identifies your core business and creates an emotional interaction with your clients. So how do you build a brand? Well here are 5 essential steps you must take to build your brand.
- Identify your target market: Who are your customers? What are their priorities? Their challenges? What will make their lives more exciting, easier or happier? Once you can define your target market and what drives them – in essence their ‘personality’ – then you can determine how your brand design can fit in with their lives.
Be very specific here because you want to find that missing link or that ‘sweet spot’ in their lives where your brand becomes the answer they are searching for.
- Create your unique selling proposition (USP): This must be something that only your brand can offer – something that your competition cannot deliver. Remember when Domino’s Pizza came out with their winning USP – “Fresh hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less – or it’s free”?
This was a huge success for Domino’s Pizza because everyone wanted to see if they could get a free pizza! And while other pizza companies copied Domino’s USP to some degree, because it was so successful, it was and always will be the one USP that Domino’s is famous for.
- Be honest and be consistent: Your USP and your brand design must give an honest message. Be honest in what your products or services can deliver. Your brand’s message must be reliable and unchanging over the short term.
Yes – over time your message may change to keep step with people’s changing expectations, but the overall message about your brand must be consistent.
- Define your mission statement: Your mission statement is your company’s purpose, your goal, your very reason for existing. It can be very simple, as for example McDonald’s mission statement is ‘To be our customers’ favourite place and way to eat and drink’, whilst for Nike it is, ‘To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world’.
Your mission statement keeps your company and your employees on track. It not only establishes the direction of your company but defines your core goals to both your employees and your customers.
- Create a distinctive logo: A logo design is a visual representation of your business. Think of McDonald’s golden arches – this is simply the first letter of the company – but it is visually stunning and instantly recognisable. To help you create your own logo, brainstorm some ideas with your employees and then talk to a marketing expert on branding – because brand design is not all about the logo design.
For more information on how graphic design can jump start your business or just to enquire about logo design and brand design - contact us at our Northern Beaches studio in Sydney.
