4 tips for choosing your visual identity.

Defining the visual identity of your company is no easy task, imagining a logo that represents you, finding the perfect color combination, having coherent typography...

Grouped together, these elements form the visual identity of a company, of your brand and are embodied in the form of a graphic charter. This will be the common thread of your identity and its use, because it will maintain coherence and uniformity in all the company's communication media.

The graphic charter has a very distinct role among the stages of creating a business, it gives you an identity, allows you to be recognizable, whether in the street, on a storefront, on your website or on your documents.

So the question is simple, how to carefully define your visual identity? We are used to supporting our clients in their reflections as well as in their design.

Here are some tips to help you have a better vision of what you are looking for.

Why well defining your visual identity will improve your brand? It will be much easier for a brand with a thoughtful, coherent and unique visual identity to endure. A good visual identity must above all be unique, recognizable and must be able to easily represent your world at first glance and allow your future consumers to identify with it.

If all these points are met, then many advantages will present themselves to you:

- You will benefit from a great capacity to unite your customers, to create a community around your brand in complete transparency and it is in particular thanks to this unifying movement that your place will be assured and will be able to maintain itself in your sector. - Your credibility will be confirmed towards your future partners, whether commercial or institutional, and this will allow you to be noticed even more by your prospects. - Your values ​​will be much more easily conveyed to your prospects thanks to your logo, your slogan and your color code. An excellent opportunity to gain their trust in the long term.

The logo is your starting point. The central element of your visual identity, and the key parameter for the development of your future communication.

Whether on your business card, website or invoice header, your logo will be found everywhere on your media, which is why it is necessary to be sure of your choice.

The most effective and fastest way is to call on a professional graphic designer (as a freelancer or within an agency) by explaining your project, your ambitions and thus trusting his creativity so that he can offer you exactly what you are looking for.

A little advice from Sioux to avoid various rendering problems on different media: use your logo!

Normally, a professional graphic designer will very often offer you a logo with several variations, but if this is not the case, do not hesitate and ask them. It is not impossible that your future logo will not appear correctly on your invoices, for example due to its size, its color, if typography is present, and so on.

It is always better to have several versions of your logo to avoid awkward situations in the future.

Let's now move on to the choice of typography, a phase just as important as the logo. It is necessary to integrate into your visual identity the typography(s) to be used and in what context (for an invoice, your website, the logo, etc.)

Choosing a typography can be a much more subtle exercise than you imagine. Because yes, finding the perfect font doesn’t happen in the blink of an eye.

We advise you to test several typographies to really find the one that best matches your identity and which will add something extra that will make all the difference for your future designs, so as not to miss out on the rare gem, you see.

It is important to keep in mind that the choice of a font does not only depend on its aesthetics, but must also be legible and easy to read.

So, how to choose your typography? It’s simple, look at the image you want to broadcast, the context of your brand and the history of your company. It is strongly recommended to work with typography that fits with your business entity and is familiar with the values ​​and personality of your brand.

Because yes, not all typos fit the same sector of activity.

We also prefer to advise you that it is wise to use a maximum of three different typographies, which may differ depending on the medium used.

For example, one typography for print media (paper) and two typographies for your website or blog.

Thousands of fonts exist today, so it's impossible not to find what you're looking for among all these choices.

Take your time, don’t start with the first choices to move on to the next step. Study all the possible choices, compare them, test them to be sure that you have not missed the perfect choice.

Let's move on to the last key element of your visual identity, your color code. This is the step that will bring your business to life, because yes, colors are well known for transmitting emotions to us, without necessarily being aware of it. They set the scene for who you are and make it easier to convey your message.

They significantly influence the perception that can be made of your brand and will allow you to be much more present in the collective unconscious of the public who will recognize you at first glance. As with typography, we advise you to limit yourself to three colors, max. Of these three colors, a degree of importance must be chosen for each of them.

- A dominant color that will use 60% of the surface area of ​​your graphic creation. You can use the color of your choice or the dominant color of your logo. Do not take this choice lightly, take your time and be sure of what you want, because it will be present throughout your visual identity. - A secondary color will be present to serve as contrast alongside the primary color. It represents 30% of creations and allows you to draw the eye to an important element of your media. - An accent color which (if the calculations are correct) will represent 10% of your color palette and will give a slight dynamic side to your creations.

Now you have the keys to distributing your colors. All that remains is to decide which ones to use!

Your choice can be either a simple question of aesthetics or a question of symbolism. Because yes, colors can symbolize so many things!

Of course the symbolism of a color varies from one person to another, it is completely subjective, so don't worry if your neighbor tells you that your choices do not suit him.

Each color has a wide choice of shades, the symbolism can vary in its intensity or its shade for example. But don't neglect the harmony of colors in order to provide a certain coherence, even minimal, in your visuals.

If your creative side ever gets stuck in choosing your color code, you can always refer to the meaning of colors in the world of marketing that many brands use for their visual identities.

Are you a professional and looking for a communication agency for your project? Make an appointment with our team to discuss your project and discover our tailor-made working method.