Breaking Down the Stages of Good Branding with Real-World Examples

What follows is the ultimate guide to good branding. We’ll break down the stages of the brand development process and we’ll highlight some of the best real-world examples of successful branding. 

You’ll learn what makes a brand-building process successful and you’ll see how big companies use branding to their advantage. We’ll dissect great examples of branding and we’ll explain what makes them special. 

Branding is a very broad topic and there are countless books written about it. We’ll try to keep this article detailed enough to give you everything you need to know, yet brief enough to not overwhelm you with information. 

Let’s start this article with a simple question – what is branding? 

What is branding?

Let’s start at the top – what is branding? We can define the brand as the gut feeling your target audience has about your business. It’s what people think about your business. Another good analogy we heard is that your brand is what people say about you when you’re not around. All these definitions are good. They show that branding is often intangible and hard to describe.

What happens if you don’t actively work on your brand? That doesn’t mean people won’t form an opinion about your brand. It just means you won’t be able to influence what they think about you. It’s always better to be the one in charge. And actively working on your presence is the easiest way to make sure your brand is perceived the way you want it to be. 

Branding can have very positive effects on your business. Let’s look at what good branding does for you.

It helps you stand out from the competition. We’ll learn how positioning helps you find a brand gap and dominate your niche later in the article. If you do this step right, you’ll stand out from the competition. You’ll use different messages, you’ll use different fonts and colors, and you’ll behave in a way your target audience loves. 

It helps build brand recognition. We said you need to stand out from the crowd if you want to be seen. The more you stand out, the more memorable you become. We’re drawn to notice things that are different. And the more people notice you, the more they remember you. This helps you become a recognizable presence in the market. 

It creates a consistent brand experience. You’ll have to think deeply about your business when creating your brand. This helps you fine-tune the messages you want to share, and it helps you pick a language you want to use. If you do these two things consistent across all channels, you build a consistent brand experience for your audience. People will know what to expect from you. 

It builds an emotional connection with the target audience. One of the core principles of brand building is listening to people. If you do this correctly and give them what they want, you build loyal fans who promote your brand for you. You can form a deeper relationship with them that helps you grow your business. 

Now that we know what branding is why it matters let’s dive deep into the stages of brand building and look at some real-world examples from famous brands. 

The Stages of Building a Brand

It’s now time to shift our focus to the brand-building stages. We often use the term brand development, and in our case, we could use it interchangeably with the stages of branding. Let’s take a closer look at what good branding looks like. 

Research your target audience

The first step that we need to take care of is defining our brand audience. Your audience is the reason why your brand exists. To put it simply, without an audience, your brand wouldn’t exist. The brand exists to serve its audience. We can define your target audience as a specific group of people that are most likely in need of what your brand offers. These are the people that are looking for the exact same thing you’re offering. 

So why is it so important to define your brand audience? Well, because you have to understand what the people that we’re targeting are struggling with. You have to create an offering that speaks to them and solves a problem that’s bugging them. The bigger the problem that your brand solves, the more successful it will be.

Finding your target audience is a project that starts broad and becomes narrower. The more you know about the people you’re targeting, the better your brand. First, we look at them look at the demographics to define who they are. Demographics are the broadest filter we use when defining our target audience. We usually use gender, age, and sometimes add education, location, and interests when applicable. 

Let’s look at how you would start defining the demographics of your audience. For example, if you’re selling women’s shoes, you can quickly eliminate men as your target audience. Or, if you’re selling power tools, you can eliminate women as your target audience because most people working with power tools are men. 

Keep in mind this isn’t an exact science. Are there some women that do work with power tools? Of course, there are, but there are not many of them, and we’re better off focusing on men, which represent a big portion of our target audience. 

Now that we know who we’re targeting let’s focus on what they’re looking for. You have to find their problems and offer solutions. The deeper you go, the better your offering. Your goal is to understand how your target audience experiences common problems. If you show you understand them, you’ll be able to create an emotional connection with them. You will be able to build a strong brand message that resonates with them and make them feel connected to your brand. 

The more emotionally connected people are to your brand, the more loyal they are. They become your brand advocates and help you reach new customers. 

The hardest part of this whole process is figuring out exactly what kind of troubles and struggles your audience has. Big brands spend a lot of money doing brand research to learn more about what their audience experiences. But let’s assume you’re a smaller brand that cannot afford such a big expense. 

What can you do in your place? The easiest thing you can do is find a place online where your audience talks and hangs out and listen to their conversations. Are there any problems that keep on surfacing? Are they struggling with a few particular things that your product or service could solve? 

Jump into conversations, listen to them, talk to them and ask them questions. The more interested you are, the more likely they are to answer you. And the more you talk to them, the more likely you are to really understand what’s bugging them.

Once you know about the demographics of your target audience and their problems, you can use this data to create buyer personas. A buyer persona is nothing more than a fictional character that represents your average client. We create them because it’s easier to imagine a person when writing your brand promise, story, and messaging. Everything you’ll from this point on, you’ll imagine you’re talking to your buyer persona. 

Let’s recap what we’ve learned about defining your brand audience. These are the questions you need to answer to know who you’re targeting:

• Who are the people in my target audience? What do they look like, and what are their demographics?
• What kind of problems are they facing?
• How are they experiencing these problems?
• Are these problems impacting their lives? Are these problems impacting the lives of people around them?
• How can my product/service help them solve these problems?
• How can I emotionally connect with them? 

Keep your buyer persona near you for the next stages of branding. 

Analyze your competitors

The next thing that you need to do is analyze your competitors. You have to know who you’re competing against in the market. You will use this knowledge to position your offering properly. 

First, start by listing all brands that you know are already on the market. You will probably be able to think of all the big players. Then it’s time to start digging a bit deeper. Open up your search engine and start looking for companies that compete for the same target audience as you. Continue doing this until you have a solid list of companies you’ll include in the research.

We suggest you open a spreadsheet and start noting down all the important information about these companies. Some of the questions you want to answer are:

• Where are they located? 
• What makes them special? 
• Are they’re offering anything different than you? 
• Is their solution solving the same problems as yours?
• How much do they charge? Are they cheaper or more expensive than you are? 

Once you start analyzing your competitors, you will better understand where you stand in the marketplace. You will be able to offer the right solution to the right people. This is also the first step you need to take to properly position your company, so make sure that you do your diligence.

Researching your competitors also helps you better understand your target audience. You might be able to uncover some problems and troubles they’re facing you didn’t know about. You might even be able to expand your offering to address these new problems. 

Another thing you should take into consideration when analyzing your competitors is to observe the language they’re using. You might find common words or phrases that resonate with your target audience. It’s a lot easier to make an emotional connection to your buyers if you use the language that they speak. 

Also, take note of the colors your competitors use. For example, you’ll notice that a lot of brands use natural colors like green and brown in the niche of organic products. Going with something bold like pink would definitely help you stand out in the marketplace.

Now that you know who you’re competing against, it’s time to move on to the next step.

Define your advantages and position the brand

You analyzed your competitors in the previous step, and you probably realized there are a lot of companies aiming to get the attention of the same people as you. If you want to grab the attention of your customer audience, you need to stand out. 

This is where brand positioning comes in. Brand positioning is one if not the most important element of every brand creation process. Let’s first define what brand positioning even is. 

Simply put, brand positioning is a specific place you occupy in your target audience’s brains. Every member of a target audience will form associations about your brand. Your brand positioning is the average of all the associations people form about your brand. 

The goal of brand positioning is to get your audience to associate you with things that help you stand out. Your brand positioning defines how you speak to your audience, what colors you use, and how you present your products or services. All to occupy that specific space in the minds of your customers. 

You need to consider three important elements of brand positioning when developing your positioning statement. The three elements are:

• Your audience
• Your competitors
• Your differentiators 

We already defined your audience in step one, and you should have your buyer persona in front of you and always keep it in mind when creating brand elements. 

We analyzed your competitors in the previous step, and you know who you’re competing against. You also know what their strengths and weaknesses are.

Now it’s time to start working on your differentiator. This is both art and science. You need to really understand what your audience wants and what makes your brand better compared to your competitors. 

So how do you find your differentiator and create a unique brand position? One trick that we often use is a brand positioning map. You first need to find two things that your target audience might consider when deciding which brand to use. 

Let’s say they are deciding based on the price and quality of the product. You create a brand positioning map by putting the price, low to high, on the vertical line and the quality on the horizontal line, low to high. Then you place your competitors on the map based on the quality of their products or services and based on the price they charge. 

If you do this precisely enough, you will probably recognize gaps on the map that aren’t occupied. For example, you might learn that there are a lot of brands that offer cheap products that are low quality, but there aren’t a lot of brands that offer high-quality products at low prices. Is this a possible brand positioning you could go for? Maybe, if you can develop a high-quality product for cheap. 

You have to be creative and continue the same process multiple times before you recognize the gaps in your market. You can use different factors when mapping your competitors. If you’re persistent, you’ll find a perfect gap that you can go for with your brand. 

Now that you’ve defined all the critical elements of positioning, it’s time to write your positioning statement.

Brand positioning is a clear and precise message that guides the brand going forward. Everything you do from this point forward will have to be aligned with your positioning. 

Let’s look at a real-world example of successful brand positioning to help you better understand the process. 

Dollar Shave Club

The brand entered a very competitive market where Gillette was the master of the market with a whopping market share of 85% of all men’s razor blades sold. Another problem the brand faced was it had almost no marketing budget. 

What Dollar Shave Club had to work in their favor was simplicity. They are positioned against the market. Their promise – you don’t have to pay high prices for overhyped razors to get a clean shave. This was brilliant and simple. 

They addresses their target audience and showed there’s a better and cheaper way to be smooth. This positioning was as simple as it gets, yet it worked amazingly. Dollar Shave Club took over 50% of the online men’s razor market before the giant Unilever came knocking on their door with an offer they couldn’t refuse. 

The Dollar Shave Club example shows how clever positioning can help you compete against big brands with unlimited budgets. All you have to do is find your gap. 

Define your vision statement, mission statement, and brand purpose 

You should now understand who you’re competing against in the market, who your target audience is, and how you want to be positioned in the market. We also mentioned that people tend to form a strong emotional connection with brands that share their values. This is where brand purpose comes into play. 

A few decades ago, the big brands dictated the market. The voice of the consumer was small, and the brands basically did what they wanted. As the markets started changing and technology evolved, consumers started to gain value. They realized they could voice their desires, needs, and dissatisfactions. And brands started listening. 

Nowadays, brands put their customers first. It’s as if they exist solely to ensure their customers’ needs are met. This shift resulted in customers becoming pickier. They are now the center of attention, and they have the opportunity to pick who they want to work with or buy from. 

That’s where purpose-driven brands come in. Savvy marketers and brand strategists discovered that people connect with brands that share their values. This makes sense. We pick friends based on values and spend time with people we connect with. The same holds true for brands. 

Brands use mission statements, vision statements, and brand purpose statements to show what they stand for. The brand’s position should reflect in all brand elements, and if the brand is doing a good job, you should know what it stands for without having to search for its vision, mission, and purpose statement. 

Let’s define all three statements to understand better what they represent. 

• The brand purpose statement answers why the brand does what it does, aside from commercial benefit. 
• The vision statement answers where the brand is going and what it strives to become in the future. 
• The mission statement answers what the brand is committed to in realizing its vision. 

You can see we used three simple questions for the statements – why, where, what. The why is for the brand purpose, the where is for the vision statement, and the what is for the mission statement. We can also add the how question, which sometimes stands for brand values – how will the brand go about realizing its vision. But for simplicity’s sake, let’s stick to the three statements we mentioned. 

We often say that these three elements (purpose, vision, mission) define your internal brand. They define how your brand acts and what it stands for. 

Let’s look at real-world examples to understand how big companies build purpose-driven brands. First, we’ll look at the brand purpose of an eyewear company. 

Warby Parker broke into the market in 2010 with a super simple purpose – to make eyewear more affordable. The purpose statement they used was “To offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price while leading the way for socially conscious businesses.”

You see, eyewear brands often charge huge markups on designer products. Everyone who bought a pair of high-end glasses knows how much they cost. But the reality is the production costs are relatively low. Warby Parker saw a chance and entered a competitive market with a simple purpose and goal. 

And it worked. People connected with their purpose because they knew designer glasses cost too much. 

From Warby Parker to a brand called Life is Good, which hit a competitive t-shirt market with an interesting vision. Their vision is to spread the power of optimism. They don’t see their t-shirts as the product they are selling. The t-shirts are just a tool in their quest to make people happy. 

Life is Good sells t-shirts with optimistic and positive slogans like “Seas the Day” and “Forecast Mostly Sunny.” It’s hard not to laugh when you see the uplifting messages on their apparel. They understand that their t-shirts do more than hide peoples’ skin. They provide smiles and happiness to people all over the world. A simple vision that is easy to support. 

Let’s finish with a powerful mission statement from a well-established outdoor brand called Patagonia. Their mission is simple – we’re in business to save our home planet”. This phrase accurately describes what drives Patagonia forward. Every decision they make is for the good of the planet. 

People feel instantly connected to Patagonia because the brand stands for something that is easy to support. We also want to protect the environment, and we want to build a world with no harm. If buying Patagonia’s clothes helps us achieve that, then paying more for outdoor clothes seems like a no-brainer. 

Patagonia is an example of a brand where the mission statement drives the brand forward. Their whole brand strategy is built around the premise of sustainability. 

As we see, having a purposeful brand can help us connect to the people we want to reach. They feel drawn to what we do if we stand for the things they believe in. 

The easiest way to develop your purpose, mission, and vision is by answering the questions why, where, and what. 

Develop your brand character

Brands sometimes make us feel like they are part of our lives. Some people take this even further and form a strong emotional connection with brands. We all know someone that absolutely loves a certain brand. And they say that love is the strongest emotion of them all, which goes to show we perceive brands as people. 

Why do we do that? It’s because we associate brands with human characteristics. We accept them as things with a character that we feel drawn to. How do brands manage to make us feel this way? They focus on two things – brand personality and brand voice. 

When executed perfectly, the brand personality and voice act as a union. The voice has to match the personality, or the brand makes no sense. Imagine a Harley Davidson commercial where grandmothers discuss the latest motorcycles over a cup of hot tea. It wouldn’t make sense, would it? 

Let’s break down the personality of the brand and the voice of the brand and look at real-world examples to understand these two elements of branding better. 

Brand personality is a set of human characteristics that are attributed to a brand. That’s the most basic definition of brand personality. A study done in 2016 showed that 83% of consumers demand more human interaction from the brands. We, the consumers, want to talk to brands and connect with them. 

So, to make it simple, we want our brand to consistently show the traits and characteristics that resemble our target audience’s traits and characteristics. If we do this, we’ll be able to better connect with them. This all goes back to stage number one, understanding our target audience. If we know how our customers behave, we can behave in the same way to form a stronger connection with them. 

But, there’s one thing we should remember – no matter what, always make your brand authentic. People can tell if you’re posing as something else. We have a fight or flight mechanism that instantly tells us if the person (or brand) we’re engaging with is being honest and transparent. 

The brand should always stay true to its core values and beliefs if it wants to be perceived as authentic. Every action we make affects how people perceive our brand and us. From solving customer complaints to how we talk to people. Every person in your organization shapes the way people think about your brand. 

Let’s look at a famous brand that nailed its personality – Red Bull. 

They build a daring and edgy personality that explores the limits of human performance. Red Bull smiles in the face of danger and is willing to go further than any other brand. Red Bull is the daredevil amongst adventurists. 

The brand built its personality through extreme sports. It’s hard to think of an extreme sports event where Red Bull doesn’t sponsor the best athletes. This helps them be associated with daring and risky behavior. They are what we strive to be. The bold colors they use and the adrenaline-filled language they use contribute to their brand image. 

We touched on brand personality. Let’s now look at the second element of a brand character – the brand voice. We already said that personality and voice go hand in hand. They have to be aligned for the brand to make sense. 

You can think of brand voice as the human voice we assign to a specific brand. It’s the way the brand speaks to the target audience. It covers everything from the words it uses to the way it presents its messages. Brands that use authentic language form strong ties with the target audience. 

Brand voice is how brands communicate their personality. These two terms, personality, and voice, are so connected that some strategists even use them interchangeably. 

Let’s look at an example of a brand that knows how to use brand voice in their favor – Old Spice. 

Old Spice is an excellent example of a brand voice done right. They use a fresh tone and interesting style to talk with the target audience. Men are drawn to their silly commercials, while women don’t seem to understand them. Don’t believe us? Show Old Spice commercials to both sexes, and you’ll be surprised how different the responses are. 

Their fresh personality, humor, and swagger make them look special and unique. It’s not surprising Old Spice is the number one brand in the men’s body wash category. 

Pick your brand name

It’s now time to start thinking about your brand name. Businesses often start here, and their name is the first thing they pick. But we believe that that’s not the way you should do it. We believe you should first take care of your positioning as an internal brand. 

If you pick your brand name based on your positioning, you’ll end up with a name that reflects your brand’s personality. This makes for a cohesive brand where all elements work together and your name acts as an extension of your brand.

First, let’s define different types of brand names to better understand the naming world. We can divide brand names into four distinct categories. 

• Descriptive names 
• Invented names
• Experiential names
• Metaphorical names.

Descriptive names are the simplest. They describe what the business is and what it does. Examples of descriptive names include abbreviations, acronyms, businesses named after the founders, and names that describe the services, products, or location.

Invented names are names that are made up. These include neologisms and names that don’t fit any other category. We also include foreign words in the invented names group.

Experiential names are names that describe the experiences of customers using the products or services. These names are often made of adjectives and other words that capture the mood that comes with using the product or service. 

Metaphorical names are the ones that indirectly represent the brand. They paint a bigger picture of the brand. These are often the most creative names and usually the hardest to create. 

You don’t have to pick the name type when brainstorming name ideas. But it helps if you know which types of names would work best for your brand. For example, invented and evocative names go well with fun and playful brands. While brands that rely on tradition usually go with descriptive or experiential names. 

An important thing we need to address regarding brand names is availability. We’re especially talking about trademark availability, domain availability, and social media availability. 

The last thing we want is to pick a name that might get us into trouble down the road. We often hear stories of brands that started doing business with a name that was already trademarked and had to change its name. That’s an expensive project, and you can be happy if you don’t get sued. We always suggest you get legal help for this step. 

Domain availability is also important. We live in a time where getting available domains is harder and harder. We also live in the digital world, and having a website is a must even if you operate an offline business. Let’s say you picked a name that can be trademarked, but you can’t get the exact match domain for the anime. What can you do? 

You have two options. 

First, you can use modifiers. Modifiers are short words that we add at the beginning or at the end of names to get available domains. 

Second, you can go for alternative domain extensions like .co or io. These extensions are gaining in popularity will be even more popular in the future. 

The last thing we need to address our social media handles. Again, we suggest the use of modifiers if the exact match social media handles aren’t available for your brand. 

As you can see, there’s a lot of thought that goes into naming your brand, and it’s a decision you shouldn’t rush. To help you out, we’ve developed our business name generator, an AI-powered tool that suggests catchy and memorable business and brand name ideas for free.

The business name generator will help you create thousands of name ideas in a second. You can get the best results by using different keywords and industry filters. The best part is, there’s no limit to how many names you can generate, so play around with it as much as you like.

When you find a name that speaks to you, our tool will automatically check domain name availability for you.

The last thing that you should do before picking the winning name for your brand is making sure your brand name matches your brand personality, positioning, and your internal brand. Having a cohesive brand helps you stand out and makes your brand more authentic.

Create your tagline and slogan

We got to the point where we have to start creating the messages we want to share with our target audience. One of the first things we need to create is our tagline and slogan. These are the catchphrases that define your brand. I know what you might be thinking – aren’t the tagline and the slogan the same thing? 

While slogans and taglines are similar, there are distinct differences between the two. Let’s first look at the definitions of both. 

Taglines are mottos and catchphrases that represent the brand’s unique value. These are the phrases that usually accompany the slogan, sit next to the name, and are used for a very long time. We want our audience to associate our taglines with our brand and us. Taglines help solidify the brand’s positioning.

Slogans are mottos and catchphrases we use to represent the theme of a marketing campaign. They are often changed and usually last as long as the campaigns are running. The most memorable commercial jingles we know are slogans. While taglines represent the brand’s value, the slogans focus more on the benefits products or services provide. 

We can think of taglines as strategic phrases that we develop during the brand-building phase. They are the extension of brand positioning. On the other hand, Slogans are tools marketers use to capture the message of a marketing campaign. Slogans are more flexible than taglines, and we can change them more often. 

Sometimes, when a campaign becomes very successful, the slogans turn into taglines. This happens when people start associating the slogan with the brand. Some of the most popular catchphrases in the history of marketing started as slogans and turned into taglines. Examples include:

“Just Do It” from Nike.

“Think Different” from Apple. 

“I’m Loving It” from McDonald’s. 

We know that we should first work on our tagline. The easiest way to develop a catchy tagline is to form a phrase that represents your positioning in a catchy way. How do we do that? We suggest you use memorable word structures and rhythms. We like alliterations and rhymes. They are easy to understand and remember. 

The same rules apply to slogans. The only thing that changes is the message. You should focus more on the benefits of the products and services you’re selling. Of course, if you’re just starting out, these two can be the same.

We have two real-world examples of memorable catchphrases we want to share. First, a slogan that turned into a tagline. MasterCard’s “There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else there’s Mastercard” is one of the most memorable slogans in marketing. 

It was developed for their “Priceless” campaign in 1997, and it stood the test of time. It’s still used today. What makes it so special? It gets the listeners and viewers to form an emotional response. The marketers went with situations we can all relate to. A dad takes his son to a baseball game and pays for a hot dog and a drink. But what’s really priceless is the conversation they’re having. 

They get us to think about our lives and the people around us. The campaign gets us to think. And this is the goal of every campaign in existence. 

The second example of good branding comes from the beauty industry. Maybelline’s tagline “Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline” is a jingle we all know. It makes us think of glossy magazines and fashion trends. It represents Maybelline’s confidence in transforming the way women look. 

What makes the slogan so memorable is the use of repetition. We mentioned that good slogans and taglines use memorable word structures and repetitive sounds fall in this category. The slogan is fun to say. Plus, the one used for Maybelline’s campaign also accurately represents the brand. A double win for them. 

Write our core message and brand story

Brand story and brand messages are often overlooked elements of a brand strategy. Brands have no problem spending money on their logos, names, and even taglines. But few of them understand the importance of their brand message. While a good logo can help build a brand, it’s your message that gets people to understand who you are and what you stand for. 

Brand messaging is all the communication your brand delivers. You can get your brand message across in different mediums and formats. On the homepage of your website, in commercials, vlogs, blog posts, email campaigns, and so on. Because there are so many different touchpoints where people might come across your brand messages, it’s important we develop them strategically. 

You have to make sure that you’re delivering a cohesive message across all touchpoints. This is one of the reasons why every brand should take the time to develop its message strategically. 

Your brand can have as many brand messages as you want. It all depends on your positioning, products, and services. The more complex the brand, the more messages it will have. But we should always start small and focus on a few key messages that truly define our brand. 

This is where your core message comes into play. Your core message is the most important thing you want your audience to know about your brand. 

Now that we know what a core message is, we need to find a way to get people to remember and share the message. This is where the power of storytelling shines. People have used stories since the dawn of time. Before we could write, we shared stories and passed them through generations. We are biologically inclined to like stories. 

Storys are great because they are easy to remember. They are great because they are easy to share. That’s why the best brands in the world almost completely shifted from “in-your-face” campaigns to storytelling in the past decades. 

But coming up with a story isn’t exactly easy. You have to be creative to come up with something that will stick to people. Thinks of unique ways you could incorporate your core message into a story. There’s an example we want to share with you to inspire your search for your brand story. 

The brand that uses great storytelling is Spotify. The music streaming service managed to rise to the top of the market, thanks also to its amazing storytelling. 

Spotify collects all sorts of data about songs, playlists, and artists in its database. Instead of letting this information sit in a hard drive somewhere, the genius marketing people of Spotify decided to use this information in their favor. They started creating interesting stories highlighting the data from their database. 

One example of this is the post “How Students Listen 2017” which they created using the data they collected. They showed how different colleges across the US listen to music. They showed which genres are popular in different schools, and they created interesting leaderboards. 

This helped them get the attention of students, schools, and listeners all over the world. All they did was use their data in a story format that presented otherwise boring data in a highly-engaging way. 

This simple example shows that people crave stories. We want to consume them and share them. It’s time you start working on your brand story. 

Develop your brand identity design

Your brand is not a logo. You already know that. We went over countless examples of good branding and didn’t even touch on the design. But a lot of people still think a logo is synonymous with a brand. 

Your brand identity includes all visual elements of your brand. The goal of your brand design is to form a connection with your audience. It had to work in cohesion with all other elements we covered in this article. 

We can break the brand design into core elements we call the building blocks of brand identity. These elements are:

• Colors
• Shapes
• Fonts
• Image choices

We already mentioned that elements of brand identity have to work together. And every successful brand uses building blocks that form a cohesive brand. One example we can point out is Airbnb’s Instagram account. Every post they create tells the story of the brand. Simple, comfortable lodging acceptable to everyone. Anywhere in the world. All the images they use are strategically used to tell the right story. 

There are many different types of brand identity design and this article isn’t long enough to cover all of them. We’ll rather focus on a few interesting real-world examples to show you how simplicity and strategic design can help you create a memorable brand. 

Let’s start with Headspace, the meditation app that uses optimistic colors and smooth lines to share the brand message – less stress, more happiness. Powerful colors paired with playful designs and fonts paint the right image. The app is fun to use, and everyone should give it a try. And just like a brand should, they make sure they are consistent with their designs across different channels. 

The next brand we want to share with you is Little Wolf. The coffee roasters use a design that matches their personality. It features animalistic designs that form the center of its brand. Hand-drawn designs dominate their identity and make the brand appear fun and friendly. They use consistent colors and designs across different channels. 

Let’s end this chapter with a brand that’s been around for a while and recently went through a re-design phase. We’re talking about Firefox, one of the most popular search engines in the world. The redesign added geometric shapes into the identity to represent the digital nature of the brand. Paired with bold and colorful designs, the brand aims to target the younger generations that aren’t as familiar with the Firefox browser as the early adopters of the search engine. 

Conclusion

And there you have it. We’ve come to the end of our article. We went through all the stages of good branding and shared examples of real brands to help you better understand what good branding looks like. 

We included famous brands in examples because it’s easier to dissect businesses we all know. And there’s another reason why we often use big companies in branding examples. It’s because they spend a lot of resources on their brand image. They understand the importance of having a strong brand in the 21st century. 

Now it’s up to you. You have the knowledge you need to develop a strong brand and dominate your market. You can come back to the examples in the article every time you feel lost and need guidance. Good luck at building a successful brand.