Creating a memorable brand: five tips for success

1. Develop a solid brand strategy

But that’s a whole other blog topic :). Read it here, after this one of course!

2. Invest in a creative graphic designer

A logo, or brand marque, is the foundation of your brand identity. A good designer will create a stamp that’s easily recognisable and instantly tells your potential customers what’s being offered. 

Many logos just use a generic shapes or pretty fonts, but a marque can have a more memorable impact if it actually means something, tells a story about your brand, your style, personality or product/service offering. The Nike swoosh represents movement, fluidity and speed, the Beats logo looks like headphones on a head, and the Dove logo has a gentle style with an emblem of love and purity to complement their product range. Even something as simple as choosing a square over a circle can influence perceptions. Check out this interesting article about the psychology of logo shapes.

Minimal logos can still speak volumes. Google’s brand is playful with an approachable style, the Uber logo is globally recognised, representing comfort and class, and Air bnb have a sweet, welcoming mark that represents people, places and love.

Creating a memorable brand identity takes time – cheap sites like Fiverr may seem like a good deal but you get what you pay for… if the logo took an hour to create then it’s probably not going to align to your brand strategy as well as it might given some decent design development time.

3. Design with your audience in mind

Surely anyone reading this knows the value of market and user research… through understanding the client needs and desires, we can design a brand that evokes an emotional response, and a service that sends them through the customer journey with ease. 

Solid research or even ‘quick and dirty’ empathy mapping exercises, can help gain key insights that will drive our design thinking, improve services and communications, and appeal to some positive emotions, either through tone of voice, powerful imagery or the use of illustration to aid storytelling by your brand.

4. Stick to your brand values

In the same way a strapline or slogan can help to reinforce your brand offering, brand values can also act as a reminder for you and your employees. Write down your core brand values and stick them on a wall. Whenever you’re about to write a tweet or make any kind of business communication, double-check that it fits within the values, and if it doesn’t, then tweak it according to whatever you’ve put on the wall.

5. Be creative with your brand graphics

I love it when a brand adopts a ‘favicon’ or uses playful design to tell their brand story. For example, when Wise’s 2023 rebrand adopted these striking 3d graphics and bold typography.

If you’re reading this on a desktop browser and have a few tabs open,  you’ll see a few favicons on the tabs. It’s a simple alternative to a logo that can represent your brand when there’s little space. Bonus factoid – it actually improves your website’s SEO ranking.

Using animation is another great way to inject life into your brand’s graphics. It really stands out on social media and looks awesome in email signatures too.

If you’re worried about changing your look or losing any brand recognition, a brand refresh can still work wonders to inject a new lease of life into your existing brand identity. A fresh pair of eyes could bring a new direction while keeping the same look and feel. Check out this brand refresh I designed for Studentcom. Keeping their old logo and personality, I built upon their existing colour palette with fresh gradients, sourced new, impactful imagery and designed a new icon set, which all worked together to create a fresh, new, stand-out brand.

See more examples of work from my portfolio here.

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Working with a freelance graphic designer

I have more than 20 years’ experience working in the creative industries and I’ve worked with many brands to create or refresh their brand identity. 

If you’re not sure where to start, drop me an email at chelledixondesign@gmail.com and I’ll send you a brand questionnaire to help you on your way. I’d be happy to hold a brand workshop or carry out research to help you understand your audience. Some benefits to working with a freelancer vs an agency:

• Range of services: whether it’s a new brand, a brand refresh or quick material updates, I’ve got you. I can quickly scale my team if you need any extras like photography, videography copy, or simply need quicker delivery. 
• No agency fees = more creative or production time.
• Flexible, global collaboration. Whether you prefer Slack, email, Figma or Photoshop, I can change my workflow to fit yours. Need something urgent over a weekend? I’ll see what I can do.
• Cross-time zone productivity. Working across time zones can work in your favour – send a brief at the end of your day and find it back in your inbox the next morning.
• Transparent hourly rates. I provide cost and time estimates for all items and keep you informed every step of the way, never going over allocation unless agreed.
• No surprise costs. Ever.

If you’d like to hear more about how I work or the rates I charge, let’s talk.

Have a great week,
From Chelle