The DL on Design: Visual Brand Consistency

Bianca Sawyer

Lead Designer, Identity Marketing

Opening my article with a quote from The Rock is one way to get you motivated. Although my intention for motivation isn’t building muscle on leg day, but to achieve an awe-inspiring brand that speaks to your audience.

The key to a successful brand is consistency that goes beyond messaging and your business core. Consistency also takes into account the way your business looks. When a brand achieves consistency across the board, confidence and trust is built amongst consumers. They begin to recognise that they can rely on your brand every time.

Visual consistency takes on new importance when we consider first impressions and recognition. Visually consistent brands become easily recognisable and to prove my point – let’s discuss Cadbury. You don’t see Cadbury using a lilac hue of purple on a billboard because they want to mix things up or because ‘Judy from reception’ thinks it looks cute. People know and trust the rich Cadbury purple colour not only because it’s unique to them, but because they use it consistently on a variety of products.

How can I achieve visual brand consistency do you ask? It’s simple, do the same thing again and again and again until it’s stuck in your audience’s minds. Every visual element of a brand needs to be designed, cemented and nurtured. This refers to your colours, fonts, logo variations, page layouts, imagery, icons and other small brand elements. It also comes down to finer details such as how wide your margins on a page are or whether you use a solid or dotted line. It can be hard to keep track of this as your business grows and this is why it’s important to start off on the right foot with a style guide. This is a brand “rule book” and includes how it looks and can even extend to your brand’s messaging.

To ensure your company is relaying your brand consistently across all platforms, your assets and style guides need to be readily accessible to all team members.
Ideally, you want your social to look the same as your print and print to look the same as your shop front; leading your brand to become recognisable everywhere your consumers see it.

When looking over your style guide, you may come to the conclusion that some of your branding isn’t what it used to be. Rebranding is important in staying relevant but that doesn’t mean you have to take on an entirely new look and lose your signature. If you look at the evolution of Ray White, they have consistently stayed yellow and stayed recognisable in their marketplace. It’s important to execute any rebrand with organisation and communication so once your brand is updated you don’t have an old logo hanging around like a bad smell.

To summarise, the most successful brands that achieve greatness are the ones that are consistent with their brand. When a brand has consistency and is trusted amongst consumers it has a strong foundation that can be built on and expanded.