The brand design process for the tech sector: 6 essential elements to capture the essence of your brand

Close your eyes and think of a big tech brand, like Apple or Google. 

When you picture Apple, you no doubt see their iconic apple motif and the clean white lines that characterise their online and offline presence, emphasising their focus on elegant, minimalist, and intuitive solutions.

Meanwhile Google channels the rainbow, harnessing block shapes and primary colours to generate energy and excitement across their product suite, giving each an individual look while remaining unmistakably Google.

They are two very different brands, yet both instantly recognisable.

And both amazing examples of a successful brand design process.

How the brand design process fits into the brand journey 

Step 1: Business alignment - understanding your organisational goals, your current messaging and what you need from the brand/website redesign process.

Step 2: Brand strategy - harnessing data and research to identify your market position and your ideal audience to craft an effective customer-centric narrative.

Step 3: Brand design - discovering your visual identity and creating brand elements to capture the essence of your business and communicate your value to customers.

Step 4: Website creation - developing a modern responsive website which educates and demonstrates your solution to drive traffic and conversions.

Step 5: Go-to-market support - providing ongoing targeted support to maintain your website, leverage your updated assets and create additional resources.

What’s involved in the brand design process?

Once you've formalised your brand strategy, you should have a very clear idea of what your unique selling proposition is, who you’re targeting, what it is that you're selling and how that makes an impact on your clients. 

The brand design process takes all of these words, ideas and concepts and puts them into a visual form. Now, most of the time, the words on your website and in your marketing material are the key to communicating your USP to your target audience. 

However, as human beings, we have multiple senses that need to be engaged to truly resonate. So, combining the right words with a powerful and unique visual brand identity can really set you apart in the marketplace, draw attention and make you memorable.

Trust us, being memorable is key. It’s a noisy world out there. You want your marketing messages to be instantly recognisable so your customers become more familiar with you and begin to know, like and trust you. The more they trust you, the more likely they are to buy from you.

How does the brand design process work?

Unlike the previous stages which are very collaborative, the brand design process is where you hand control over to your agency or designer. This sees your designer harness their expertise to bring together all of those different ideas of your business and put them into something that is visually unique to help you stand out in the marketplace.

There are 6 essential elements to any successful brand design process:

• Logo

• Typography

• Colours

• Images, branding and illustration styles

• How to combine all the elements (including copy) for distinctive marketing artwork

• Brand guidelines

• Templates

Investing in each of these elements creates a unified and unique brand that delivers a consistent experience to customers, both online and offline. Consistency is key to developing an effective brand, reinforcing your brand identity and building that all important trust factor with your target market.

Logo

Your key visual brand asset, your logo should represent the essence of your business through shapes, imagery, text, and colours. Great logos are clear and memorable and cleverly convey who you are, what you do and what you stand for in a single image. 

Logos can be simple or complex but they should be able to be used in a variety of formats to match light and dark backgrounds. This means you should have access to a colour format, a reverse logo, a stacked version and a favicon icon for use on web pages. 

Typography

Typography goes beyond the font you use on your website, socials and promotional material. This is about arranging text and messaging in a way that attracts attention and evokes emotion in your audience, while remaining easy to read and accessible.

Certain typefaces channel authority while others are more lighthearted. The brand design stage will see your agency come up with a typography style to match the essence of your brand (revealed in the previous step) to create a consistent look and feel.

Colours

Colour psychology is a fascinating field of study that comes into its own during the brand design process. Certain colours are associated with specific perceptions and behaviours. That’s why tech companies often choose blue to channel strength and dependability.

However, picking the same colours as your competitors makes it difficult to stand out in the marketplace. Humans have evolved to quickly notice differences in our environment so it pays to consider different shades or a new approach when it comes to your brand colours. 

This is where working with an experienced agency pays off as they’ll be able to pull together a colour palette that truly echoes the values and essence of your business.

Images, patterns & illustration styles

Your imagery should match your overall aesthetic, not detract from it. For instance, Apple’s imagery, which places their products against a simple white or black background, reinforces their minimalist approach and the elegant simplicity of their brand.

Custom imagery doesn’t just look good - it can also decode complex ideas for customers to increase understanding. For example, combining technical blueprints with an image of a patient helps explain how your tech solution promotes positive health outcomes. 

Consistency is the name of the game when it comes to your chosen images, patterns and illustrations and one of the keys to a strong brand design.

Brand guidelines

With your logo, typography, colours and imagery sorted, it’s time to bring it all together in your brand guidelines. Now, there are different levels when it comes to brand guidelines. If you’re a small business, you might have a simple brand guide which might literally list your logo, typography, colours and some basic image styles.

As your business expands, you may add to your brand guide to include new use cases, image styles, tone of voice and instructions on how to use your branding patterns. Ideally, your brand guide should have enough detail that you can give it to any graphic designer who will be able to follow it and deliver a consistent look and feel. 

Consistency is key to the brand design process, with your brand guidelines outlining how:

• people talk about your business (how they describe what you do)

• how customers see your business (the values they think you hold)

• you share your message (emails, conversations, elevator pitch)

• you describe your business to others (core products, ser4vices, benefits)

• your marketing material looks (brochures, business cards, website, etc).

Templates

Speaking of consistency, the last piece of the brand design puzzle are your business templates. Branding doesn’t only elevate your business - it can also help streamline processes and increase conversions with well-designed proposals, documents, presentations and reports.

Including consistent branding and clear messaging in your suite of business templates puts your business in a strong position from the get-go. You look more professional, your USP is front and centre and your prospects will be more likely to want to know more.

How to evaluate the success of your brand design

First of all, everything should visually look the same. I know we’ve harped on a lot about consistency but without it, how will anyone be able to recognise who you are? Test the strength of your brand design by covering up your logo on a piece of marketing material to see if it still looks like it belongs to your business. 

Second, your brand assets need to be easy to use and accessible to everyone across the organisation. If your brand templates are finicky or if people don’t know there are brand guidelines to follow, the whole brand design process will be wasted. Make sure everyone within your business knows how to make the most of your new brand design.

One last thing - what’s the difference between brand design and brand identity and your brand?

Good question. You may have heard both terms as they are often used interchangeably, but they are quite different concepts.

Let’s start with “brand” as this is what your customers think about you, and by starting with your customer and thinking about them, you are most likely to succceed in creating a real connection with them. 

Your brand identity is how you present yourself to your customers. It’s your overall look, feel and how you sound. e.g. logo, colours, imagery, tone of voice, social posts, blog articles, even media mentions. By presenting your business in a particular way, you can influence your target audience and change their perception of your brand.

Brand design is the process of creating your brand (as we’ve just discussed). While this is often thought of as one big process (which it is once in a while, such as a rebrand), there should be a continual review process to allow for small changes due to changing market conditions and the evolution of how you communicate your solution.

Brand design is the process of creating your brand (as we’ve just discussed). But, to get people to recognise your brand, you first need to create a brand identity. By presenting your business in a particular way (using specific colours, a deliberate tone, etc), you can influence your target audience and change their perception of your brand.

The more you understand your target audience, the more aligned you will be to their needs. This also makes it easier to build a brand identity that resonates and encourages them to take the time to get to know, like and trust your business.

Are you ready to design a killer brand for your tech business?

Multiverse are experts in transforming intricate tech concepts into clear, enticing messages, paired with compelling branding and web design. If your technology business is ready to take the next step, we’re here to guide the way.

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