Introduction: my lessons in brand design

Like any newbie freelance designer I had no idea what branding actually was, nor did I realize that I was only 2/8 of the way there. Whenever someone approached me for design work I always gave them this package; a logo, business card & a flyer/poster. As a result, I developed my own process for creating consistent colour palettes and selecting primary typefaces. My understanding of both elements has certainly come a long way.

So what typefaces did I use?

First of all this was when I used to call typefaces “fonts”…*sigh* I was one of those humans so don’t judge!

Here’s a link to explain the difference for you uncultured swines: https://www.fastcodesign.com(…just kidding love, peace & positivity).

Back in my innocent days my go-to places were websites such as; dafont.com and 1001fonts.com. Don’t get me wrong they are still good resources today, but as my understanding of typography matured so did my appreciation for typefaces like Baskerville and Gill sans. Instead of instantly searching for the next cool thing, I searched for typefaces that made sense and were legible.

From my ignorance, I quickly learnt how critical selecting the right typeface is for a brand. It’s no exaggeration to state that a typeface can make or break a design. It even has the potential to connect emotively to the viewer. My time at The University of Reading really pushed this mindset. Here I learnt the deeper application of typography and the theories behind it. Plus I got to meet some really awesome print and type designers! Shout out to the typo crew!

Colours, colours, colours!

Oh how I miss the days of opening up Photoshop and selecting colours at random. Before my glory days in Reading, I spent a year doing a foundation course in Visual Communications at Regents University (racking up them student debts). This was when I truly learnt the fundamentals of colour, they took me back to the basics! We went through the colour wheel; complementary colours, RGB, CMYK and they even had us mixing paints. In a nutshell they awoke the inner Van Gogh in me. In all seriousness, this really changed my mindset of how to apply hues in a brand. Especially in the brand guidelines where you need to identify the different palettes and the unique application of each tint. It may sound tedious at first but it really goes a long way to create an effective brand. Colour identification can be used to highlight call to action buttons for users to easily notice, it even can even direct the way a viewer processes the hierarchy of information. There is power in the rainbow!

Of course, these two elements are only one part of branding, but it’s practically impossible for me to cover this all in one short post. But worry not! l will be covering these elements and others in more detail in other posts. Catch you later!