Analysing Visual Identity
Having a strong and original visual identity is probably the main factor when it comes to earning your user’s interest, along with deeper feelings. You want to create something innovative and addictive so that your users remember your website specifically and return to it without hesitation. You must also take into consideration when coming up with your look, what you are aiming to represent and convey in terms of content and emotion.
I feel it’s pretty important to express your personality when designing your website’s aesthetic. Your personality plays a big part in the originality of your content. If you manage to convey your personality through your website you’ll also create a strong tone of voice along with it, and hopefully pull in your desired target audience. There’s a number of things to take into consideration when sculpting the way your persona is portrayed through your business. For instance, colour palette. By using certain colours, you are able to create certain moods which is the first aspect your users will see when clicking onto your site.
Pictured above we see a variety of very popular company logos, which hold strong visual identity. This is mostly because of their colour palette and typographic design. For instance, Ikea’s logo portrays their personality through their use of colour; using the Swedish flag colours to represent the fact they are a Swedish company. Their typeface is strong and bold looking, which I feel conveys the fact they produce good quality (although debatable) furniture.
Looking at the other logo, belonging to Macdonalds, I also get a strong sense of their visual identity. Such a simple colour palette of red and yellow is so effective as it imprints itself in my mind easily. Their use of typographic design conveys that they are a fast-food chain, by the fact their ‘M’ looks like it’s made out of fries. This enhances the understanding of the colour palette, which includes yellow that further symbolises the fries, and red, which symbolises the tomato essence that ultimately makes Macdonalds; ketchup, tomatoes on all their buns and products, and perhaps even the danger of such obesity!
Typography is such an important factor to think about when designing your brand. Each type of type; script, handwritten, serif, sans serif, all convey different moods and topics, so it’s vital you choose a suitable typeface that represents your identity correctly.
Another major factor for grasping a bold visual identity is the images you include. The photographs you include on your website are what mainly gives your users insight into your overall content. It’s vital to make sure all the images used are relevant to your website’s content. They need to be high quality so that it tempts the users even deeper into your page. To preach about white space again, it’s really important to use this method also when organising the layout of your photographs on your website. It allows breathing space for your users when they’re observing your page as a whole. Most people take information in visually so it’s critical to organise your images well enough so that they really connect with your target audience.
For my website, I think I will use quite a bold typeface, but one that still comes off friendly and not too serious, as I feel that will bode well with my younger target audience. It’s important to tie your chosen type in with all your other design aspects to make it as unified and effective as it can be. I also aim to use quite bright but neutral colours as I want to create a fun and lighthearted tone, whilst also being serious enough to convey my chosen environmental issue of plastic waste. This palette will be based around colours of the ocean as that’s what my website will predominantly focus on, therefore it will look very cool through use of blues. With regards to images, I intend to include high definition photos of the ocean and its delicate creatures, as well as photographs of the horrible plastic waste that evolves down there — a contrast in beauty. I find myself more inclined to staying on a web-page that contains predominantly attractive images rather than a large amount of text, hence why I want to include mostly photographic evidence rather than literal evidence on my website, as I am part of my target audience group. My other idea is to have my website filled with my own illustrations that revolve around my topic, as I feel this will make my content much more original and personalised.
All of these creative ideas will hopefully help me to produce an interesting and original website that gives a warm and gripping welcome to my young and on-trend target audience.
