So you’re finally doing The Thing! You’ve had this business idea rolling around your head, maybe for years, and you’re pulling the trigger and seeing if it has legs. I’m proud of you. But before you go running off looking at suppliers and equipment and accounting software and all that other important stuff, I want you to stop and think about something that a lot of new business owners overlook: branding. Yes, you might have a name that’s simple, catchy and might even have wordplay in it, but have you thought about it beyond that? We live in an increasingly visual world, and if you’re going to survive among the competition you need to ensure your visual identity is as perfect as your idea.
To give you an example, if you were offered two Kobe Beef Steaks (or your Vegetarian/Vegan alternative), one was plated perfectly with all the sides and trimmings, and the other was dropped in front of you in an unbranded takeaway box, which one looks more appetising? I know which one I would gravitate to, and I’m guessing it’s the same one you would too.
Your visuals are the first thing people see when it comes to your business. So it needs to look professional, legitimate, and most importantly it need to reflect your vibe as both a person and a business. Because the one thing that separates you from everyone else doing the same thing you are, is that your business is the only one led by you, and your unique vibe should be reflected in the branding.
So how do you go about creating a visual identity for your new business? Well, the easiest way to do this is to work with a graphic designer, one who specialises in branding and visual identity (such as myself). But, I understand that going down that avenue comes with a price tag that might be impossible for some (more on that later). But there are some things you can do, for free, that will give you a foothold onto establishing your identity as a business.
Finding your vibe
So the first, and most important thing you need to do is find your vibe. Are you going for a natural feeling, almost hippy-ish feel to your business, or something more playful, something minimal and modern? Only you can answer this, and there is no wrong answer. But that question is really hard to answer in words. So when working with clients I’ve found the easiest way to answer this question is to do it in art.
Get yourself a folder on your computer, and whenever you find a logo, or a movie poster, or a billboard, or a song, or a TV show that makes you go “I want THAT vibe!”, save it in that folder. You can either sit down and do this intentionally, or just take a week and let it happen naturally as you move around the world. As this folder fills up, you’ll start to see common themes, colours, and styles popping up. That is your vibe. That is what you want your business to feel like. And now you have a starting point, and from that point your entire visual identity can blossom. And the first port of call, is colours.
Colours, when you don’t have time for colour theory.
Colour theory (not to be confused with colour psychology) is an incredible useful thing for a designer to know. It helps us create harmonious colour schemes from a single starting point, that are easy on the eyes and still impactful. It’s also a lot of knowledge you don’t need to have if you’re not a designer. So how can you create a good colour scheme without sitting down with “Colour Theory For Dummies” and a palette of paints? Well, as with all things, there’s a website out there that does the hard work for you. And this time it’s coolors.co. Open that website, click “Start The Generator” and every time you tap the space bar it’ll generate you a new 5 colour scheme that will be harmonious and beautiful. You can keep tapping away randomly, or if you find a colour you like you can lock it in place and the other colours will change to stay harmonious with that one. You can raise or lower the amount of colours to your need, and even check how your given scheme will look in use, and how colourblind-friendly it is!
It’s an incredibly useful tool to help forge your identity as a business, because we as humans love making associations, so if you can find a colour that you can strongly associate with your business the same way UPS has their shade of Brown, Barbie has her shade of pink and Coke has their shade of Red, then you’re onto a winner.
Fonts: Letters, Licensing and ….another word that begins with L
So you’ve got your colours, now you need to find “your” fonts. You need to have a go-to typeface that you write everything in. Because if you’re writing your menu in one font, your social media posts in another and your posters in a third font, even if the colours and logos are all the same, it’s going to look wrong. And passersby might not understand exactly what feels wrong, but they will sense something is wrong, and you won’t look as legitimate as you could if it were all coherent and the same. But where do you find fonts? And how many do I need?
Well, second question first, you need two. At least two. One fancy, attention grabbing one to write titles and headers in, and one simpler, more sensible one to write the important information in. It’s all well and good having a gorgeous, calligraphic font that looks glamorous, but if you can’t read a date that’s written in it, that font is useless. So, one fancy “Display” font, and one “Body” font.
And secondly, you might have heard of DaFont.com, but I would recommend against using that for serious branding. Mostly because a lot of these fonts are rip-offs of trademarked fonts, or are otherwise not licensed for commercial use. If you must use DaFont, ensure you have “100% Free” checked under the “more options” menu, so that you don’t use any fonts that you don’t have permission to.
I would recommend instead one of two websites instead of DaFont. FontSpace, which has incredible filtering by mood, vibe and theme but still needs licensed fonts filtering out, or FontSquirrel, which has a far smaller collection but each and every one is available for commercial use, for free.
You never want to use a font that you don’t have the license to, even as a small business. Not only does it take money out of the Font Designers pocket, it also can lead to lawsuits if they find out.
Logos! That begins with L!
Logos, sadly, are the big, expensive bit that there’s sadly no way around. If you want a good logo, you’re going to have to hire a designer. There are some “cheats” to work around this, and I’m going to quick fire go through why they’re not as good an idea as they look at first glimpse
Using AI
AI images, first and foremost, are unethical. They use information that has been scraped from artist’s work without the permission of the artists, and in fact MidJourney and Stable AI– the largest AI Imaging tools, are currently embroiled in a class-action lawsuit from artists that have proof that not only has their work been stolen for training data, but the AI are being trained to reproduce work in the styles of those artists without their consent.
But ethics aside, the AI models also don’t actually understand the what exactly makes for good Logo Design, and merely aggregate what they have been taught. So at best you are going to get a completely average, generic logo. And at worse, a total mess.
AI images generators also cost money to use. And they cost money every time you click the “generate” button. So if it takes you ten or fifteen rounds of refining your prompt and regenerating results, then suddenly the affordability of using AI vanishes. Copyright is also an issue with AI, as neither UK or US law currently allows any work generated by AI to be copyrighted. This leaves you with work that can be stolen by anyone else, with no legal recourse for you
Canva
This one is tricky. If you’re using Canva as a tool to create your own logo out of generic shapes and lettering, then you are good to go (also remembering the font licensing thing we talked about earlier, always check that!). But if you use any of the Shapes, Glyphs, Images or Templates from Canva to create this logo, you are using their assets, and as such do not have the exclusive rights to the logo you have created. Not only does that put you in hot water if you ever need to trademark your logo, it also means you run the risk of having a near-identical logo to one of your competitors. Which is a bad idea.
Fiverr
A logo for a fraction of the price of the one the designer quoted you? Sounds too good to be true! Well…that’s because it is. For a multitude of reasons. First and foremost, there are swaths of untrustworthy sellers on fiverr, with portfolios consisting largely of stolen assets from other artists (a cursory google search will find you tonnes of artists complaining that their art has been stolen). Secondly, the meagre prices that artists are asking for, combined with the 20% cut that Fiverr takes, results in artists needing to rush through jobs in order to make enough to live, meaning each job drops in quality. Thirdly, the “race-to-the-bottom” culture of Fiverr makes it harder for every single artist, on the platform or not, to make a living, as they will need to drop their prices to an unhealthy degree to compete with Fiverr. In short, it’s not good for artists, or for buyers.
So what can I do?
There isn’t a shortcut to a good logo. They all come with drawbacks, and all result in low-quality work that you don’t really own. As the saying goes: “Pay peanuts, get monkeys”.
But if you’ve followed this guide through, you have a Font and a Colour scheme that you’re happy to represent your business with. Combine those two, and make yourself a “Wordmark” until you can afford to hire a designer. All a wordmark is is a logo that is simply text. It works for Coca-Cola, Google and Disney, and it can work for you too! It doesn’t need to be overly elaborate or fancy, especially if it’s just a placeholder until you can afford to bring in the professionals. At this point, you should have a good grasp of what you want it to feel like, and you can use online tools like Canva, Adobe Express or Photopea (all with the caveats we talked about in the Canva section) to create a simple wordmark that can more that do the job.
Branding is hard. This is just a whistlestop tour of the essentials, and how you can get through them with limited knowledge and budget. The easiest option is to hire a designer that will work with you on a 1-to-1 basis to do all this, and more, to create you a visual identity you can be proud of. I can recommend a really good one. Spoilers: it’s me. If you’d like to discuss your branding and visual identity with me, you can find my work at edenmw.com, and you can email hello@edenmw.com to talk about your next project!
