Put your hand up if you wear clothes.
Good, keep your hand up and strap in for a proper read. The clothes we choose to wear are choices about how we want to interact with the world—how we want to be seen and understood. I’m a human and I use em dashes. Anyway. You don’t wear the same outfit to attend a wedding as you do for a duvet day when you’re feeling ill. Or maybe you do… no judgment here.
Most people think about the clothes they wear in a professional environment, especially when interacting with people they don’t know/potential clients. You generally want to look ‘the right’ level’ of smart to fit your industry and role. Right or wrong, people will judge the outcome.
‘Don’t judge a book by its cover.’ Of course, great, but we can tell who puts effort into their clothes and appearance. Most importantly, we can tell who doesn’t.
Long story, well, long, the same can be said for brand. People can tell if you care about your appearance and make assumptions based on it. Luckily, we can do a lot to positively shape the path of judgment through considered, intentional branding. Why wouldn’t you want to try and impress and attract your potential customers?
Why wouldn’t you want to try and impress and attract your potential customers?
The ‘curated clothes’ of our brand is how our consumers understand our personality. It’s not just the logo, it’s all of these elements:
Logo | Typography | Colour palette | Imagery style | Illustration style | Graphic devices | Iconography | Patterns | Mascots | Grids | Design systems | Packaging | Stationery | Signage | Customer experience | Positioning | Mission and vision | Brand story | Messaging strategy | Tone of voice | Tagline/slogans | Online presence | Email | Video | Audio | Office | Point of sale | Events
You don’t need all of these, but it’s the whole package of how you show up, planned or unplanned, that determines how you will be perceived. The best brands have the most well-rounded strategies for curating their visuals and behaviours.
I prefer the term curating to creating a brand—because it isn’t invention, it’s selection. At the beginning of each project, all the options are available. All the colours, fonts, images, etc. And then, one by one, we remove those that don’t match the personality. Comic sans and papyrus, they go in the bin straight away. “My main competitor is purple”, fine, that’s gone. And so on and so on making intentional choices until we’ve curated our true visual personality. The one that uniquely fits ‘us’ and can’t be replicated.
Warning—Faking or stealing won’t work.
You can’t make your personality up. Well, you can, but it will be found out in the long term. The lure is to look ‘interesting’ or ‘cool’, but it has to be true to your unique core values, and, invariably, being authentic with passion is cool.
My job isn’t to invent personalities for businesses; it's to milk the personalities out. I call it ‘milking the professional personality glands’. I call it that for two reasons, firstly, it sounds gross, and that amuses me. Secondly, it makes it sound like I knew what I was doing when I named my business.
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