If you want to stay afloat in today’s business world, you need a strong brand strategy design.

It doesn’t matter what kind of business you run. If your ideal customer doesn’t recognize your product or service, it won’t get sold. And if it doesn’t get sold, you won’t make any money. So what do you do? You create a solid brand strategy design that makes you stand out among the crowd and make people want to buy your product over anything else.

Branding Strategy vs Brand Strategy Design

Brand strategy and brand strategy design may sound similar but are two different things.

Brand strategy is the blueprint and long-term goal that determines how you want your brand to look, feel, and act. It’s how you decide what makes your company unique from others in the same industry and what sets you apart from any competitors.

But how do you know if your brand strategy is working? That’s where brand strategy design comes in.

Brand strategy design is the actual creation of the visual core elements and design project that communicates this strategy—from logos to color schemes to marketing materials and more.

Remember, the main difference between brand strategy and brand strategy design is that brand strategy focuses on the big picture while brand strategy design focuses on the details.

6 Brand Strategy Design Stages

It’s not easy to develop a strong brand, but it can be done with work and creativity. Here are the key stages you may consider when making a strong brand strategy design.

Stage 1. Brand personality and business goals

There’s no doubt that the design phase and creative process are important. But a designer’s role isn’t just to create beautiful things—it’s to create beautiful things that help companies succeed. And when a company sets out to do something great, it has to know what it’s trying to accomplish.

A brand is a promise—consistency, quality, and value promise that a company makes to its customers. And while a company can’t do everything in one day, it can make sure that its brand is consistent and memorable by setting goals for itself. The best way to do this is by defining your brand’s values, then communicating those values through everything from messaging strategy to design decisions.

When done well, this will set the stepping stones for your brand strategy design so you can build trust with your target audience and make them feel like they know who they’re doing business with—and why they should keep coming back!

Stage 2. Market analysis and user research

After you’ve set your goals and determined your company’s personality, it’s time to research. Market analysis, competitor audit, and user research are crucial in a solid brand strategy design because they provide the information needed to understand your target audience profile. This is an essential step for design work—logo design, graphic design, or web design.

Without this information, you can’t create a product that resonates with your target clients. For example, if you have a new product line in mind but your market research shows that consumers are not interested in it, you can save yourself time and money by not pursuing it.

When you know how your customers think and feel about your product beyond basic demographics, you can ensure that your brand-building process and messaging strategy are built around those customer profile needs. This will help ensure that your business strategy and brand strategy design successfully reach their goals.

Stage 3. Logo design

Logo design is the most crucial element in a company’s design phase. It is the most prominent symbol of brand image and the foundation of a strong brand strategy design.

A strategic designer focuses on effective logo design because it helps consumers find, recognize, and remember your brand. Logos also provide an instant visual representation for customers to connect with your business and can be used to build a positive association between you and your customers.

Your logo should be simple, memorable, and appropriate for your industry. It should also be easy to reproduce in various formats—from printed materials to websites to social media profiles—customers can recognize customers no matter where they encounter them.

Stage 4. Branding visual elements

The visual element of a brand design is not just limited to the logo. Other visual representations deserve attention as well. These include mascots, typography, and color schemes.

When designing a brand, it’s essential to keep in mind that people have expectations about how they’ll be treated in a marketing campaign. This means your brand’s visual language and identity elements should be consistent with those expectations.

For example, if you’re designing a new brand for an accountant, then typography and color schemes will probably be the essential considerations in your design strategy. Accountants are expected to be businesslike and serious—so you might want to go with something like Times New Roman or Garamond for the font style. You might also want to use blue as your primary color because blue is associated with trustworthiness and intelligence.

On the other hand, if you’re designing a new brand for an ice cream shop, mascots would probably be more critical than typography or color schemes in your design strategy. Ice cream shops typically have fun mascots that appeal directly to kids—so you could choose anything from cute little animals to goofy cartoon characters. You might also want to use bright colors like red, orange, yellow, or green because those are associated with fun things like sunshine and happiness!

Step 5. Corporate identity 

The corporate identity is the sum of all visual key elements that make up a company’s branding. It includes logos, colors, and fonts—everything that makes up a company’s brand. A company’s visual identity must be consistent across all mediums, from websites and social media profiles to print materials like business cards and brochures.

The goal of creating a corporate visual identity is to create a consistent image for your company that will connect with your target clients and makes them want to do business with you. The design and branding process can take several months to more than a year, depending on the complexity of your organization’s needs and goals.

Step 6. Style guide

As a designer, it’s your responsibility to ensure that potential clients use all of the assets correctly. When you create a style guide, you can explain how to use the graphics developed for the brand correctly and incorrectly.

Your style guide should include:

• An explanation of your brand’s concept
• A list of approved fonts (and their suggested font weight)
• A list of approved colors (and their suggested color palette)
• Examples of appropriate and inappropriate usage

Clients can use this information to ensure that all of their visuals are on-brand and consistent with one another.

Branding is a complex process, to be sure. It’s one of the most important aspects of any successful business and distinctive brand identity, but it can often feel like it’s out of your hands—like you have no control over the ways your company is perceived by the public.

But branding isn’t just a matter of aesthetics or messaging; it’s also about strategy and goals. And when you have a strong strategic foundation, then creating a brand becomes a much easier process.