Visual Brand

Design • Branding • Process

Jul 11

What are the basics of a good brand? Let's work one on together!

Have you ever been in a large crowd trying to find your friends? My eyes aren't super good so I try to look for them by something that stands out: long purple hair, a big blue backpack, a bold cat print.
One flash of color in the distance and I know where I need to walk towards.

Branding is the same. It's the unique characteristics that make something easy to recognize. Basically every product has a brand nowadays. They go beyond a logo and fancy packaging, modern brands have an online presence with a curated tone of voice. Some brands even have a personality and an unhinged social media presence. Think of the green bird threatening you if you don't practice your German.

Murderous owl or not, developing a brand is one of my favorite projects. In fact, I used to earn my bread and butter doing yearly brands (read more here). Selecting keywords, picking colors, testing fonts—it's like creating the rules for your new little world. A new design territory to conquer.

How about we build a brand together?
Here? Now? From scratch?
Yeah! I say, it will take less than 5 minutes in 4 simple steps.

Well, kinda. We're breaking down how I built my visual brand, and then you can repeat the steps for your own. Sounds good?

Let's go!

I'm the loud print. I'm the friend they find thanks bright colors.

1) Purpose

Before we start, the first question is:

What is your brand for?

It's different if you are developing a personal brand to showcase your professional work vs selling fancy seafood. Yeah, you can use similar colors but your design decisions need to be in favor of the brand's purpose. Also, knowing how your brand will be used will determine what assets you need to create. Your personal brand might not need embroidered napkins with little smiling shrimps. Even if we both think that's a great idea.

Let me give you a concrete example — I love bright colors and fun prints for my personal style, but choosing a brand along these lines could distract from my designs. For my use case, I like to think that a good portfolio website should be like a museum. The space has personality but it doesn't detract from the artwork.

Here is my wardrobe color palette. Maybe we'll see some colors later on?

2) Keywords

Now we move on to the next question:

What words do you want people to associate with your brand?

As mentioned in my post about finding your presentation style, you can ask friends and family for help. Write down what adjectives people use to describe you.

In my case I wanted my website to say I am: creative, pragmatic, and fun.
All my color and font choices should be aligned with these.

You can also write down words that you want people to associate you with. Branding starts with the concept of being something, you can later grow to embody it.

My very simple color palette.

3) Colors

Now we can finally start getting to visuals, are you excited?

Let's do a simple 5-color palette. I would recommend picking one accent color first and building the rest around it.
How do you choose your first color? With color meanings! You are going to choose one color that people associate with your keywords. Don't worry about the specific shade or saturation, we need a direction first.

There are lots of resources online to find color meanings but you can start here browsing some pros and cons for different colors. Once you know what "main color" you want to work with, you can pick a specific version of that color. Think ocre or turquoise instead of just "yellow" or "blue".

In my case lilac works great. It's associated with creativity, intuition, innovation and inspiration.

The next color is your complementary color, it's here to help your main color shine and play along with it. It doesn't have to be in the same color family as your main one but it also shouldn't compete with it. Try going for something either lighter or darker. In my case dark purple helps keep in line with the same keywords and adds a bit of contrast.

Now it's time for your neutral colors, these are the choir and act as support for the bolder colors. I picked gray, white and black. We are going for clarity and simplicity so these neutral colors will make my purples stand out.

If you are short on time and need a premade palette, just choose a main color that aligns with your words and search for something ready-made online. Pinterest is a good place to start or try Coolors for a random palette generator.

One last tip before we move on to the next section! You want to think about accessibility. Are there any color combinations you should avoid? I use WebAIM's contrast checker. This resource helps me make sure if I use two colors together, most people would be able to read them.

Simple test to know how to mix colors.

4) Fonts

Now it's time to choose how we write. I would recommend not going above 3 fonts:

• A – for main titles and special messages
• B – for regular titles and subtitles
• C – for basic paragraphs

Font A can be very wild and stylish, something that stands out and calls for a lot of attention. Font C is reliable and simple, it should be easy to read since most of the text will be in this style. Font B? It's a comfortable in-between.

Ok but how are you going to pick fonts in the first place? There are millions out there! In the past I've used dafont.com and searched for free fonts. Nowadays with Google Fonts, you have a huge selection at your disposal.
Pro tip? Try asking ChatGPT for recommendations based on your keywords, it's a good way to start browsing a preselection of font candidates.

My fonts and colors working together.

If you are already happy with your brand's fonts and colors, you are good to go. Start sketching some logos, keep building your brand!

Now this last tip is not a strictly necessary step, it's the cherry on top.
Since we are working on making a nice website, I wanted to focus on some nice extra details. What would make my website special? In my case it's a little bit of animations, adding waves as section dividers, and nice little hover effects on images and links.

My brand would still exist without these details, but having them makes it special. It says someone worked on this, someone cared, someone loved their craft.
Make sure you can say the same about your work.

That’s Enough About Me!

What do you think? What should I focus on next?

Should we continue with branding basics?
I hope these tips are helpful and kick-off your start info the world of branding and design!

Let me know—shoot me an email! 😊
📩 sifuentesanita@gmail.com