If you’ve had your business for a while (a year, two, three, or more), when was the last time
you took a look at your branding and considered whether it’s working for you? Does your logo reflect your established, growing business? Or does it remind you of when you just started out? What about your website, social media content, invoices, and printed materials?
We’re going to unpack why branding is more than just your logo and how refreshing your
brand can make your business bloom.
Hey,
I’m Amy Walters, the award-winning founder and lead designer at Bloom Creative. After a chat with Erin Buck, founder of Bizzy Bee Bolly and owner of this here blog, about the branding journey she’s been on in her business, we thought it only fitting for my guest post to be about brand refreshes!
I designed my own brand and logo when I first started out, but after awhile I out grew it and I need more freedom than what it allowed, so having a rebrand was a no brainer for me - Erin Buck, Bizzybee
Why is branding important, anyway?
Whether you’ve invested in a visual brand identity or have a DIY logo, you have a brand.
Your visual brand consists of your logo, your brand colours, your brand fonts, and any icons, illustrations and photos that you use. Good branding helps you to get noticed, recognised, and remembered by your ideal clients, and it builds trust between you and your audience.
Inconsistent branding can look like having multiple different logos that don’t look the same, using different fonts and colours across your social media and website, or creating your business card from a template online. When you’re starting out, these might not be your top priority, but once you’re more established, it’s important to revisit how you look to your potential clients and customers. An inconsistent brand looks less established than your business actually is.
Good branding is consistent and unique; it tells your business story, it stands out, and it appeals to your ideal clients.
Good branding helps your business to:
Get noticed and stand out from competitors
Be recognised with content that’s recognisably you
Be remembered and stick in people’s minds
Look trustworthy and establish trust with your audience
Take a look at your ‘look’
The start of a brand refresh comes with an honest look at where your business’s branding is now and where you want it to be. The official term for this is a ‘brand audit’, but it’s not as scary as it sounds!
Start by making a list of everywhere your business appears, both on and offline. This could include your website, business card, social media, posters, flyers, banners, and perhaps other people’s websites or freelance job boards. Going over the list you’ve just made, write notes about the visual appearance: colours, fonts, logos, imagery, and any assets or icons you’ve used. You could also analyse your tone of voice as well as revisiting and/or updating your customer personas to remind yourself who your ideal client is and what appeals to them.
Once you’ve done this, you’ll know where your branding is now, and you’ll start to get an idea about what you’d like to improve.
What does a brand refresh involve?
‘Brand refresh’ is the term used when established businesses or freelancers update their look whilst keeping their business or trading name the same. Brand refreshes are tailored to each business and often involve:
updating your logo
creating a new colour scheme
refreshing your brand fonts
defining your brand messaging/tone of voice
You might want to keep one or some elements from your old branding. For example, you
could keep the colour blue and curate a full-colour palette that complements that colour or
you could keep the shape of a meaningful icon but modernise and improve it.
Professional graphic designers make logos as ‘vectors’ which is a fancy word for scalable art that doesn’t pixelate. So, if you ever needed it, your logo could be printed as big as the side of a building! Vector logo files are also useful for printed materials, embroidered clothing, and using online.
Is a brand refresh right for me?
A brand refresh could help you to attract new customers, retain existing ones, and reignite
your passion for your business. With the help of a professional designer who gets to know
you and the heart of your business as well as your ideal client and customer base, you can
refresh your brand and level up your look. Designers and virtual assistants can help you to
implement your brand refresh in a way that builds upon your current brand recognition.
Knowing whether a brand refresh is right for you and when to do it is a personal decision, and every business is different. I’ve unpacked 5 ways to know if your brand needs a refresh in this free guide. It covers whether a refresh is right for you and the best time to do it.
It’s more than a logo
Your logo is a vital component of your brand, but it’s not the only part. Looking at the wider
picture, including colours, fonts, icons, brand assets, and tone of voice, will help you to build
a better brand that blooms.
Once you’ve refreshed your brand identity, you need to implement it. This means updating
your website, your social media pages, your printed marketing, your templates and
documents (such as invoices). Having an implementation strategy, including how to
communicate your refresh to your audience, is key to ensuring your audience isn’t confused
and/or surprised by your sudden change of look.
Who can I work with for a brand refresh?
Graphic designers, agencies, and virtual assistants are the places to look for professional
support.
A graphic designer can come up with fresh design ideas to explore for your logo and brand. They work in software to build high-quality logos (aka scalable vectors, which we touched upon earlier). Graphic designers know design trends and have an eye for good design. They can work with you to select the brand colours and fonts that suit your business the best. They can also help you to implement your branding across your printed materials, social media, website, templates, and documents.
Design agencies provide a whole host of services around branding and brand refreshes. They can build a brand refresh package that is bespoke to your business needs and wants. When you work with an agency, you’ll have access to at least one graphic designer working on your brand refresh. Agencies can also help you to implement your new branding across several different platforms, including your website and social media.
A virtual assistant can help you to find the right designer for your brand refresh and support you through various stages such as research and analysis, brand strategy, and implementation. If you have a virtual assistant who manages your social media accounts and/or website updates, they can implement your refresh by updating your logo, colours, and fonts, and they could develop an updated social media strategy that aligns with your new branding.
I have more questions!
Ask away; no question is a silly one! You can reach me, Amy, at amy@bloom-creative.co.uk, on LinkedIn, or on Instagram, and, of course, you can reach Erin, aka BizzyBee, at erin@bizzybeebolly.com, on all social media platforms!
Amy Walters is the award-winning Founder and Lead Designer of Bloom Creative. She is passionate about helping others to enhance their brand and takes the time to get to know her clients and their dreams and goals when working with them.
Bloom Creative is a design business based in Kent who supports local and national businesses with a range of services that get them noticed, recognised, and remembered, including: quality digital content, eye-catching print design, and bespoke branding & brand refreshes.
When Amy's not working with businesses to better their branding and creating bespoke designs for them, she loves to travel, explore and be generally creative all of the time!
Bizzybee: VA support for creatives.
Do you find daily admin tasks draining?
No matter what type of creative business you run, outsourcing these responsibilities to a VA allows you the time and space you need to focus on growing your business and enjoying every moment of it.
Erin at Bizzybee is an experienced virtual assistant and social media manager specialising in supporting creative freelancers, entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Want to learn more about Bizzybee services? Feel free to get in touch today.