Content
Understanding the Differences between Branding, Brand Identity, and Logo
July 31, 2024
10 mins
The notion of a ‘brand’ was conventionally associated with a logo. While the latter is a core element of a brand and its visual association, the key question remains open: ‘What is a brand?’
Today, the notion of a brand combines an impression a company makes and what it wants to convey. The key elements of a brand are branding, brand identity, and logo that serve multiple purposes.
In our new blog post, Promodo's Creative Graphic Designer, Dmytro Drobotenko reflects on the main concepts of branding, identity, and logo and major distinctions.
Branding is about creating a unique image and positioning a company in the market, including emotional connection, reputation, values, and brand promises.
Identity is a visual representation of a brand that includes a logo, color palette, typography, and other elements that make a brand recognizable.
A logo is a graphic symbol or emblem representing a brand and is a key element of its visual identity.
Branding involves creating a unique image and identity for a company or a product. It encompasses values, mission, and communication with customers. That is how branding makes a relevant impression about the brand.
Before developing a branding, strategy, corporate identity, or even a logo, you need to determine:
🟠 Mission, vision, and corporate values
🟠 Tone of voice
🟠 Use of images
🟠 Reflected values
🟠 The way you want to present yourself.
Every brand wants to be perceived exactly as initially intended, and no other way around. Even if the client has not created a brand for their product, consumers already developed some impression of it. Branding is about creating accurate the correct communication about what your brand is, as well as maintaining and modifying it. Dmytro Drobotenko, Creative Graphic Designer at Promodo.
Brand creation is a complex concept and service that includes both visual and supplementary elements, like logo, website, and social media presence through branded posting. All these components are essential once you are about to create your own brand.
There are two branding types:
The strategic stage involves working on brand understanding and its meaning. It's important to figure out what we want to tell people and what values we want to convey.
The visual component involves corporate identity and non-verbal communication. External attributes are the main brand constants.
Regular communications involve ad campaigns, SMM, and other ways of communication that convey a single idea to people. Tactical daily actions embody the brand ideology.
So, branding goes beyond visual elements to include the entire customer experience, from product design to marketing campaigns. It encompasses creating a narrative that resonates with the target audience and constantly reinforcing it through various channels. Effective branding creates a strong emotional connection with customers, fostering loyalty and trust.
Authenticity is essential for brands because it builds trust, establishes strong relationships, and emotionally connects with the audience. The brands investing in authenticity better engage with their audiences, earn loyalty, and stand out from the competition.
Companies achieve authenticity by aligning ad values with actual actions.
Today's consumers are far more skeptical than ever and seek transparency and honesty. That's why pursuing open communication is vital. For this purpose, many brands are responding to user stories on social media about their hands-on customer experiences.
Rebranding is a fundamental change in a brand's positioning, needs, and strategies.
Over time, consumers start associating the same external attributes, elements, colors, and graphics in a completely different way. Context and relevance are vital here. If a brand positions itself as an innovative market player, it is important to support such positioning with supplementary communication. What was considered innovative and modern five years ago is now taken in a new light. Dmytro Drobotenko, Creative Graphic Designer at Promodo.
A company's brand is intangible; it embodies its values and culture. Meanwhile, brand identity is a tangible component that includes visual and other elements representing the brand: logos, colors, and typography.
While a brand is formed over time through various activities and interactions, a brand's corporate identity is deliberately designed to reflect a brand's personality and values. So, is there more to corporate identity beyond logo and branding?
Corporate identity embraces a set of elements that create a unique image of a company. It should be consistent across all marketing content and reflect the brand.
Why do companies need a corporate identity:
🟠 Identification of the company
🟠 Brand integrity
🟠 Increased loyalty among customers, colleagues, and investors
🟠 Helping customers find a product among hundreds of others
🟠 Lowering the cost of ad campaigns while entering the market
🟠 Emphasizing the main advantages of the product/service.
Who needs brand identity design:
🟠 Consumers to choose the products or services they want. Herewith, brand identity should be holistic
🟠 Businesses to stand out from competitors and get wider visibility
🟠 New businesses to be visible
🟠 Existing businesses to stay visible.
Solid colors. Monochrome branding is often minimalistic. The color palette of the brand contains different shades of the same color. For logo branding, analyze the colors and associated emotions to make sure you accurately reflect the mood and tone of your brand.
Custom experience. This trend is particularly prevalent in niches like retail and hospitality, where standing out in a crowded market and building loyalty is pivotal.
Author's illustrations. As well as small hand-drawn elements that add humanity to the identity.
Simple elements. In 2024, brands prefer simple shapes that make a powerful impression. This trend is driven by the need for simplicity and structure, though without losing creativity. For this, bold fonts, bright color palettes, and careful use of negative space are enough.
A logo is a graphic sign, emblem, or symbol used to identify a company or a product. It is among the main elements of your identity, though not the only one.
What does the term ‘logo’ imply:
🟠 Fonts and colors
🟠 Icons or any graphic elements
🟠 Logo design.
A branding logo idea does not come from scratch. A client comes with their vision specified in the brief. They tell us what they like and what they don't like, what colors they prefer, the music they associate themselves with, and so on. Based on this initial data about the client's preferences, we analyze the overall situation in his niche: competitors, their solutions, techniques, and colors. Further, we decide on and create an individual work plan for the client. We may differ slightly from the competition by deploying similar grotesque fonts, though a color that has not yet been used by competitors. We may come up with an entirely creative logo and brand design solution new to the niche. Much depends on whether the client has a brand name or whether we have to create it as well like in the case with Gerts. Along with the strategists, we develop a brand name for the client and then a full-fledged logo. Dmytro Drobotenko, Creative Graphic Designer at Promodo.
Abstract shapes allow you to creatively convey ideas and values, present concepts and evoke emotions.
Geometric iconography creates a sense of structure and balance and evokes visual interest in brand design.
Specialty typography, unique and individual typography is today’s commonplace. It is especially popular in the industrial sector to remind people about the complex and interconnected production and supply chains that affect everyday life. Logos imitate block monograms and angular shapes popular across the niche.
Beyond the industrial sector, the style is popular across various niches and among personal brands.
Inspired by the past are the logos based on archival materials to emphasize the strength and stability of iconic companies and products. The British brand Burberry introduced a logo that refers to their 100-year-old knight rider motif. After several years of using a sans-serif font, the brand returned to the classic serif font.
Bright colors: bold and bright color palettes are gaining popularity.
Business logos should not always have to be trendy, but design trends will help you come up with fresh ways to tell your story, connect with your customers, and put the message across your industry.
We've reached a creative tipping point - an era for experimentation, self-expression, and creative confidence - so it's the high time we put another essential question “What is your brand logo?” to be answered with the boldest and authentic answers possible.
Branding embraces a wide range of nuances, ranging from emotional connection and reputation, while identity and logo focus on visual elements. Branding ultimately aims to create an overall image and perception of the company. Corporate identity and logo strive for establishing a recognizable visual image.
The most important part of any logo, branding, or identity project is the initial conversation (brief) to outline the client’s goals. Beyond that, at Promodo, we emphasize client’s support by exploring their target audience, product market, competition, as well as the right choice of colors and fonts.
Art Director: Valentin Belenkov (UNTK)
Art Director: Andriy Yarovoy (GERTS)
Art Director: Andriy Shepel (Mintee)
Senior Designer at Promodo: Dmytro Drobotenko
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