Creating your corporate identity is an essential step in making your company visible and recognizable at first glance. In today's world, it's no longer enough to offer an innovative product or top-quality services to raise your profile. To stand out from the crowd and win the loyalty of your customers, you need to meet their expectations. This means not only offering products and services that meet their needs, but also communicating your goals and values. Indeed, customers are increasingly sensitive to how companies behave in terms of the environment and human relations. This is part of a marketing strategy adapted to today's requirements, without which it is currently very difficult to be noticed, especially on the Internet.
Building a visual identity takes time and thought
You can't create a visual identity in a few hours or a few days. You need to take the time, alone or with your team, to consider everything that characterizes your company, its values, its know-how and the points that differentiate you from your competitors. This is an essential step in your positioning, as it will enable you to better identify and highlight your brand's strengths.
The graphic line of your corporate identity
The construction of a successful visual identity depends on consistency, i.e. homogeneity between all the components of your presentation, whether it's on your website, in your interventions on social networks or on your print media. This requires the development of a graphic line. This consists ofgraphic elements (colors, typography and logo) that are representative of your company, and which are recorded in a graphic charter. Compliance with this charter will ensure that your marketing strategy is consistent.
The choice of colors
It's important todevelop a color palette that's appropriate to your business sector. You'll notice that black and white are often associated with luxury goods, while blue and green are commonly used in the medical sector. To help you, you can refer to the symbolism of colors and identify those that are most representative of your business sector and the values you wish to emphasize.
As for the number of colors to be used, it's generally advisable to limit yourself to 4 or 5. The most common choice is 2 primary colors for the logo and 2 or 3 secondary colors for other communication media.
Typography and pictograms
Avoid mixing typefaces; the ideal is to choose one or two, making sure they match each other. If you limit yourself to a single typeface, you'll still be able to play with different sizes and line thicknesses.
Pictograms are very practical, as they are often more meaningful than text. They can be used to convey or emphasize information in a minimum of space. For the sake of harmonization, be sure to use the same pictograms systematically in all your communication materials.
The logotype
It's the key element of your visual identity. It's what makes your company recognizable. It must therefore be perfectly identifiable if you are to be spotted quickly. That's why you need to take a number of criteria into account when creating your corporate identity:
- The right fit with your business sector
- Clarity and legibility
- Simplicity, so that it's easy to remember and recognizable at a glance
- Originality (you don't want your logo to be too similar to a competitor's, as this could lead to confusion).
- The possibility of adapting it to different sizes without losing quality, hence the importance of designing it in vector format.
- In color, but also in black and white.
Since a logo has to last over time, as changing it always upsets customers, it's often best to entrust its creation to a professional graphic designer. It's a worthwhile investment, since he'll be able to advise you and help you avoid making mistakes that could damage your communication.
The graphic charter
Once you've defined your graphic line (colors, typography, logotype), it needs to be the subject of a document that compiles all the components you've validated. This is the graphic charter, a tool that will be used for the creation of all your communication media. This charter must be made available to all those responsible for your marketing strategy. In this way, the designer of your website, as well as the printer of your brochures, business cards and other advertising documents, will be able to respect all the graphics of your visual identity.