How design agencies help small businesses stay consistently awesome
Mar 05, 2024
You finally nailed down that killer logo design and got your brand’s colors just right. But how do you ensure brand consistency sticks around as the business grows and evolves?
Cue a spotlight on design and branding agencies. They protect your brand and serve as the gatekeeper to stop logos from being stretched, prevent weird color combinations from causing a distraction, and give your business a chance to be remembered for the right reasons.
So, let’s dive into how your small business can keep its brand intact with the help of a branding and design agency.
The power of brand consistency for small businesses
Whether you’re a small startup or an established company experiencing astronomical growth, brand consistency is your superpower. And it can’t be taken for granted. Uniformity in design is the secret sauce that increases brand recognition, fosters confidence, and sets you apart from competitors in your space.
Bold brands that take this seriously make decision-making easier for your target audience.
As shown by numerous research studies and surveys, consumers’ decisions are greatly influenced by their interactions with brands. They remember images. When presented with a choice between recognizing a logo or the name of a company, most people will remember the former. This exposure ultimately leads to increased trust in your business.
Maintaining consistency between the visual elements of your brand serves as the glue that holds it all together.
Deviating from this chips away at and degrades the brand—and people’s perception of it. When this happens, it’s difficult to regain people’s confidence once they have strayed from your business.
Design and branding agencies help you define your visual identity
A strong brand identity is an absolute must-have for any business looking to succeed in today’s hyper-competitive landscape. And yours needs to be captivating enough to be memorable and consistent across the board to leave a lasting impression.
When businesses establish a solid identity that truly speaks to who they are and what they stand for, it lays the foundation for building credibility with their audience.
All of which leads to long-term growth and success. Otherwise known as “winning.”
The partnership between your business and a creative agency can help showcase your company’s core values and reveal what makes it truly extraordinary. It creates a visual brand story, defining everything from the icons used on your website to the colors used in your marketing.
Every aspect of your brand identity plays a crucial role in this story and aims to stick in the minds of potential customers, and enlisting a creative partner in this endeavor helps you keep it on track.
Injecting order into a chaotic brands
Design agencies bring a fresh perspective and a wealth of creativity to every branding project. They also serve as the voice of reason for businesses putting out off-brand sales and marketing materials.
Here is how they work their magic and help businesses bring order to chaos.
Creative investigators
But it doesn’t start and end with redesigning a logo or picking out new colors.
Like any good investigator, they evaluate the current state of your brand. Are there areas where your fonts are misused? Did someone make a change to the logo they weren’t supposed to?
Graphic and brand designers are masters at examining your brand, searching for any lurking problems that could be responsible for weakening your sales and marketing efforts.
This becomes especially important during brand redesigns. Designers shake things up, breathe new life into your visual style, and fix any pesky inconsistencies. They revitalize visual identities and create a path for a more cohesive brand moving forward.
After identifying any visual vulnerabilities, your designer can create an easy-to-follow style guide breaking down each part of your identity and how to use it so people can create assets for it correctly.
On-demand quality control
Designers can spot when something is amiss with your brand’s visual elements because of their almost inhuman attention to detail. They serve as your company’s brand quality control manager, ensuring that your business looks professional when it’s seen online or in print.
Businesses that put brand consistency front and center reap rewards over competitors that don’t.
While creative agencies aren’t superheroes, they come pretty close. They streamline your design processes, make it easier to market to your audience and give you the bandwidth to focus on doing what you do best.
Take advantage of your brand’s power
Protecting your brand identity never stops and requires vigilance across all channels. Brand consistency positions you as a business worthy of people spending their time and money with.
Teaming up with a branding and design agency enables you to harness this power to transform your small business into an unstoppable force. They’re the guardians of your company’s visual identity, ensuring it stays on point across all platforms.