Your Brand is More Than Your Logo

A logo is not a brand.

It’s forgivable that your logo might be the first thing you consider when you’re creating your brand, and sure, it’s important to nail.

But your brand is so much more than that. It’s a collaboration of every single critical aspect of your brand working cohesively together.

So if your brand is more than your logo, what else is it?

Values

Your brand values are the reasons behind why you do what you do. These are the foundations of your brand existing and operating.

Your values permeate everything in your company from where your office gets your bathroom soap, your approach to customer service, to how many of your team hang around for Friday drinks.

Your brand values uphold your internal culture, which is then reflected externally through your brand’s actions and beliefs.

Tone of Voice

This is how your brand sounds. And it’s equally as important as how it looks.

You might be cheeky like Go-To Skincare, funny like Who Gives A Crap, formal like Aesop, or emotive like Nike. Your tone of voice is what makes you distinctive and it’s how you attract your audience. They hear a tone of voice they like and think, “That brand is for me”.

Your tone of voice can be hard to define, but once you’ve got it, it’s yours to keep.

Content

You know the phrase ‘you are what you eat’? For a brand, the equivalent is you are what you put out into the world.

You might know your brand from back to front, inside out. But that doesn’t mean anything unless you’re putting content out for everyone else to see and understand your brand too.

The type of content you create, how often, where it lives, all of this contributes to your brand. You are defined by what you deliver.

Colour Palette

Whereas your logo is a brand mark on its own, your colour palette is relevant across everything your brand rolls out.

Ideally when you have your logo, you also have brand guidelines to follow so you know how to use your logos and colour palette across mediums and in different instances. Why is this important? So your brand is cohesive. You want to be recognisable even if the logo isn’t there and a colour palette is key for doing this.

Think of the Cadbury purple, Coca-Cola red, Tiffany blue, JetStar orange, Apple space grey. Your colour palette is as distinctive, recognisable and integral to your brand as your logo.

Typography

Typography includes your logo’s typeface and brand fonts. This is important because typography makes an impact on the reader, even if they aren’t aware of it.

Its function is to be legible, but also to communicate the messaging, tone, style and aesthetics of your brand.

Copy is important both because of what the words are literally saying, but also because text is a visual that conveys a message and emphasises your brand’s personality.

Website

In this digital age, your website is a crucial aspect of your brand.

If your logo is clean and minimal but then your website is clunky to use with a busy design, then you don’t have a solid brand. Sorry. Your digital presence must reinforce the promise of your branding.

This probably wasn’t true ten years ago, but it certainly is now. Get yourself a website (or even a landing page! Ask us!) that is good enough to back up the rest of your brand.

Social Feed

Your brand is also your social media feed.

Yes, it’s how it looks visually but it’s also more than that. It’s the community you build online and the circles you’re a part of and the audiences you attract.

It’s even which social platform you decide to use for your brand to begin with. Are you 100% Instagram? Are your people on LinkedIn? Is TikTok where you need to be?

Social media is where your brand forms connections with your audience. And really, that’s what it’s all about.

Consistency

We’re not dismissing logos here. Obviously they’re a majorly important aspect of your brand and you definitely want to get it right. But they’re not the be all and end all of a brand.

Logos are one piece of the puzzle. Every piece we’ve listed above should fit together to form a picture of your brand. The best brands are consistent at every level. Every output looks the same, feels the same, sounds the same and has the same vibe. That’s what makes a successful brand.

We want to help you build a brand that’s consistent. Because they’re trusted. They’re more memorable. And they convert.

That’s why we have a completely full-service offering, where we help build every aspect of your brand, beyond just your logo.

Talk to us today about creating a buildable brand that resonates with your customers no matter where it lives. Talk to us about creating a Bellman brand today.