For me, I think this is super fun. But then again I love designing things! The hardest part is picking which fonts and colors are best for your brand. Additionally, you need to decide if your logo, your colors, or your fonts technically come first because whichever you pick will be priority. Lastly you need to figure out how your aesthetic will all come together to be your brand!
MAKE A VISION BOARD. Here is an example of a vision board we made for our client Koko Kai Coconut Yogurt
First, our client saved images over a period of time that she was inspired by and sent them to us. We assembled these into the first board.
The next step was taking color inspiration to pick the main colors to work with. Then, tasked with creating a vision for each flavor, we made these!
We are now figuring out how to integrate the correct vision with a realistic budget and bring Koko Kai's vision to life!
When it came to branding out own company, we went immediately for the vintage surf poster look because it's just cool! Next, we brought all those images onto a page in photoshop to see everything together and slowly went through, deleting our least favorite.
Then, we used the eye dropper tool to find the exact colors and made a palette of colors, putting the similars in the same column. After we had all the colors together, we entered the same elimination process and erased the ones that didn't quite make the cut. We made sure to also think about colors for backgrounds and text so text would pop on our website and other branded content.
Then it was time for the fonts! There are literally thousands of free fonts on the internet and so many different sites, might be your easiest Google search! (Which by the way did you know if you use Ecosia instead the plant trees after a certain amount of searches?!)
Now we’re going to re-reference that page of all your favorite inspiration images. This page is where you'll ultimately put your colors and will become the base of your brand guide. For us we had some guidance of fonts based on what was on the images but it’s not that easy to find similar fonts unless you know what to look for!
So here is a font guide!
There are 6 main fonts:
Serif fonts: the most classic, original fonts. They are named for the little feet at the top and bottom of the letterforms
Slab serifs: the fonts with the most impressive, large serifs
Sans serif fonts: fonts that lack the little serifed feet
Script fonts: those that mimic cursive handwriting
Handwritten fonts: often lack the structure and definition of the letterforms in a traditional script, instead mimicking the loop and flow of natural handwriting
Display fonts: intended for use at large sizes for headings, rather than for extended passages of body text
We hope this was a helpful post to get your creative juices flowing! As always, if you have any questions, we are happy to help and we even offer consultancy services to help you through your branding process if you'd rather take charge on your own!!
