How to Create a Captivating Brand Style

Successful brands of today have their own unique styles. They have formed a following and built recognition based on an excellent product, paired with a smart marketing strategy. This strategy includes a visual personality and captivating style that’s been targeted at a specific audience.

Here’s how you can build a captivating and engaging brand for your business.

Choose an appropriate style for your business

Your customers need to be able to relate to your individual aesthetic with a “that’s so me” reaction when they see an Instagram or Facebook post. Think about how they will feel when they see your graphics and imagery, as well as how they respond and connect to your visual identity.

Consider simple stylistic choices when it comes to your own business, especially if your online store is catering to a lifestyle market.

Stay relevant and keep your marketing customer-centric

Think about what your audience likes and what they want. This is the ultimate decider on how to visually market your business. You need to attract a certain person, understand their style, put together a profile of your potential customer.

Seriously, write down everything you know about them. How old are they? What car do they drive? What sport do they play? What kind of coffee do they drink? What do they do on the weekend? This will help you to create a graphic style specific to your audience.

Use consistent design elements

If you want to really stand out above the rest and form a following that reflects the style of your brand, you need to remain consistent.

Curate a unique, yet relatable, design aesthetic that people will begin to associate with your brand. You might apply monochrome filters to all your imagery or you could use big, bold typefaces to grab the attention of your audience. Whatever it is, the style you choose must be cohesive across all your marketing material.

Here are some techniques you can also try:

• Use a solid frame around your text

  This is a great way to contain your content. It also draws the eye to the text – meaning the customer will read what you put within the box – and adds an easy-to-recognise brand feature that services similarly to a CTA.

• Choose one main font and then a secondary, complimentary font

  Choose a limited number of fonts and stick with them to create brand consistency.

• Colour contrast is appealing to the human eye

  This allows you to play around with the colours just enough to be sure that your most important asset or text is quickly and easily seen and read.

Be original

It’s easy to follow the pack, but there’s a difference between being inspired and being the same. Find your point of difference and use it to your advantage. Create an original style that sets you leagues apart from the rest and will create noise within your industry.

Collaborate with equally captivating brands

Not everyone is a competitor, so make friends with the cool kids on the fringe. Create a strategic and clever marketing campaign by collaborating with another brand to widen your audience and diversify your following. The best collaborations are ones that have the “wow that’s cool!” effect on their customer, keeping in mind the consumer base of both brands.

In all, captivating brand style is a strategic marketing tactic that few brands master. But it isn’t an impossible feat. Choose the right vibe for your brand based on the interests of your target audience and be sure you prepare for not only their current interests, but their future ones as well.

Also keep in mind that the best brand styles are most often those that seem effortless. Less is always more, but consistency is key. The goal here is to create a visual identity that will reflect your audience. This isn’t just your brand’s aesthetic. This is your brand’s personality.