How i approach branding design - 10 simple steps to implement

How to approach a branding design. Many times people are stuck and people not able to understand how you can start approaching this branding design. When it comes to process and clarity in how you take up the project, it's pretty much similar for all the design fields. But the thing is people separately see this branding as a different design. That's the big problem. So the mindset needs to shift into a different realm. This podcast is going to exactly give you how I approach the branding design and how you can also adopt some of the tips and techniques of how I can do it. You don't have to exactly follow, but this will definitely kindred a lot of your creativity aspect. And sometimes if you're completely stuck, you can exactly follow this process. It works hundred percentage and it really brings you a lot of tangible outputs. Okay, so with this, let's dive into this topic guys. The step one, what I would say is understand your customer. It is more important to understand the intangibility what your customer is really expecting, right? Without that, you cannot move forward. Hey Jagdish. Branding design means, I thought making some websites and logos. No, you need to first understand your customer properly, right? Second is find out what is the needs and wants for them. Study a Persona. Maybe not in a detail, but at least go to field, go to showrooms, go to that particular brand website, go to that particular brand application, go to the manufacturer if you want to go to their dealership. What are these totally different things you're saying? Let me tell you guys, it's very important to understand how people are seeing their own brand first. It is very, very vital to do that lot. Many times people have this problem, right? So if you're able to internalize how the brand is being perceived by others and your own company, you will tend to see the needs and wants in a more clearer way. The third important thing is do a competitor analysis and validate whatever your thought process are. Try to take the strength of your similar competitors and please ask your customer also whether that is the same competitor what they are also targeting for because they might have more idea. If they don't have idea, it's your responsibility to find out is this competitor going to really make sense for you. Find out their strength, find out their weakness, find out their opportunity and threat, which is normally called SWOT analysis and try to bridge the gaps for it. This is the third step. The fourth important element is strategy. See, once you're understanding the customer is clear and then your needs of the customer and wants is clearly defined by doing the study, then you are validating with your competitor analysis. Also now form the strategy. Okay. Just do exactly. Guys. If you're completely new to the branding field, just do exactly. You will automatically figure out for your next project easily. Okay? Sometimes following a system or a mentor helps because you don't have belief in that process. And that belief will be created by your mentors or the gurus or whoever you have really associated with. Okay? Because if you have that law of belief installed in you, then this method and system will work. Or else you will doubt everything. You will not do anything. Okay? So after doing these three steps, now you can form the strategy. Okay, what is strategy? Jagdish? Create a story. See, you have enough data. You have understood your customer, you understood your competitors and all now form a story. Like let's say if you're branding for some kind of a technology company, try to create a story for that. This technology, how people can able to help. This technology, how people can impact their life. Understand what problem it is solving. This is the second important element. Third is build a narrative for it. Forming a story, solving a problem and building a narrative will really give you a strategy how you can move forward in your branding design. This is the most most important fourth step, guys. People really miss out this. They directly jump into visual collaterals, they jump into typeface colors to make it. Let me tell you, if you're not forming the story, if you're not solving the problem, if you are not building a narrative for your brand, there is no point in doing branding at all. Understand the intention behind branding. Branding is to revamp some brand to create a new identity for it. Unless until you create a story, what is the point of adding websites and applications and posters or whatever. So reflect back on that. The fifth element is you need to build some output elements of it. The fifth important step, okay, Output is based on the strategy and the story and the narrative. What you did try to bring some kind of outputs. Are you going to build a website? Are you going to build an app? Are you going to redesign the logo? Are you going to redesign the social media pages? Are you going to build a physical shop? Are you going to build an experience center? It could be anything. That's totally fine, right? Because you know better how the revamping and the restrategy have really worked for the people and how it can work for you as well, right? Until. Unless you show something to the customer, the customer will not have a conviction. See, companies spend crores and crores of rupees for doing branding and why they do it there is no tangible output for it immediately. But eventually that will be perceived. See, recently Mahindra has did a revamping, rebranding. HCL Tech has did that and Aditya Birla has did that. And lot of companies have really rebranded themselves to really create a huge impact to create a story. Take Mahindra. Nowadays they are focusing on electric. They are focusing on very sharp, most innovative, highly styling language. Because they had a collaboration with the Pin and Farina design studio for their aesthetic styling of the car. That is why you can see in the past three years, Mahindra styling is very different to the comparative earlier. So branding helps you even revamp your facelift accordingly. Why do people really touch logo is logo is the first phase of it, right? So that is why people touch logos, colors, elements. So these are all some of the visual attractions. So find out some elements first. Rather than designing logo directly, are you going to build a store? Yeah. You can build an experience center also. You can build an online merchandise shop also. Whatever is there, make sure you bring out that element. Okay. This is the fifth step. The sixth step is have an evaluation scale. Out of the scale of 1 to 10, please review your customers feedback of your existing brand. Please take their understanding. Please take the star ratings. Please try to take their positive feedback, negative feedback. Comparatively understand what is the scale you are in right now? See guys, if you are not showing any improvement, your client will not accept this project. Even though you make great output, how do you really justify? You can call somebody as tall when you make somebody stand near him as a short guy. Right? You need to comparatively show that. See, anything gets improved or decreased only when it is measured. It's a very good strategy. Right? So you need to first have an evaluation skill. A lot of people don't do this. Nobody does it. Only few people do it. And they really improve. And they really find out what they want to change. Okay. And once your scale is clear, then ask the customer. Hey, right now Your scale is 5. We can bring this to 8. We can bring this to even 9. But we have to change your colors. Right now your colors are confusing. People are getting a miscommunication. Your logo is totally having a different meaning. And the product, what you're designing there is no connect. And your typeface is really not suitable. And typeface is live face. And let me tell you, your website needs revamping. And your physical store also needs to change based on the colors and materials. Whatever you're giving, if the customer is hearing this feedback, he will think about his investment. He will think about timeline. He will think about if I am revamping it, will I get more sales? Will I get my business improved? Then he will be more happy to invest in the project. You should not take a deliberation to do everything on your own and create a new rebranding. Sometimes it will not even be taken and they will take only. Okay, Acha, website is good, we will take that. That will not make a full sense if you are not giving a full solution on the. So you should understand from the customer point of view how it is going to really impact them in terms of business. Right? Work on that priority and then start your design. Guys, this is the most most important thing. See now only we're starting designing the brand. Okay, so far we've been just getting warmed up. So the step one to start designing is study about some colors. Know what is color theory, understand what is primary, secondary and tertiary colors. Why certain brand resonate with certain colors. See, there are some brands like let's say white, which is white in color, which is very passive. There are some brands which is red, they have a love and some cultures need perceive red as a danger color, right? Some companies perceive orange color which is more energetic and vibrance and some some industries feel blue as a safety and security color. So have some two to three colors for your brand story and how it is really resonating with you. Okay? And step two is build some palettes and color understanding of it. Try to take some linear colors. Try to take some non linear colors. Try to take some dark colors, light colors, neutrals and different gradients. Also if it is okay if your brand doesn't demand that, don't use gradients guys. Just because everybody is using gradients, you should not do that. That's not the point of doing branding. Your communication should be as simple as that. It should convey to your audience whatever you're trying to say. If you make it too trendy. Also sometimes your audience will not connect many. Maybe if you're designing for some agriculture sectors too fancy people will not even be able to understand what the technology you're giving and they will think Acha, this is not in my hands. This is like tech geeks will only use this. Let me not touch it. Maybe your UI is very simple but your color gradients and other things are very high in trend. People will back off. So if simplicity is your brand language and minimalism is your brand language and audiences are, let's. Let's say agriculture market, try to choose colors accordingly. Build the Palettes accordingly. And then you can use Some website called coolors.com c O-O-L-O-R s.in It's a beautiful website guys. You can use it to create your gradients. You can use some proven gradients, you can take your hue saturation, you can use all of your tints and shades properly in one particular grow or one particular go in that website itself. You don't have to really break your head because if you're doing a short term design project like let's say three weeks to four weeks of branding design, you can follow the steps exactly. It will work for you. And I practically work with my students also. Okay, so the third important thing is now build your visual aspect. See you have the colors, you have some palettes, you have some understanding. Try to take some visual aspects. See, try to understand the story. Go and reflect back your research. Try to understand the visual story, what you wanted to create. Try to understand how it can be scalable to different medium. If you are putting the story in a very, very lengthy sentences, like let's say if KFC is putting very, very lengthy sentences in all the stores, will you think people will be able to read their brand story? People will not connect with kfc, right? They have a very short, crystal clear crisp which is scalable also. So think about the story, think about the visual story, think about the scalability and mainly think about the problem solving and the impact it is going to create. See guys, once you think about it and reflect back, then you form keywords for it. This is a very, very important step. Okay, the keywords could be simple, the keywords could be trendy, the keywords could be cool, the keywords could be user friendly technology, satisfy, happy, feel bad. So whatever. If you are able to build keywords, only you can able to build some visual assets and elements for it. What happens is if your brand story and the problem what you're solving is not connected with your keywords, you will be in a different direction of ideation. End of the day your solution will not be relevant. So the third step is very important. Let me reiterate the steps of how we can start the branding process. So study about colors. Second is build some color palettes. Third is understanding the visual aspect of it by revisiting the story and the scalability and the visual story and the problem it solves and the impact it's created. And then build more keywords. Build at least 30 to 50 different keywords and then step four is build on top of your keyword this is very, very important. Guys. You can create mood boards, you can create some music, you can create some cool pictures, you can create some inspiration, you can watch some award winning website products and services and competitors. And you can now check back your competitors for their strength. Like let's say if minimalism is your theme, whatever you're getting again and again by your study, you need to go and study about your competitors who is really won the market with minimalism. Try to find out the elements, try how he has fixed that gap, use that similar elements, you can solve it. It's as simple as that. You need to be very careful in understanding that. See, that is why we do SWOT analysis, right? It's not like the purpose of doing something we're doing and then showcasing client. Hey, I also did a lot of work. No, you need to find the strength weakness of your competitor and try to bridge it with your products and offerings with your visual language. What you're doing. Then the step five is start sketching your concept. Okay, when you're sketching, think about the keywords, what you do. See, there are five different type of sketches you can make. You can make simple sketches, you can make compounded sketches. Okay. See, sketching means not like drawing the exact picture. Sketching is something like designing your maybe logo, maybe your visual elements or some kind of signs. And all these things could be done. Okay. This is particularly good when you're designing some kind of a logo. When you're designing some kind of a important material. Like let's say if customer is saying hey we need logo, we need definitely logo in first priority so that you can start, so you can build some major elements with the keywords. What we did in the earliest table. Think about like let's say if your company is like moving forward, like let's say transport company, logistics company. If you want to communicate moving forward technology leader, you can communicate a simple arrow mark. That's a simple sketch. You can use two arrow marks, that's a compound sketch. Yeah, people will get a more clearer understanding. You can choose indirect way of sketching. You can choose something like a different method of writing something like a forward so people can understand it by looking it closely. You can use direct communication. You can directly put that arrow or communicate it like a direct moving forward technology or maybe some kind of a sign language. Or you can even do your creative way. Guys, you don't have to follow any simple sketch or compound sketch or indirect or direct. You can use your creative way to do it. Because when it comes to field of creativity is rather very important to you. Use your own. See, have you seen the FedEx logo? You can see in between the E and X there is an arrow mark which is submerged. It is like a direct communication, right? They're very common. They simply communicated using their name and arrow mark. Because it is a transportation company, logistics company, they want to move forward. Simple. So once your sketches are good, if you're feeling that this particular symbol and the keywords is matching with the requirement of the customer to solve a problem, then you can take it into different mediums. Are you going to replicate this into posters? Are you going to replicate it into website? Are you going to replicate it into physical stores? You're going to put it in digital products, merchandise, events, promotions, workshop, manufacturing industries. Think about what are the deliverable, what your customer is really looking for. Right? Because you need to know where to replicate your ideas, your logos, your colors, your brand, your brand, gradients of colors, Whatever you've chosen so far, it is very vital to choose the medium. Now iterate more on that particular concept. Like let's say if you're working on a poster design, try to iterate more how we can bring these elements in the logo of the poster. Let's say how we can bring this logo in the website. Iterate more. Iterate more. Using the keywords, Iterate more. There are a lot of things you can do in iteration. You can think out of box, you can really think inside the box. To just think about one particular thing going so deep you can go converge and diverge. There are a lot of podcasts which I've recorded for creative Ideation. You can use any method, at least use 100 plus iterations. See, you don't have to do iterations before. After you get to this kind of a refinement, if you do 100 plus iterations, possibilities are you will find the best color, best typeface, best symbols, best clear, simple communication for your brand. And eighth step is submission. You need to showcase something to your customer of the what you're doing, asking for feedback, testing out with a small groups or maybe one people or multiple people. It is good to do with multiple people so that when you see this logo, are you really feeling that? See when Mahindra is doing rebranding, if it completely revamp its logo, nobody's able to even recognize it's a Mahindra or not. People will not connect with it. Right? Because over the time Mahindra has built that brand value. You should not leave that essence. Also, when you're designing something you should keep that in mind in branding design, right? So you need to ask your customer, is it really making you feel like the technology company, whatever you're working? Yes, it is looking. Yeah, it is not looking. Some feedbacks will come, test it out and then do the redesign, guys. See now you will have more clarity to redesign the things you can use. Softwares like Photoshop, Illustrator, you can use lot many tools, guys. There are some logo generators, AI tools available. You can use something like Hatch full logo maker. So these kind of things will help you design some visual aspects and elements for it. And ask your customer what is the format they wanted for printing. Like let's say they want png, they want jpeg, they want PDF, they want a website which is webflow format. They want a Figma output, they want Adobe XT output, they want the PSD file output. So ask this things and finalize your output and work based on that. If you're working in software and other things, okay? Because after you do this, only the process gets completed and the last tip and the golden tip, which nobody even follows, only few people follow it. Asking customers for the feedbacks and following up with them. See, even though you submitted your design, why will the customer come and give you feedback for your design, right? It is for your career, your improvement, your design knowledge, your interest you're doing. So remember that. Go and silently observe what is this brand really feeling for the new customers for your client and how do they really behave? And request them for permission to see what customers are really feeling, what customers are really telling. Are they really connecting with this brand or is it really helping in a small way? Or if it is really having lot of changes, definitely it's a big project you can do again. But if it's a small changes, you can do it for free of cost. You can refer to the customer saying hey, this is the problem little bit we found. So we'll correct you. There is no charges which you need to pay. This is out of my interest. I'm doing. You know what? This builds more trust on you. They will think like, okay, this is. He's a very honest and perfect designer. He wants to fulfill his needs properly. In fact, that attracts you more project in the future also. So this is a kind of follow up. Nobody does it. See guys, money lies in follow up. My coach always used to say, if you're very good in following up with certain things, you'll be getting done work very faster more than anything else. So in this branding description design project, it is very, very essential to follow it up and see how it is really working in real time. And if you're able to do it, you'll become a master class, guys. Okay, so let me give you some resources and materials for it. You can use a book called Designing Brand Identity by Alina Widor. It's a very good book. You can read it. You can read in a website called Nielsen Norman Group Brand, which is really a beautiful ux. Articles and methods and techniques are there. You can read that. And you can read a book called Sprint Solving Big Problems and Testing New Ideas which was written by Jake Knapp, John Zaratsky. It's a very good book, guys. It's a very simple book. You can read it and you can read a beautiful book called Logo Design Love by David Aylin. Okay, so these are all the resources and materials you can read through and let me quickly iterate, let me quickly recap on what we discussed about this branding design. Okay, so first is understanding the customer and understanding the needs and wants by studying the Persona detailed, studying the competitor, analyzing the SWOT analysis and making a strategy to create story, problem solving and the narrative, what you're building and then choose the elements, what you wanted to really put this in and use an evaluation skill to show to the customer where are they right now and how they can improve and what are the priority for the project. Once this is ready then you can start the design process. Study about colors, study about your different, different color palettes and study about the visual aspect and story and try to take some cool elements and icons and and the visual sketches around it and then take lot of keywords from your visual aspect, visual aspect, step what you did and build on top of your key keywords to build more pictures, mood board and stuffs so that you can start sketching your ideas for your logo or for your visual element or your branding etc and once that is done then you can choose a medium, what you want to really replicate that whether it's a website or it's an app, It's a store, etc. And once you're able to reiterate on the process again and again using divergent thinking and convergent thinking, using creativity and hundred plus iterations, then you can submit to your customer and ask feedback and then you can redesign incorporating this feedback and giving them in a specific format whatever they require for scalability to put it in print materials and make sure you follow. 2. Get more honest with you and your work so the customer will be really happy to win. Okay, so I hope this is a long podcast, guys. Definitely. I understand if you're listening till here, you're damn serious about working on your branding design project. So take a lot of notes. I hope you have taken some notes. If you're not taken, you can listen to it again and take notes. Because once or twice if you listen, you'll be able to clearly crystallize what you wanted to take output for your branding design project. And you will see see projects getting done in two weeks, three weeks, very, very fast. Okay, thank you so much, guys. Thank you for staying tuning in with me in this Design for Change podcast and give me a better rating if you find this valuable. And also, if you need my mentorship support, please hit the email so that I'll be qualifying you for my mentorship program. Thank you so much, guys. Take care. Bye bye. It.