mr5

Before we start, this is not a guide to creating the perfect brand. This is a post about my experience of creating the branding for my companies website. It is important to share experiences and compare them against your own. Creating an effective brand that represents your business or a company your creating it for can sometimes be a lot harder than you think.
When we created our brand we went through lots of unique ideas and colour schemes before we finally decided to go a head with a brand that represented the business we are in but also did not restrict us from expanding on it. If you haven’t already got a company name, try and use something that people will remember. When clients always hear our name for the first time they find it a bit amusing but its very memorable for a web design company.
Research your competitors. See what they have come up with and try to find the pattern all the companies in your sector are following. Once you have found the pattern, improve on it with your own interpretation.
Before we go any deeper, here are a few resources when choosing your colours and trying to digest some inspiration.

Colour Lovers – Excellent for colour schemes, palettes and trends.
Adobe Kuler – This requires the latest flash plugin.
Logo Pond – Very inspirational Logo Designers showcase their brand ideas.

The Initial Attempt

Our initial ideas for our brand were to be friendly (we’re always friendly), modern and a lot more colourful than the website designers already patrolling the google ranks. Our first design was a bit too friendly and aiming towards a very cartoony brand. This design wasn’t going to attract the audience we wanted and sent us straight back to the drawing board.


It’s important that when people look at your brand they take it seriously.

Amend or Surrender

After assessing our original attempt and realising everything we wanted in our next design, the next key element to creating our successful brand was realising everything we also didn’t want. We decided to surrender and start from scratch. All the elements of the original design didn’t possess a strong enough message to represent our business. Our next design featured a more rounded font and logo design that wasn’t going to get us featured on a children’s cereal box. There was progress from the original design but it didn’t spark a light with what we wanted to achieve.

Our Rocket was Ready to be Branded

8 Starbucks coffee’s and 7 strawberry smoothies later (business partner is not a fan of the good ol coffee beans) We had struck gold and come up with a brand that we could work with, a brand that gave us instant inspiration to build a website that was going to push our talents and business forward. The power of a great brand inspires you to push forward.

Ask your self the following questions about your current brand: does it represent our company well and fit in with our business sector? Does it have essences of creativity but also present its self well as a business? Does it appeal well to our audience?

Tip: It’s just as important knowing the reasons why something is failing or has failed as well as knowing why it has succeeded.