HOW TO REFRESH YOUR BRAND IDENTITY IN 6 WAYS

A brand always needs to be looking sleek and modern to keep up with todays times and should only really happen when elements look stale or outdated - such as new fonts, website design or a logo refresh.

The negative impact of not maintaining your brands aesthetics is that your audience will either feel like you don’t care or fully support your own brand enough to update it, ultimately losing their trust and eventually being replaced with a modern brand that’s always keeping up with the new generation.

So to avoid looking outdated and out of mind, here are a few things you can actively do to look more modern, and keep your followers coming back.

1. UPDATE YOUR WEBSITE

The first thing I always look at when I come across a new business is scour their website. The amount of times I’ve seen an outdated landing page with low-res imagery or eye-watering colour combo’s and instantly lost interest isn’t something I can count on two hands that’s for sure.

Your website is an asset your customer/potential customer has access to 24/7 from anywhere in the world and should always be up to date - It not only helps your internet marketing strategy, it can also help increase traffic to your website.

Ways you can update your website;

• Add useful content such as a blog.

• Create explainer videos to support text.

• Clean-up your layout (UI design) and make it easier to navigate.

• Edit old information.

• Use high quality imagery.

• Optimise your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

*TOP TIP - if you’re unsure on what makes a great website, get inspiration from other websites or look at articles.

2. MAKE A TWEAK TO YOUR LOGO

Modernising your logo is a great way to keep your brand looking fresh and can save you money on a full rebrand when you don’t need to. If your logo has more than 3 colours, shadows or embossing and has more than one graphical element, then you need to simplify it. Because those are signs of out-dated, tasteless logo trends.

The main job of any logo is to be memorable and easily recognisable, among many other factors, so keeping it minimal is the idea. Take a look at how Starbucks tweaked their logo over time to stay modern - their ‘graphical element’ has always been the siren, so over time they’ve simplified the logo to hone in on just that. Even without the name incorporated you know who they are.

3. SUBSTITUTE A TYPEFACE

Just like tweaking your logo, you can also add a little shine to your identity with a new typeface. Brands typically have two typefaces that they can alternate between and use for hierarchy purposes i.e one for headers and titles, the other for small text and general information. So swapping out your old handwritten fonts that were once a trend for a more clean, modern san-serif font, can create a whole new feel to your brands identity. Popular fonts such as; Helvetica, Futura, Gill Sans, Frutiger, Baskerville, Bodoni and Univers are great fonts to use.

If you really want to invest, you could even hire a designer that specialises in typography to create you a bespoke font for your brand. Look at how Debenhams switched it up - they hired Mother Design Agency, who used a version of SangBleu’s san-serif typeface and modified it to create this bespoke identity, giving a “modern and approachable twist” to a 200 year-old brand.

4. INVEST IN NEW VIDEO OR PHOTOGRAPHY

Does your photo collection have people with whacky hairstyles or clothing from the 80’s? Then if so, investing in new photography or video showing your brand or product in action is a must. It’s not only good for keeping your brand modern and building trust, it’s also a huge marketing tool that can engage your target audience effectively. Did you know that over 85% of consumers these days spend most of their time watching video content. That’s right, so if you haven’t got any video format in your business, you could potentially be hitting only 15-20% of your overall audience - and as a brand, that’s no good.

So before you pick up that camera or hire a film crew to make epic video content, make sure you have a clear vision of who your target audience is (see this post on finding your target audience). You need to know who you are, what your brand is about, what your audience is into and what you want them to think, feel and do when they see your photos or any elements of your visual identity.

Examples of how you can use photography/video;

• To update your landing page banner.

• Get team headshots.

• Clean imagery for blog posts.

• In reels to quickly explain your product or service.

• Short videos that can educate your audience.

• To show your process.

• In your Instagram stories.

• For use in magazine adverts.

• YouTube adverts.

• Product photography on your website.

5. EXPAND YOUR COLOUR PALETTE

Adding a new colour to your existing palette is a great way to refresh your brand. If you have neutral colours such as black, grey, or white you can add a vibrant colour to use in small amounts known as a ‘complimentary colour’. It doesn’t have to be permanent either, you can use that new-found colour to link to a specific brand campaign and keep bringing it back every now and again. Just make sure to to establish how and when the additional colour should be used.

When choosing your colour palette make sure they all compliment each other. A harsh, clashing scheme can make your brand look dated and tacky. Canvas colour generator is a great way of extracting a colour palette out of an image - or you could try coolors.co, which I’ve used a couple of times when I’m looking for inspirational colour combo’s. There’s a lot more behind choosing your perfect colour combination that involves strategic colour theory, but this is a great starting point to spruce up your brand.

6. ADD MORE BRAND TOUCHPOINTS

Brand touchpoints connect your customer to your brand and can range from in-person selling to email marketing. They are what we are already familiar with in day-to-day life - things such as; TV ads, Google ads, business cards, stationery and stickers are all forms of brand touchpoints. Investing in creating physical touchpoints like bespoke stickers or limited edition merchandise, however, can majorly increase loyalty and engagement towards your brand. You could also see it as a unique way to market your brand to other audiences you’d never thought you could reach because it only takes one friend to say “hey, cool mug, where did you get one of those?” to bring in a new potential fan.

THE CONCLUSION

Their’s ways you can refresh your brand and still maintain an identity without undergoing a major rebranding process. Hopefully these tips helped your small business make a good impression on your customers. Remember that sometimes small changes can have a massive impact on your brand.

The best thing about making these small changes is that you can have a new look, your audience will still be able to identify and connect with your brand and you’ll be able to do all of this while they understand you want to stay modern in the process.