The customer first sees a product package in a shop, then visits the website and later comes across an Instagram post.
What if all of these three look different? The customer can get confused in that case.
A brand does not only live in logo. Colours, fonts, images, packaging style, the website layout, writing style, or small design choices can make people recognise your business. Brand consistency makes all these different touchpoints feel connected because all of these avenues say the same thing.
An important point to consider is consistent branding does not mean making every platform look exactly the same. The brand should just have one personality while it can still adapt to each medium according to its needs.
People come across brands many times before they actually even remember them. Repeated visual and verbal cues help with recognition of the brand. However, if your packaging says one thing, your website says the other and your Instagram post is completely different, then that leads to a weaker trust within your customer base.
If consistent branding can make even a smaller business appear more organised and established, imagine how big of an impact that would have on a large business then?
This also makes marketing easier because teams do not have to start from scratch every single time. Some such examples of brand consistency can be using the same core colour across the website and the packaging or using similar typography and photography style or just using the same tone of communication every single time.
So consistency is less about looking perfect and more about just being recognisable so that your customers can recognise you, no matter where you are placed.
Before the designers start designing social posts or changing website colours, deciding what the brand actually stands for becomes really necessary. The business needs to be on the same page about what their brand personality needs to look like, who their targeted audiences are, and what core values they want to communicate to their customers.
Based on this, their brand voice, main visual style and what the brand wants the people to remember can be decided. In order to know this, we just need to ask some questions:
A brand identity system can bring all of these decisions together in a thread. Without a clear identity, every designer or marketing person may interpret the brand differently. This leads to a lot of conflict within the brand because the brand voice would also then differ, nor would you find the visual consistency. Thus you won't be able to establish yourself as a solid brand if your brand identity is muddled up.
Brand guidelines can work as a practical reference document once the brand identity is in sync with every person who is a part of the brand. It is an imminent step to take before the designing starts. These brand guidelines include various logo versions and where these can be used. Primary and secondary colours as well as HEX, RGB and CMYK colour codes should be included in these brand guidelines. Mentioning the font family, heading, their body text styles and image along with photography direction can create consistent branding for the brand.
Icon style, graphic elements and other such visual consistency elements can create consistent branding for the brand helping them to keep a similar brand voice across all the touchpoints and serving as an example for social media and packaging related aspects that a brand caters to.
These guidelines don't have to be a hundred-page document. For smaller businesses, even a 10 or 20 page guide can be a starting point for the brand and even for the new employees who join the brand and wish to understand it better. The guidelines should be able to answer simple questions like:
Brand guidelines are like Bhagwat Gita for the brand and should be created early on when the brand takes-off. Even if the same is not done, it is still never late for an existing business to document them.
Packaging is often the physical introduction to a brand. Logo, placement, colour, typography, all of these are a part of the packaging. Not just that, even the illustration style, photography, product description and tone of messaging should all make the website feel like they belong to the same company. For example, if the packaging uses earthy colour, hand drawn illustrations and simple language but websites are of neon colours and corporate language, then the connection gets lost.
At the same time, we do not recommend copying packaging directly onto the website or vice versa. Packaging has a limited space and has to work on a shelf whereas a website needs navigation, information and conversion elements. Thus the visual consistency should come first from the same underlying branch system rather than identical designs.
One of the major elements of brand consistency is that the website elements should feel as if they belong to the same brand. Some major website elements such as homepage, service page, the headings, buttons, icons, colour palette, typography, images and the writing style should convey the same message and the visual consistency of the same must be taken into account. For this, referring to the brand guidelines is a must.
Design often becomes disconnected when it is only treated as a technical project and not as a part of the brand identity system. The developer may focus on functionality while the designers focus on the visual, yet both of them need to follow the same brand identity system. A key sign of consistent branding is that the brand remains recognisable on responsive design platforms, be it desktop, mobile or a tablet, even when the layout changes.
It is a social media where the actual googly comes. This is a place where brands often tend to become inconsistent because while one post is minimal, the other becomes colourful and another uses a completely different front. Social media can be more relaxed, but it still needs a recognisable pattern in order to ensure brand consistency for social media branding.
One needs to define their post templates combinations, font rules and photography styles. Setting the brand guidelines about the illustration style, reel covers, story templates, highlight covers and caption tone while doing social media branding can make your life much easier. However, that doesn't mean that you make each and every post identical. It just means that you need a few recurring elements to make your social media branding consistent and recognisable. For example, using the same typography or three four brand colours or similar image treatment, or a consistent logo usage and a similar tone itself gives the social feed its own personality while it is still connected to the main brand. This is how social media branding can be one voice that helps to promote consistent branding.
Brand consistency is not just about colours, fonts and logos, but the way a brand talks matters a lot. When a website sounds very formal, Instagram sounds super casual and the packaging uses completely different words, it can make the brand feel disconnected.
This is where brand guidelines can help. Deciding how the brand should normally speak, the words it uses, its formality and how much humour is okay is really important.
A simple brand asset folder can save a lot of confusion. Keep the latest logos, fonts, colour codes, product photos, social media templates, icons and packaging files in one organised place. This becomes useful when different people are working on the same brand, so nobody has to search through old folders and think which logo is the latest one. It makes consistent branding much easier in everyday work.
Before launching, take a quick look at the main places where customers see your brand, these include the packaging, website, Instagram, LinkedIn, emails, advertisements and brochures. Post that check if the colours feel connected, are the fonts proper, if writing sounds like the same company and more. These small checks can improve visual consistency without requiring a complete redesign.
A brand should still change. Websites can get redesigned, packaging can get updated and campaigns always need something fresh. The idea is not to make everything look exactly the same forever but to keep the important parts of the identity familiar and recognisable.
Your packaging, website and social media do not have to look identical, they simply need to feel like they are from the same brand. A clear brand identity system makes this easier because everyone has the same basic direction to follow.
Customers may not notice every font or colour, but they can recognise when something feels familiar and that is what good brand consistency is really about.
