how to set up your brand

In this guide you’ll learn:

How to choose your brand colours
How to create a brand logo brief
How to run a logo competition to source 20+ logo designs based upon your brief.
What to avoid (website design)
What to add on if you’re interested (business cards)

This guide is for 3 types of entrepreneur

For people how want to start their own business but it’s currently just an idea
For people who have already started a business and have already sold their services or product but you don’t have a brand or logo.
For entrepreneurs who have an existing business but are not happy with their current brand or logo and want to rebrand on a low budget.

Is that you?

Good… because you’re in the right place.

Here’s to building a brand and logo you love!

This guide will take you step by step through building your brand and logo. This is not a route to teach you how to design your logo or how to choose one designer to produce you a between 1-3 logo’s. This is the route that I would choose and have done so in the past if I had a set budget and wanted to have between 10-30 designs to choose from all tailored to my brief.

You want to put your best foot forward and create a brand that represents you and your product or service. Unless you’re in the marketing or design industry or have previous experience of creating a brand then it can sometimes seem like you have a mountain to climb. However, now with the invention of online freelance platforms and creative tools it has become very easy to create a brand and logo with a small budget.

So what I want to do is break it all down for you and make it super easy for you to build your brand… a brand that you can be proud of.

You can do this with no previous experience and my aim is to guide you along a route where you can build a brand and business you desire.

Step 1. How to choose your brand colours?

For this step there are two parts.

Looking at other brands to find colours or designs you like (the goal here is to find your brand colours)
Choosing a colour palette that compliments each other and staying away from colours that are inaccessible or difficult to view in multiple formats such as if printed small or in black or white for external sites etc.

Ok so let’s get on with part 1.

If you don’t already have a Pinterest account you’ll want to get one, its free to use and you can delete it once you’ve finished ..if you really no longer want it!

Part 1A. Find other logos and designs you like

Google

Search on Google for likely competitor sites or businesses within your niche to see what you like and dislike
Google image search terms like “logos”, “logo inspiration”, “best logo”, “[insert your niche] logo”,

Pinterest

Download the Pinterest app on your phone or iPad
If you don’t have a hand held device for apps then not to worry you can do it from your computer or laptop via https://www.pinterest.co.uk/

Top tip- for those of you who like their ultimate privacy and don’t want others to see what photos you have pinned (pinned means adding photos you like to your own folder so that you can easily refer back to it) you can easily do this by:

To make your pins private:

Select the add plus button to create a new board
Name your board
Change the radio button on “keep your board secret” from off (default) to on (red)

What to search on Pinterest?

Once you have downloaded or accessed Pinterest you should then start to search for ideas and get inspiration for your brand colours… and whilst you are there you might as well look out for logos that you like!

Search in Pinterest for: “logos”, “branding”, “design”, “stationery” etc. and start to add into the search query the colours you like e.g “purple stationery” etc.
When you find a logo you like or a design element (this is for inspiration only) pin it and add it into a new folder called “brand inspiration”.

At the end of these two exercises you should have a collection of elements that you can now go through in both your Pinterest board and from google that will form the inspiration for your brand and logo.

The next part is to delete the ones that no longer suit what you would like and to get clear on what you do want. We will then take your ideas to the next step, which is a colour palette and a brief for your logo design.

Part 1B. Choosing a colour palette:

There are many helpful sites to help you choose a colour palette that suits your brand and target audience. However I have identified the ones I prefer below.

You’ll want to use the inspiration from your Pinterest board and look for a colour pallete that works well together or is based off of it.

Remember when you are picking a colour palette to choose a palette that you believe will support your product or service and be appealing to your target audience and demographic.

Here are 3 websites you can look at below and filter by your preferences!

Colour Lovers

http://www.colourlovers.com/palettes

Coolors!

https://coolors.co

Color-Hex

http://www.color-hex.com/color-palettes/

Select a colour palette that you would like to build you brand and logo around.

You will want to settle on a palette that has 1-2 clear colour winners supported by colours that compliment your preferred colours well.

You don’t only have to choose colours which are very strong, you can go for the lighter colours depending on your niche and business but you do have to be mindful that you will want all the colours to work well on a white background – which will not be possible if they are too pale and close to the colour white.

To test the colour you may wish to open a word document, write a line of text or a potential strap line and then change its colour to your preferred colour palette options. In order to get the right colour you will likely need the RGB code (from the colour details of the websites above) for Word or if you’re using canva.com (a free helpful image/ creative builder) you will likely need the hex # value.

If you can’t find the code you’re looking for but have another code from the colour palette; you can always convert the colour code you have to the specific colour code that you need. If this is the case, simply Google the term “colour code converter from [insert code type you have i.e “hex” or “RGB” to [insert the code type you want].

Right, so now you’re getting there! You have your brand colours and an idea of what your logo could look like!

Let’s get started on putting a brief together!

Step 2.

It worth spending more time at this stage to avoid wasting time later on. Your brief should give the designers everything they need to know and more.

Here are the top elements to include

brand and businesses type / industry – What type of product or service you are providing and how you aim to help your customers
Target audience – what age range are they are what are their likely interests or personality types?
Ideal look and feel – what do you want your logo to get across? Do you want it to convey a message or are do you want it to represent something?
Logo / brand colours – this step should be easy if you have just completed all of the previous steps. Now you will need to list them out from your pinterest board or images of what you have seen.
Any particular ideas you have. Bare in mind the more simplistic the better and more professional it will look.
Core brand values – What are the 3 main values that you want your business to represent or be built upon?
Style preferences – modern and contemporary, retro or simple?

Then based upon your research you will want to include image snippets/ cropped screengrabs of the logo or elements that you like!

Things to avoid:

Makes sure your logo can work in both full black or full white (this is so that when your logo is placed on any partner sites or advertisements that it can work with any background or colour)
It’s also got to be clear/ visible what the logo is when it’s made smaller so avoid thin lines. You have to think in advance for potential usage whether it’s on your website, business cards or made very small for placements in your marketing materials so you should avoid any thin or already small elements within a logo as when the logo is reduced in size anything already thin or small will likely disappear or distort when reduced even further.
It’s also important to have a contrast between the colours in order to make the logo clear and attractive. Think about how the logo would work on both white and black backgrounds.

Step 3 – Run a logo competition.

There are a few Logo creation companies and I have tried a few. I wouldn’t recommend all of them at all, the bigger more well known one are the ones to choose from and I would recommend you use 99Designs as I can verify the company and know its not like a couple of the smaller dodgy companies which are cheaper but provide a poor service and quality.

So to get started visit 99designs.co.uk

Be clear on what you actually need. Don’t be upsold to buying a website design (you can get a much better option via wordpress and bespoke changes to a theme or a simple DIY theme – so I would highly recommend steering clear or website design at this stage) or letterheads and business cards if you don’t NEED it!!

If it’s just a logo you need then just scroll down to select that option only!

You will then be guided through a process which will gauge your design preferences, so follow it and mark it accurately based upon what you have seen so far in your research.

Change the scroll bars to accurately mark your preferences for your brand’s style

Select the colours based upon your brand palette

Fill in the basic information around your logo:
- name
- tagline
- business industry etc.

When it comes to Other – this is where I want you to be as specific as possible.

Along the lines of the following (feel free to copy, paste and amend!:

Hello! Thank you for participating in this competition. I hope you have fun and get to be as creative as you can be!

I’m looking for the right logo that represents my brand which shows that we are [insert value], [insert value] and [insert value].

I want our brand to be known for [insert values] and above all else I want [insert] to be felt. 

I like [insert] and [insert] and think that you may be able to use [insert]. I have attached a few examples of other logos that I like.

Please feel free to ask as many questions as you need an I will be answering them as soon as I can!

Good luck and I look forward to speaking with you!

# Remember to add your attachments in and you can copy and paste screen grabs or urls into a word doc or other blank document or Google drive doc!

This is where the budget comes into play. Obviously the more money/budget you have the better quality you will get. But at the same time you can still develop quality through active participation and regular comments and steering.

With all options you have a money back guarantee so no matter what, if you are not happy and do not find a logo that you like you pay nothing!

There are multiple options you can select in addition to the standard options – all are totally up to you. The only one that I would like to give some advice on is selecting the time frame. The 7 day (free) option is the one that I would recommend as this will allow the designers to make designs and for you to feed back multiple changes on the ones you like. Without having the time to make changes and steer the direction you are unlikely to get the best out of the process.

Top Tip: Once you have started the competition make sure to go in and comment and mark / grade your preferences regularly. Don’t be overly critical or positive, as you will want your comments to encourage more designers to join into the competition. If you are too positive they may think you have already found a design that you will choose/award and it would only waste their time to design. Similarly the opposite is also true so keep all steering and comments constructive and be respectful of their time and efforts.

At the end of the 7 days you should have your preferred / awarded design. Once awarded you still be able to make tweaks to the design to make sure that it is what you need.

When you have this finalised you will want to know and receive the following so make sure that you communicate you want this to the designer:

All vector graphic source files – AI and EPS Formats.
If vector graphics files are not available supply PSD (Photoshop) or similar design package source files
Fonts used (Ideally a font that is free for commercial use to avoid licensing costs)
Colours used – in both Hex and RGB values
PNG and Jpeg versions of the logo
Large (Hi-res) Colour logo on white and transparent background (In PNG and Jpeg formats)
Large (Hi-res) Black logo on white and transparent background (In PNG and Jpeg formats)
White logo on transparent background (In PNG and Jpeg formats)

So this is it! You now have everything you set out to achieve. In additional you also have a new contact for a designer that knows your logo and that you like. Make sure that you get their direct email address so that for any future work you can contact them to see if they can help you with any branding changes, letterheads or business cards etc.

If you’d like to learn more about how to market your business or idea with little paid media spend I have a course which takes entrepreneurs how to:

Grow your business revenue. Make more money through online marketing
Gain more clients / customers
Drive more sales / sign ups
Build brand awareness and a profitable business
Avoid common mistakes and know how to create the right strategy (DIY)
Understand online marketing and how to manage a team – to avoid wasting money and losing sales or profits from costly mistakes.

If you’d like to learn how to take your business, idea or passion online check out my course here.

I hope you have found this useful, if so please do leave a message for me in the comments and let me know how you are getting on!

With love

Helene

Guide: How to set up your brand

In this guide you’ll learn:

This guide is for 3 types of entrepreneur

Here’s to building a brand and logo you love!

Step 1. How to choose your brand colours?