Workshop Four

BRANDING BASICS
Lecture notes

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INTRODUCTION

Understanding how to build your brand is crucial to your business’s communication with the world.
This workshop introduces you to the design elements which comprise a basic branding kit. It’s not
just about your company logo but about the consistent application of colors, text, and images in your
design, that allow you to incite immediate recognition that’s unique to you and your brand.

PREPARATION AND DELIVERY NOTES

You will find throughout the presentation, a call to action button where you can launch an interactive
design tutorial which relates to the content that was just covered. If you have a particularly large
class (20+ students) in which computers are not readily available, we recommend that you skip the
tutorials or assign it at the end as a homework exercise. In a smaller-sized classroom where students
have access to their own computers, this workshop can be run in a teach/do/teach/do format.  

PRESENTATION

Slide 1: Cover

Slide 2: Introduction - Why branding matters

● Branding is an important design trade, devoted to the art of cohesion brought together by
psychology and science.
● Whether you’re branding for a multinational company or developing your public identity,
it’s important to use your visual elements consistently so that you can incite immediate
recognition and a positive perception that’s unique to you and your brand.

Slide 3: Today’s Agenda

1) Color
 2) Fonts
3) Photo Filters
4) Bringing it all together

Slide 4: Colors

Slide 5: Colors - Color Psychology

● Understanding color psychology, that is, how color can influence human emotion, is
crucial to the brand development process.
● Take into consideration how you want your brand to be perceived and the feelings you
want to evoke from your audience, and then select a color palette that is consistent with
those emotions and echoes your brand’s voice.

Slide 6: Colors - Color and brands you know

● The most successful brands have carefully selected their color palette to reinforce their
company values and characteristics.

Examples:
1) FedEx - purple (imagination, possibility) and orange (adventure, active)
2) Citi - blue (trust, duty) and red (strength)
3) United - red (excitement, anticipation) and blue (loyalty, efficiency)

Slide 7: Colors - Color schemes and brands you know

● Some brands seek to broaden their reach by using a full color palette, which is inviting to
a diverse audience.
● They could be considered the “everyman’s” brand which is accessible and relevant to
anyone.

Examples:
eBay and Microsoft use a similar color palette of red (excitement), blue (trust,
traditionally associated with technology), green (security), and yellow (happiness).

Slide 8: Colors - Pick a color palette

● Because color is such an effective medium of communication, you should think carefully
about the colors you select for your brand’s color palette.
● Never choose more than 4 colors to ensure that your palette is easily recognized and
focused.
● In this example, we’ve chosen soft, cool colors for Kit & Co Interior Design’s brand.
● These colors are pleasing to the eye, not overly bold or pronounced (something you
wouldn’t want for the interior of your home), and as a set, they give a contemporary but
inviting feel.
Slide 9: Colors - Use the same color schemes
● Once you’ve decided on a color palette, make sure you use these colors consistently
throughout your designs.
● Keep in mind that branding is not just limited to things like your business logo.
● Your brand colors should be reflected in all of your collateral, like catalogs, mailings,
marketing materials, and your website.

Slide 10: Fonts

Slide 11: Fonts - Use suitable fonts

● Typefaces influence how your brand is depicted by the world. Consider whether your
brand is traditional or modern, daring or sophisticated, playful or corporate.

Slide 12: Fonts - Fonts and brands you know

Examples:
1) Louis Vuitton - Futura (this luxury brand uses a geometric typeface that feels
efficient and minimalist)
2) Chanel - Couture (as one of the most exclusive luxury brands in the world,
Chanel opts for a custom font)

Slide 13: Fonts - Fonts and brands you know

Examples:
3) Adidas - AvantGarde (Adidas opts for a round and geometric font which feels
balanced and strong)
4) Nike - Futura STD Extra Bold (perhaps the most recognized athletic apparel
brand in the world, Nike opts for a font that’s bold and strong; its slanted quality
suggests explosive energy and movement)

Slide 14: Fonts - Fonts and brands you know

Examples:
5) Gucci - Granjon LT Regular (this Italian fashion house chooses a Roman/old-style
font that’s still sleek and sophisticated)
6) Saint Laurent - Helvetica Neue Bold (Helvetica is a classic and popular font
family that’s accessible and seen everywhere; it’s appropriate for the Saint
Laurent clothing line, which seeks to provide wearable collections that are
appealing and not pretentious)

Slide 15: Fonts - Use the same fonts

● You can reinforce your brand’s recognizability by using the same fonts throughout all of
your public-facing materials and marketing channels.
● In Kit & Co Interior Design, we’ve selected various versions of Railway (title/logo,
subtitles, body text) and have applied them across a sales ad, a fall catalog, and the
website (displayed on iPad).
Slide 16: Fonts - Consider how your logo will be used
● Ensuring that you’ve designed your logo in such a way that it can be applied in a variety
of contexts is incredibly important.
● Create basic guidelines around how your logo is used to ensure optimal readability in any
design.
● In this example, the Canva logo is a script style which can prove challenging when
attempting to integrate it in a design with lots of text or textured backgrounds.
● To address this, the Canva logo is placed in a turquoise circle to ensure that it always
stands out and isn’t overwhelmed by other visual elements.

[Proceed to tutorial: Building a Branding Kit]

Slide 17: Photo filters

Slide 18: Photo filters - Apply a Canva photo filter

● Canva offers a number of different stunning photo filters.
● You can see how applying each of them to the same photo (like in these examples) can
create distinctly different effects.
● For example, the Nordic filtered image is slightly desaturated, projecting sophistication
and calm, while the Festive filtered image feels warmer and more lively.

Slide 19: Photo filters - Photo filters and Red Bull

● Using the same photo filters and creating a consistent look and feel across your graphics
can be an effective way to build brand recognition.
● Red Bull is the best selling energy drink company in the world and it’s well known for its
extreme sports-oriented marketing and advertising campaigns.
● While many of their photos are dramatic action shots, they’ve chosen to apply warmer,
softer filters which add a vintage effect, extending a split second into a moment
suspended in time.

Slide 20: Photo filters - Photo filters and Kinfolk

● Kinfolk is a lifestyle magazine which promotes the family and community experience
through interviews, personal stories, recipes, and photo essays.
● Their publications have become recognized for their true to life imagery, which they’ve
obtained by applying clear, slightly muted filters, resulting in a high contrast but authentic
look.

[Proceed to tutorial: Consistent Branding]

Slide 21: Photo filters - Customize your filters and save the code
● While Canva offers a variety of beautiful photo filters, you can create your own photo
filters by adjusting the various levels of your filters (brightness, contrast, saturation, tint,
blur, x-process, and vignette).
 ● Once you’ve found a filter you like, you can copy the filter code and paste it into the filter
code field of any other image to apply that same filter.

Slide 22: Bringing it all together

Slide 23: Bringing it all together - Presentation design

● Keep your presentations sharp and professional by choosing a bold title page and
consistent content pages, all of which reflect the aesthetic of your brand.

Slide 24: Bringing it all together - A4 documents

● One-page documents are a common piece of collateral for any business.
● You can maintain a sharp and consistent look by keeping the same format, layout, and
branding for your one-pagers.
● In these examples, each text element is maintained in the same place on the page with
consistent fonts and text colors.

Slides 25-27: Bringing it all together - Social media

● These days, it’s expected that any successful business will have a strong social media presence.
● Keep in mind that social media platforms provide limited customization when it comes to layouts,
fonts, etc. so make sure you reinforce your brand’s image by using your logo and color scheme
consistently across these channels.
● Here you can see how Canva has maintained their branding across Facebook, Twitter, and
Pinterest.

[Proceed to tutorial: Designing a Presentation]