Small Business Branding Guide

How to approach Small Business Branding

Creating a brand is usually an exciting step, but it can be a daunting one as well. To begin with, if you decide to do your own branding, don’t do it all on your own. Consult trusted members of your network throughout the process and get regular feedback. Trust me, it’s easy to get stuck on an idea, I’ve done it countless times. Once you do, you can waste weeks trying to make it work, only to figure out it wasn’t a good one to begin with.

To avoid this, ask people you trust or who work in your industry what they think when you feel a bit stuck. This will help you build a strong brand that is ready for the outside world. With this out of the way, let’s get started with the branding part.

Find out what your competitors are up to

As with any new project, research is an essential starting point that shouldn’t be overlooked. The point of researching isn’t to copy what other businesses do, but to spot common threads that are important to your industry. For example, you might notice that a specific colour appears often, or that the visuals on different websites have a similar theme. That’s an important insight into what your audience is accustomed to and what visitors expect to see on your website.

Your insights are the foundation of your branding

As you research, keep track of the trends that come up, but remember – you’re not doing this exercise to copy what’s out there! Instead, your goal is to connect the dots so you can paint a picture of the current state of your industry. Once you’ve done that, you can decide whether you want your small business branding to match the overarching themes you’ve found or disrupt them. There are risks to both approaches. On one hand, you risk having a website that blends in with the crowd too much. On the other, you risk having one that’s difficult to navigate because of its novelty. The best way to avoid these two extremes is to base your brand on insights and layer it with personality. There is a formula to sparking interest in viewers that you can use to present anything new. It’s a simple one, and I’m sure you’ll know it the moment you see it:

familiarity + novelty = interest

When we present new ideas to viewers without a familiar hook, they can become overwhelmed or confused. When we add a layer of what a viewer expects to see, we can ground them in experience. This helps establish a sense of trust you can build upon to present new information.

Small Business Branding: Brand Colours & Fonts

Now that you’ve done your research, you can move on to the fun part. To start, review the insights you gathered during your competitor analysis. Are others in your industry using bold colours or toned-down palettes? Are the majority of fonts traditional, or do they look modern? More often than not, the similarities you’ve spotted will form the familiar foundation we discussed earlier.

For example, you may have seen that bright bold colours are everywhere in your industry – that doesn’t mean you have to use the exact same ones as others do! If you struggle with colours, use a palette generator to find a combination that fits your industry. Check out this blog post by Dribble for some great colour-picking tools that are free to use. If all this colour talk sounds a bit overwhelming, you can always pick one main colour and pair it with black and white. In this case, you can use the lighter and darker values of your main colour to emphasise certain elements.

Example of colour palettes from palette generator website Coolors

Now that you’ve got your colour palette, you can start thinking about fonts. Maybe your industry uses very traditional ones that look like they belong in a book – these are serif fonts. That’s a great starting point, but now that you’ve used the industry standard in your colours, you can be more playful with fonts. To achieve this, pick a sans-serif font that looks elegant, or a traditional serif one that has clean lines and modern elements. And remember – your insights are a guideline, not a prison.

The difference between serif and sans serif fonts

Wait, what about the logo?

At last, we reach the long-awaited (and usually dreaded) logo phase. This guide to small business branding is intended for those who don’t have much (if any) experience in design. If you want a powerful logo design that will stand the test of time, you should hire a designer to help you with this task. However, if you’re looking for a place to start, a simple text-based logo is a great choice in most cases.

A text-based logo can work great for small businesses for several reasons. Firstly, it’s great for brand recognition – every branded piece will have your business name on it. Moreover, you don’t need to be a design master to create it. Experienced designers have already done the hard work of creating millions of fonts you can choose from. All you need to do is find the right one and make sure you have the right to use it. It’s important to check the font license before you use it as a logo – some fonts are free, others you must pay for to use. Do your homework on this one so you don’t get in trouble later on.

Small Business Branding Example

To illustrate everything we’ve covered so far, I’ve used a branding brief for a florist called ‘Lots of Love’. Below, you can see an example of what we’ve covered so far. The research board shows clippings of competitor websites and helps us identify a pattern. We can see that elegant serif fonts are popular in the industry, and pinks and greens seem to pop up quite a lot.

With this in mind, I used a calligraphy font to remind viewers of the traditional use of the phrase ‘lots of love’ – signing off a letter. In the background, I used a bold serif font to create contrast with the letters XX – another traditional element that goes into signing off a message.

An example of research and branding for ‘Lots of Love’ designed in Adobe Illustrator

This is just a quick and simple example of what you can create with a text-based logo. I used Adobe Illustrator and fonts from Adobe’s library, which are included in the platform subscription. Keep in mind that you may need some practice before you get to a design you’re happy with. I’ve worked with graphic design software for more than a decade so don’t expect things to click in an instant. If you’re looking for an easier way to design your logo, Canva might be an option worth exploring. Let’s see what that’s all about.

Wait, what about the logo?

At last, we reach the long-awaited (and usually dreaded) logo phase. This guide to small business branding is intended for those who don’t have much (if any) experience in design. If you want a powerful logo design that will stand the test of time, you should hire a designer to help you with this task. However, if you’re looking for a place to start, a simple text-based logo is a great choice in most cases.

A text-based logo can work great for small businesses for several reasons. Firstly, it’s great for brand recognition – every branded piece will have your business name on it. Moreover, you don’t need to be a design master to create it. Experienced designers have already done the hard work of creating millions of fonts you can choose from. All you need to do is find the right one and make sure you have the right to use it. It’s important to check the font license before you use it as a logo – some fonts are free, others you must pay for to use. Do your homework on this one so you don’t get in trouble later on.

Small Business Branding Example

To illustrate everything we’ve covered so far, I’ve used a branding brief for a florist called ‘Lots of Love’. Below, you can see an example of what we’ve covered so far. The research board shows clippings of competitor websites and helps us identify a pattern. We can see that elegant serif fonts are popular in the industry, and pinks and greens seem to pop up quite a lot.

With this in mind, I used a calligraphy font to remind viewers of the traditional use of the phrase ‘lots of love’ – signing off a letter. In the background, I used a bold serif font to create contrast with the letters XX – another traditional element that goes into signing off a message.

This is just a quick and simple example of what you can create with a text-based logo. I used Adobe Illustrator and fonts from Adobe’s library, which are included in the platform subscription. Keep in mind that you may need some practice before you get to a design you’re happy with. I’ve worked with graphic design software for more than a decade so don’t expect things to click in an instant. If you’re looking for an easier way to design your logo, Canva might be an option worth exploring. Let’s see what that’s all about.

Can I use Canva to design my logo?

The simple answer is – yes you can, but there are a couple of important things to keep in mind. While Canva is one of the best tools for small business owners to DIY their graphic design, it’s not really a graphic design software. Instead, it works as a library you can use to mix and match elements and create designs. When it comes to a Canva logo, here are a couple of important things to remember:

You don’t own the rights to a Canva logo

Canva retains full ownership of the designs on its platform and gives users the right to use them. This means you can’t trademark your design at any point. Moreover, if you’d like to upgrade it later on, you might not be allowed to use some of the elements in it.

You can’t download source files in all formats

The free version of Canva will only allow users to download a .jpeg copy of their logo. This means that the image will always have a background colour that you won’t be able to remove without further editing. Additionally, you can’t generate a vector file of your logo, which is the preferred format for logos of any sort.

Others can use the same Canva design

Just like you can go in and edit a logo template, so can anyone else. While the text and business name will change, having a similar layout to other logos can be harmful to your business. It’s worth looking through competitors’ logos before using Canva to make sure you don’t use the same template as them.

An example of logo variations for ‘Lots of Love’ designed in Canva

Having said all of this, Canva can still be a great option for businesses that are just starting out. Just make sure you upgrade to something unique further down the line and research your competitors to make sure you stand out.

Small Business Branding in a nutshell

We’ve worked with lots of small businesses to create powerful brands that leave a lasting impression. Book a free consultation with us to chat about what you have in mind and how we can help you achieve it.