3 Easy Steps to Take to Align Your Branding

Between your website, social media profiles, marketing materials and online programs you create, there's endless opportunities for your branding to either be on point or be a complete disaster.

Branding is all about consistency. You want people to be able to recognize pieces of your brand whenever they see it.

It sounds simple, but many solopreneurs get this wrong.

If you're one of them, don't worry. I'm going to break down 3 easy things you can do to make your branding more cohesive.

1. Use the same fonts

This is something that I find many DIY website designers are cognizant of. I'll notice a mash up of different cursive fonts with a mix of serif and sans serif fonts throughout the homepage of a site.

It can become confusing and overwhelming.

The key is to keep it simple.

If you have a logo, make sure that the fonts used in the logo match what is being used on your website or on marketing materials

If you don't have an official logo, try to focus on 3 fonts: 

  1. A sans serif font for headings (these are the fonts "without feet")

  2. A serif font for paragraphs (serif is easier to read in longer paragraphs of text)

  3. A playful font to be used sparingly (someone shouldn't need to squint to be able to read the text, which is why it's nice to use this as an accent when appropriate)

2. Use only 4-5 colors

The #1 way to drive website visitors away is to use 10 different colors on your website.

I'm guessing that doesn't fall into #sitegoals.

Having a mix of clashing (or just downright too many) colors will throw people off.

You want to nail down your brand colors and limit 4-5 colors. In this instance, white and black don't have to count.

If you're not sure what colors you want, use Pinterest! Pinterest is a great tool for design inspiration. 

Pin a few color palettes you like to a secret board. From there, pick a few colors you like, alter them slightly (I recommend this so that you're not copying a color palette exactly as you see it), and use a tool like Coolors to identify the color codes.



3. Make sure your graphics have a similar aesthetic

Whether it's banner images throughout your website or graphics to use on your social media posts, my best piece of advice is to buy a package from Creative Market. Whether it's styled stock photos or textures and patterns, it's important to find images that relate to each other.

You can try to use various photos from a free photo site, like Unsplash or Pexels (which I love), but sometimes trying to piece together similar photos is not that easy. Photographers have different styles, which can be seen in each photo.

Your best bet is to invest a few dollars and purchase a package from Creative Market. You wont' regret it.

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Sweat with Stodds: Branding