What is a Branding Kit? How to Create and Use One

There's no great Boing Model without a blueprint. Likewise, a branding kit is required for strong and cohesive branding. It includes the essential components - branding guidelines, color templates, typography and font, and tone of voice - required for unified and strong branding across multiple channels.

The primary purpose of a branding kit is to maintain brand consistency across platforms and mediums. But is brand consistency really that important? The short answer is yes. It takes years of hard work to develop a recognizable brand voice that resonates deeply with your audience.

For example, your brand might be known for its witty and informal captions. But imagine if, one day, you suddenly started posting formal captions out of nowhere.

This will undoubtedly create confusion and a sense of disconnection among your loyal followers. When brand consistency falters, it can disrupt how people perceive and relate to your business. A branding kit, however, can help prevent that outcome.

In this article, we'll have a look at the essentials of a branding kit, its benefits, and how to create one.

Is Creating a Branding Kit Really That Important?

Most entrepreneurs need to realize the importance of a branding kit, especially when running a small business. They often manage most operations themselves - personally responding to customer calls and queries or creating designs on Canva during their free time.

This hands-on approach works for small-scale operations, but as your business starts to transition to a large enterprise, your processes become daunting for a single person to overlook. As a business owner, you should focus on strategic processes and delegate tasks like social media posting or customer support to a team.

This is where the absence of a branding kit can cause problems. As long as you were doing your business operations yourself, branding was instinctive - it reflected your vision and was executed directly by you. But now, those processes are being outsourced to a team of brains. Your team won't inherently know your brand's values, color themes, voice, and other elements unless you provide them with clear guidance. You can do so via a branding kit. 

What are the Elements of a Branding Kit?

A branding kit is like a tasty grandma's cookie recipe. It may vary from family to family - or, in this case, from business to business, but certain elements form the foundation of every branding kit. These elements are:

Logo:

A logo is your brand's face and the most recognizable visual element. Make sure to include different versions of your logo (e.g., full-color, monochrome, and transparent) so that your trademark looks good on different backgrounds and in distinct scenarios. 

Color Palette:

Psychology suggests that colors evoke emotions and influence perceptions. Your brand's color palette should reflect its basic emotions. For example, Coca-Cola's basic red and white color theme conveys passion, youth, energy, love, purity, and class.

Typography:

Just like color palettes, fonts and typography also represent your brand's personality. For example, Nike uses a bold, modern, sans-serif font to represent strength, grit, power, and innovation.

Imagery and Graphics:

Your brand's visual identity will be strengthened by the imagery styles, filters, or graphic elements you use. Include examples of preferred photography styles, icon sets, or custom illustrations in your branding guidelines. 

The Tone of Voice:

Your brand's tone of voice defines how you communicate with your audience. Is your brand friendly, formal, witty, or empathetic?

Taglines and Mission Statements:

People want to connect emotionally with your brand apart from doing business with you. Give them a reason to engage by showing that your brand stands for a more significant cause apart from making sales.

Templates:

Templates are a great way to maintain consistency and save time. You can have pre-designed templates for social media posts, presentations, and emails. These templates set clear guidelines for your content and eliminate the need to start from scratch each time you create something new.

How to Create a Brand Kit: Steps to Build a Strong Brand Identity

Now that we've covered all the basics let's turn to the main question and see how you can create a branding kit for strong and efficient branding.

Start With a Story Highlighting Your Core Values and Identity

People love to connect with the story behind a brand. As a business owner, every aspect of your branding should reflect and communicate that story. Your brand's narrative makes it relatable, memorable, and authentic. This can only be achieved when everyone on your team is aligned with that story from the start. Your story can be about;

• Who you are as a business
• How your brand came into existence
• The initial challenges you faced
• The future vision you aim to achieve

Make sure to stay true to your brand while sharing these narratives, as people value honesty and growth more than perfection.

Create a Colour Template: 

As aforementioned, your brand has a personality to it that differentiates it from any other. Make sure that this personality is reflected in your color templates perfectly. For example, suppose your brand's primary purpose is to aim for trust and reliability, such as a financial institution. In that case, you may use shades of blue as it is often associated with stability and professionalism.

On the other hand, if your brand is focused on creativity and excitement, like a design agency, you can choose more vibrant colors like yellow or orange to show energy and innovation.

It's interesting to note that some brands might opt for a primary and secondary color scheme to keep things simple and cohesive. In contrast, others may choose a broader palette to capture different aspects of their brand's personality.

Define Your Brand Voice:

Your brand voice is the tone and style of your communication. Depending on your business, it could be professional, casual, playful, authoritative, or empathetic. For example:

• A legal consultancy might adopt a formal and authoritative voice to build trust and credibility.
• A lifestyle brand targeting younger audiences might use a casual and fun tone to create a sense of relatability.

Choose Fonts and Typography:

Just like your voice, fonts and typography convey emotions and help form impressions about your brand. There are different fonts you can choose for different uses. For example: 

• Serif Fonts: Classic and formal (e.g., Times New Roman). Perfect for traditional and trustworthy brands.
• Sans Serif Fonts: Modern and clean (e.g., Helvetica). Works well for innovative and approachable brands.
• Script Fonts: Elegant and creative (e.g., Pacifico). Best for luxury or artistic brands.
• Display Fonts: Bold and attention-grabbing. Suitable for brands that want to make a strong statement.

You can use multiple fonts for different elements of your content, such as headings, CTAs (Call to Actions), and paragraphs. This can make your content look more visually appealing. At the same time, it highlights key information.

Create Different Versions of Your Logo:

When you operate as a small business, a single logo version will be sufficient for your needs. But as your brand starts to gain popularity, you'll be featured on different blogs, news, and other digital and multimedia content.

If you want to maintain a professional appearance across all these distinct channels, you'll have to create multiple orientations for your logo to adapt to various placements, dimensions, and uses.

Some examples include: 

• Horizontal Orientation

• Best For: Websites, headers, banners, and email signatures.

• Vertical Orientationsome text
  • Best For: Posters, social media profiles, and mobile apps.

• Icon-Only Versionsome text
  • Best For: Social media profile pictures, app icons, and watermarks.

• Text-Only Versionsome text
  • Best For: Minimalist branding materials, letterheads, and subtle watermarking.

• Monochrome Versionsome text
  • Best For: Black-and-white prints, invoices, and documents.

Cherry on Top:

When it comes to streamlining your brand assets, you need a reliable platform to efficiently create, store, and share all your branding elements with your team - while ensuring that your assets are secure and protected from misuse and data breaches.

Ethos can help with that. Our pricing models are among the best in the industry, and we offer the most value for money in brand asset management. Experience the convenience and security of our platform - try it completely free for a whole month, with no credit card required.

Expand Your Knowledge with Ethos

Want to learn more about Ethos? Start with the following resources:

• Logo Usage Guidelines: How to Maintain Brand Integrity
• Ethos vs. Bynder: Brand Asset Management Tool Comparison
• What is Brand Messaging?
• Ethos vs Frontify: Key Differences in Brand Asset Management
• Brand Guidelines: What They Are and How to Create Them

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