The Basic Guide to Branding

So you have products you want to sell online or service you want to offer. Let’s just say you have your own t-shirt screen printing set up, made some t-shirts and now want to get some buyers. The only thing is what do you call yourself? Would you just use your name or come up with a catchy title? I will show you how I came up with my title, logo, and branding.

Brand Name

I’ve been in several artist alleys at conventions in the, but up until this year, I haven’t had an official name for my brand. I only used my online name  “DanaBoBana”, but no color scheme and no consistency.  Here’s how I finally figured it all out:

First, the name. I have never been really creative when it comes to coming up with names. I really didn’t want to use my own name. What I did was write down everything your brand is about. For instance, here is a list of words associated with my brand:

• Print
• design
• art
• drawing
• doodle
• graphic
• creation

You can combine two or more of the words you listed and come up with a unique name. I went back to thinking about using my name, but then I thought, why don’t I use part of my long Italian last name and attached it to one of these words? I came up with Moscreation. I looked online to check to see if the name was taken. Guess what? It was taken. I went back to the drawing board, maybe try to combine my last name Moscariello with another word on my list. And that is how Moscaprint was born.

Color Scheme

Next, I had to figure out what colors I wanted for my branding. I suggest choosing your favorite colors. You want the colors to represent who you are. Do you want a feminine feel with a lot of pale pinks? My favorite colors and blue and green. I chose a blue/green that felt a bit of an earthy tone (cause I love nature!). I now it was onto incorporating the colors into the logo. 

Logo

My logo was created in Illustrator. I suggest Illustrator because you can stretch it to whatever size you need. If you use Photoshop, make it at least 300 dpi (I suggest 600 dpi) because when you make it a really large size, you can use it for your website and for printing on business cards to large banners. You can either use a font and edit it. I hand wrote mine using my Wacom tablet. When you are saving an image, save it as a PNG file. If you have a colored background and don’t want your logo surrounded in a white box, saving as a PNG will remove the white background. Just don’t forget to create a separate layer when making your image, not draw it directly on the locked background layer. 

Icon/ Favicon

You’re going to want to make a little icon to go along with your logo. When you make a favicon, you’ve got a little simple recognizable image that reflects your brand.  You also have a little icon for the tab at the top of your website or when someone bookmarks it. For my logo, I chose a leaf because I love the outdoors so much. After drawing it, I felt it went really well with my logo and reflects who I am. Now people will see the little leaf icon and relate it to my brand. You can either pick an object, like a flower, a little notebook, or even the first letter of your logo.

When you create business cards, banners or a website, you can now slap your logo on it! Even if you want to have a coffee mug or have your logo on pens to give away. You can go to a printing website and upload your logo.

Consistent Branding Across all Social Media

Now that you have created your logo and color scheme, have each social media platform reflect your brand. If you have an icon of your image or a picture of yourself, use that same image on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and any other website you use to promote your brand. Keep the same colors across each platform. This way if someone stumbles on your website then follows you on Twitter, you are more recognizable and they will remember your brand. If you are ready to start a website, go here to Start your Creative Blog!

There’s a lot to learn when it comes to branding but I hope this guide will give you a better understanding.