Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
When it comes to branding your small business, consistency is key. Whether you’re adding a page to your website or passing out postcards, your logo, colours and messaging should align; this way, you’ll reinforce your brand identity and build a recognisable ‘look’ for yourself. Ready to create a look and feel for your brand that’ll work on (almost) anything? Here are some things to think about as you create—or update—your branding.
Start with a versatile logo
A memorable, recognisable logo is essential to building a brand that customers will remember. As you’re creating a logo, consider all of the different elements it’ll appear on—and make sure it will work everywhere. Here, Tulip & Rose uses a fairly straightforward logo that looks great on all of their marketing materials: simple, elegant text (including a description of the business) floats below an illustrated bouquet motif. The logo fonts, Trajan Pro and Prosto, blend serif and sans serif typography for a stand-out, subtly contrasted look that feels classic, elegant and slightly whimsical. The logo gets placed in a contrasting box to stand out on business cards and postcards, but is striking enough to stand alone as a website header or on a sticker.
If you need a new logo for your business, or want to refresh your current one, the experts at 99designs by Vista can help.
Create an adaptable colour palette
The Tulip & Rose color palette uses shades of pink and purple that feel romantic and ethereal, while strategically placed pops of cream and black add eye-catching contrast. Using five key hues lets them play around with color combinations to give each branded material a different look…without impacting the overall brand feel. Here, see how Tulip & Rose can vary the colors they use for their logo text based on the background color—cream against dark purple, dark purple against light purple and so on.
Tulip & Rose incorporates shots of their own products (bouquets!) as background images on website pages, business cards, postcards and flyers. Try it for yourself—just make sure the product photo colours are compatible with your brand colour palette.
Put your brand identity to work
Wherever customers interact with your brand, they should be able to recognise it. Consistent design can help customers make the connection between your online and offline identity. Offline materials, like business cards, postcards and stickers, will help customers (and bouquet recipients!) remember your brand. Online, reinforce your brand’s colours with stock photography that you can purchase from photo sharing sites, or your own product photos. Here, Tulip & Rose incorporates a close-up shot of a purple bouquet in the homepage header image, and further down the page features products that complement their brand colours.
Create your website design around your logo—it can inform the colours, fonts and design elements on each page of your site.
The finished look
Here’s a closer look at everything Tulip & Rose uses to create a consistent brand identity (online and off) to look credible in all of their marketing endeavors.
- Business cards. Tulip & Rose uses rounded corner business cards to create a stand-out shape.
- Flyers. With more room for design and text elements, Tulip & Rose’s flyers include additional illustrated elements to emphasize their floral logo.
- Postcards. Tulip & Rose uses a vibrant floral stock photo for their postcard design to add an instantly eye-catching element.
- Stickers & labels. Tulip & Rose uses a mix of oval labels and round stickers—the circular ones seal paper-wrapped bouquets, while larger labels add their brand to take-home vases.
- Website. Tulip & Rose sells floral arrangements in a rainbow of colors, but the ones shown on their homepage (the entry point to the rest of their website) reinforce their color palette and ultimately boost brand credibility.
If you don’t have a website for your small business, we can help you get online.
Try our website builder, or let a design expert build it for you.
Meet the designer
LRNNKL from 99designs created this logo for Tulip & Rose, inspired by the brand’s name. “What caught my attention the most was the name. ‘Tulip & Rose’ is a simple but memorable name that makes a strong impression.” To go along with the name, he created a simple bouquet that reflects his love of vintage, hand-drawn styles.
LRNNKL specializes in logo design—check out his portfolio if you’re interested in working with him to create a look for your small business.
