Branding your Business
Consistency across all platforms
When managing a website, branding relates to both the visual appearance of your site and how you, or your company, choose the assets that are used there.
Branding is also how your business communicates with the world in general, from billboards to business cards, on screen and in print.
The colours, fonts and type of images you use are part of your brand, but the language you use and the information you include on your website are too.
Business Identity
Think of any company that you might consider trading with or engaging with in some capacity and you may notice that they have a clearly recognisable brand.
Branding is not limited to the logo and colours used, it extends to how the content is displayed on the web site and further afield. See http://static.brookes.ac.uk/about/identity/templates/OB-vi-guidelines-feb2015.pdf Oxford Brookes University - Visual Identity Guidelines.
Your business branding should consist of a Branding Board (Corporate Identity) and a Web Design Board. When combined with the Site Plan this enables the fairest and most accurate quote. With the addition of the Asset Folders it also speeds up the site building process.
How we work with your Business Branding
Whether you come to us with an established brand and assets, or are starting from scratch as a new business, your branding board will determine the core design of your site in terms of logo, colours, fonts and styles.
From there we expand the character of your business by reflecting more aspects of its personality. If you have a very feminine business aimed at women, we might use soft colours, curvy lines and background patterns or textures. For a sushi bar we could use a black background and overlapping food images to highlight the products. Where professional status and credibility are an important aspect we would highlight your credentials and testmonials.
The personality of your business is also reflected in your choice of images, icons and the voice you use to communicate with your visitors. When your visitors know that what matters to them, also matters to you, they feel you are aligned with their ethics and aspirations.
The Branding Board
The bare minimum this should contain would be your logo along with the colours and fonts that you would like to be used on your site. The colours are often, but not always or exclusively, dictated by your logo.
Your logo should ideally be in vector format. Unlike bitmap images like photos which are made up of a series of coloured dots, vector images consist of shapes that are filled with solid colour. Vector images retain their clarity much better when reduced in size and can be enlarged without the issue of pixelization which affects photographs.
In larger companies, with more than one brand, each brand should have its own Branding Board and these should be referred to in the main Branding Board of the parent company, and vice-versa.
Wireframe Outline Design Board
The Design Board contains Wireframe Outlines of the types of Page Templates that will be used to build your web site. Unlike your Page Content that will be different on every page, the Page Template creates consistency across those pages be using the same Page Elements such as Header, Footer and often one or more Sidebars. It will also include any Icons we will be using on your site.
The Page Elements can be specified in your Site Plan and have their own Content Folders in the main Collaboration Folder.
