What is brand identity?
What you choose to show, as opposed to what people decide to see.
First brand read free. No filming.
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The short answer
Brand identity is everything a brand deliberately chooses about how it presents itself: Its name, logo, colours, typography, imagery and voice, held together by what it stands for. It is the part you control; brand image is what people actually think of you after they meet it.
Updated
Identity, image, guidelines
Brand identity
What you choose: how you look, sound and what you promise.
Brand image
What people believe about you, formed by every experience, review and post they see. You influence it; you do not set it.
Brand guidelines
The written rules that keep the identity the same wherever it appears.
Two layers you choose, one you earn
Diagram. Brand identity is the two lower layers, which you control; brand image forms on top of them.
How to build or tighten yours
- 01
Write your positioning in one line
What you do, for whom, and why you rather than the alternative. Every element should be checked against it.
- 02
Audit every touchpoint side by side
Website, social profiles, the last twenty posts, emails and invoices on one screen. Inconsistencies show at once.
- 03
Decide what stays
Keep what people already recognise; change only what contradicts the positioning.
- 04
Write it down
Turn the decisions into short brand guidelines so the next post, freelancer or tool gets them right.
- 05
Apply it where people look most
For most small brands that is the social profile and the posts in its feed, not the letterhead.
The seven elements
Name
Easy to say, spell and search, and free to use on the platforms you need.
Logo
A mark that still reads as a small profile picture, which is where most people first see it.
Colour
Two or three colours used the same way every time, so a post is recognisable before the name is read.
Typography
One or two fonts with clear roles, including the font you put on video captions and thumbnails.
Imagery
The style of photos, video and illustration: lit how, framed how, showing whom.
Voice
How the brand sounds in writing and on camera, and the words it uses and avoids.
Positioning and values
What you do, for whom, and what you will not compromise. The other six express this one.
Read next
Your questions, answered
Short answers to what people ask next.
Name, logo, colour, typography, imagery, voice, and the positioning and values they express.
Identity is what you choose to present. Image is what people believe about you after they see it. Identity is controlled; image is earned.
Branding is the work of creating and managing a brand. Brand identity is one result of that work: the visible and audible parts.
A good logo and a consistent use of colour and type are worth paying for once. Consistency matters more than polish: the same colours, voice and face post after post.
Use the same colours, fonts and voice on every post, the same person or presenter on camera, and one approved set of formats. Short brand guidelines make it possible when more than one person posts.
Yes. Percify reads your name, logo, colours, fonts, tone of voice, audiences, what you sell and who you compete with from your website, and you can correct anything it got wrong. Every post idea is then written from that read and presented with your own face and voice. Your first brand read is free.