Beginner’s guide in creating a brand kit

Creating a brand kit is a great way to start branding; it gives you a framework to build a cohesive and consistent brand. It’s also the perfect way to create a brand that stands out among competitors.

Branding is about more than just design. It’s about creating a unique, memorable, and distinct brand identity that your customers can identify with. 

In the age of social media, the Internet, and other forms of digital communication, we’re constantly being flooded with information and image-filled media. This has created a brand identity crisis for many businesses. 

A brand identity is not only just a logo, a website, or a name. It’s much more than that. It’s your company's personality and the way you communicate with your customers and your target market.

But how do you create a brand identity that’s unique and recognizable? Read on to find out.

What is a brand kit?

Brand Kits are a collection of templates, images, and other assets that can be used to create a unique brand identity for a business. A brand kit provides a starting point for creating a brand identity that’s consistent across all of your marketing activities. 

It’s the first element that people see when they encounter your company and it sets the tone for everything else you do as a business. 

Why Do You Need a Brand Identity?

Think of your brand as a person, and you need to give it a name, a personality, and a story. You need to integrate it into every aspect of your business, from your website to your social media posts to your email signature, and even your business cards.

When you create a brand identity, you need to think about what your brand represents. This will help you build a brand that your customers will love.

How to create a brand kit?

Assess Your Current Brand Identity

First, you need to understand your brand. What is your brand and how do you want your audience to think about you? What do you want them to feel when they interact with you? 

Your brand is your unique combination of experiences, skills, and personality. It is what you stand for, what you believe in, and what you want to be known for. So, you need to figure out what your brand is. 

How to assess your brand identity? 

• Examine the business and the market.
• Determine the most important business objectives.
• Who its customers are.
• Determine its personality and the message it wants to convey.

Research your target audience 

To define your target audience, you must first understand their needs, wants, and values, as well as how you fit into all of them. You must be able to provide value to your audience in ways they understand.

Describe your target market and why they require your services.

1. Who is your audience? 
2. What are their demographics?
3. Their interests? 
4. What are their problems? 
5. What are they trying to solve?

You can narrow down your audience focus by first defining and understanding your target market. It provides you a clear idea of what you need to be for a specific set of individuals because your messages are always personalized to your audience.

Audit your competitors

You may compare your brand to each competitor by doing a competitor audit, which can provide some useful insights. 

For instance, if you’re a consulting company, your competitors may be larger companies offering a broader range of services. If your company offers a similar service, you may be able to learn some interesting things about your competitors by doing a competitor audit. 

Start by identifying your competitors. You can use some of the following methods to find your competitors: 

a. Google search 

b. Trade publications and directories 

c. Social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)

d. Interviews 

Create a brand story

Make your brand known to the world by sharing your story about your origins, who you are, and what you stand for. This is the most important part of a brand strategy. 

The brand story is the reason for the brand. 

Brand stories are summaries of a company's vision, goal, and basic core values. 

The story is usually targeted at your prospects and customers and is usually intended to describe your brand’s personality and differentiate you from the competition.

Your brand story should be consistent and compelling, and it should be delivered in a way that your customers can understand and remember. 

Take a look at Cisco's brand story:

Design your Logo 

What is the 1st thing that a customer notices when it comes across your brand? That's right, it's your logo!

It is one of the most important parts of the process of creating a brand kit. A powerful logo represents the essence of your company. 

A logo is an important marketing tool for any business. It helps to establish brand recognition and attracts customers. A well-designed logo can help your company stand out from the crowd, as well as improve your company’s credibility and professionalism.

Below are some tips and tricks to keep in mind when designing great logos. 

• Make it unique and identifiable
• Keep it consistent
• Create in high-resolution formats (e.g. PNGs,JPGs,PDFs)
• Keep it simple, neat, and clean
• Make it scalable to work in a variety of sizes
• Choose an interesting and suitable color combination

You can use some of the free tools in designing your logos:

• Canva
• Crello
• Photoshop
• Venngage

Choose your Color Palette

One of the main elements in creating a brand kit is choosing your color palette. 

When it comes to colors, establishing a trademark palette will help you achieve a consistent look and feel.

When choosing colors for your brand, there are a few things to keep in mind.

1. What are your colors? Explore the meaning of colors and align yourself with colors that make sense to your brand.
2. Search for inspiration. Find an object, an atmosphere, or an image that you think resonates with your brand. 
3. Use your inspiration to choose your colors - Use the source of inspiration and draw the colors from that.
4. Colors should be visually pleasing to the eye and be harmonious. 
5. It should be easily identifiable and memorable. 

Colors have various meanings, convey different messages, and create different moods. 

A color like blue may evoke feelings of trust and strength, while a color like red can evoke feelings of passion and intensity. Gray signifies peace and balance, while yellow represents optimism. The colors you use must be in line with the message you're trying to convey.

A good color palette is simple and flexible, which gives enough options to be creative without becoming overwhelming. This includes the following:

• Main color
• Primary colors
• Secondary colors
• Accent colors

To ensure that your colors are presented consistently across media, provide the appropriate hex codes, RGB values, and CMYK color codes.

Some tools to help you in generating your color palettes:

• Coolors.co to generate palettes 
• Mycolor to generate gradients 
• Adobe Capture app to generate colors from images.
• Test your color palette to see if the colors are compatible.

Choose your Typography

Let’s start with the basics. The font you choose should be easy to read and understand. 

Font selection is another important aspect of creating a brand kit. There are many different fonts to choose from. Some are more elegant, while others are more fun. 

The font that you choose for your brand kit will go a long way in your branding. Choosing the right font gives your brand kit a more professional and sophisticated appearance. 

A lettering design that includes changes in size, weight, slope, width, and other factors is known as a typeface. Each of these typeface variations is referred to as a font. 

You can choose to have 1 main font type and 1-2 secondary fonts.

Some free sites to check on font styles:

• Font pairings
• Fontpair
• Stylifyme
• Font Space

You are set in creating a brand kit!

It doesn't have to be overwhelming when creating a brand kit. It is a process that should be exciting and fun. As long as you cover the basics I'm sure you'll create one in no time.

Try building a simple brand kit by following the above-mentioned brand elements. Happy creativity!

FREE TEMPLATE - Click the following link and use our template on Canva!

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