Branding Explained
Intro
As branding itself plays a major role in the design over time, my aim with this article is to break it down and define it in simple language and explain how UX/UI design plays a vital role in branding digital products.
If I am correct, the first thing you encounter in your mind when you heard of the term 'branding' is a company's brand logo or you may simply be hooked up by its visual presence and value in the market. For example, let's consider 'Google' where build its logo that represents "the ways people connect to their products through numerous devices" Is that the first thing that comes to your mind by simply looking at its logo?
Not just google but, consider other well-established companies like Apple, Facebook, and even start-ups like Airbnb. Do you experience their service simply by looking at their logo? and of-course these aspects also play a very important role in communicating the brand identity of the product but, there is much more in establishing the right foundation and creating a unique brand identity, and these may vary from traditional to digital mediums, in creating the brand experience to end customer, but the foundations are the same. So, as you walk through this article I will try to evaluate the basic foundations of branding including its core components, use cases, and why a product need to be branded.
So, what is branding in general?
As I mentioned above that branding just isn't a company logo or representation of its visual appearances like color, typography, and other graphical elements but also, ensures the product’s reputation, and values that reach the customer's emotional state and expectations making the whole experience memorable, consistent, meaningful and obvious to use in which most importantly, a brand should respect the customer loyalty at the first place.
Branding has been around since 350 AD and is derived from the word "Brandr", meaning ”to burn" in the Ancient Norse language. And as there are different use cases of branding I will be trying to define it in the present digital era.
A well thought corporate branding helps the company or product to stand out from the crowd by telling its unique story with what they offer and how they were different, and it's a tool for influencing the choice and decision made by the end customer. Simply put, branding is not what you say it, rather it is recognizable by the customer.
Components of branding.
There are several components that come under this category, But for now, let me define the three of core components named visual, tone, and behavior.
Visual
Visuals are the graphic elements used to communicate the brand which are a logo, typeface, images, and other graphic elements of a common style guide. Visual's primary goal was to ensure the product is aesthetically looking good following the right Ul guidelines.
Tone
The tone is beyond the visuals in communicating to the brand uses, from a simple text on a website to the targeted advertisements in a manner it tells the same story using different mediums or platforms.
Behavior
Brand behavior should match their promise in providing their service. I believe that this is what the product owner or head of an organization should always have in their mind in reaching their end-customer expectations in establishing brand identity. As this component is visually represented with interactions like animations and transitions in a website but more importantly it needs to be proved with physical actions as well where it can serve customer loyalty.
Particularly, as most of the branding is done digitally in 21st-century companies like google, uber has already established its brand guidelines as a go-to solution by building an entire design system, which tells its unique story and also stay consistent using core components of branding that helps in communicating to their customers with the online and offline medium.
To Conclude
In an overcrowded and sometimes overwhelmed digital environment, as the user is always busy in navigating through his daily tasks, UX/UI plays a major and powerful tool in creating the meaningful brand identity of a product.
Remember, branding is a complex process, mainly because its success or failure is determined by your customer's reactions, trust, and sense of belonging to the act of doing business with you.