6 Things These Brand Identities Can Teach Us About Visual Brand Association

The business world is extremely competitive, and brands always need to stay on the edge with effective marketing and branding techniques. Not only do you need to have a very convincing product, you also need to impress your customers and make them recognize your worth and relevance. This can be a very exciting, multi-faceted challenge. In this article, we are going to explore a very interesting link –that between brand identity and visual brand association, and see how brand identities can help you achieve your desired brand associations. Not familiar with the terms? Don’t worry; we will tackle them one by one.

What Are Brand Identities?

One way brands tackle the challenge of setting themselves apart from others is through brand identities. Brand identity, to put it simply, is the special flavor of your business. It is basically the quality that sets you apart from your competitors. Brand identity propagates your brand image through visual elements, which include the logo, colors, typology, packaging etc. All of these elements convey a certain personality of your business, which you use to build an image and association in the mind of your customers.

What Is Visual Brand Association?

Now, what about the brand association? Is it similar to brand identity? Well, not entirely. Brand associations are the specific characteristics or attributes that come in your customer’s mind whenever he or she thinks about your brand. The associations can be from a wide spectrum – the association may be a feeling, an image of a celebrity associated with your brand, an image of a certain lifestyle or a user, or even your visual graphic elements associated with the brand.

These associations are very important as they help a business establish their desired goals. In this article, we are going to focus specifically on Visual Brand Associations – the specific visuals that come up in the mind of your audience when they think about your brand, and how it is achieved through graphic design. So let’s look at some great examples where brand identities

Famous Brands That Teach Us about Great Visual Brand Association

1. McDonald’s – Use Color To Your Advantage

Image Source: font.cz

Color psychology plays a big role in building a consistent brand association. McDonald’s uses a consistent color palette of yellow, to emphasize their friendliness and family-oriented nature. Guess where this yellow shows up? In their logo, as well as in their clown mascot.

Another important lesson from this is the use of a mascot. Good brand identities use different touch points to propagate brand associations, and that touch point needs not to be limited to a logo. So feel free to experiment with other elements as well!

2. Toblerone – Product Design Counts As Well!

Image Source: The Stephanie Lorena Project/Tumblr.com

Visual brand identity is not just limited to graphic design. You can easily take it in another dimension by exploring product design itself. Toblerone creates a strong visual brand association with its signature triangular shape – this is what you instantly get in your head whenever you think of Toblerone –and this trait is so unique that no other brand has been able to steal it from them.

Similarly, the packaging also plays a role in a strong visual brand association. Having the unique triangular packaging sets Toblerone apart –and that is the image every user gets in their head when they think of this chocolate. The company further compounds this image with brand colors and typography –all of which binds together to create a cohesive brand identity.

3. Harley Davidson – Make Your Users An Inspiration For Your Identity

Image Source: Medium.com/Stewart_Fabrik

One very important type of brand association is that which is distilled through the ‘image of the user’. When brands are able to convey the type of users they are targeting, in their marketing, the message instantly hits home. Harley Davidson forms a strong brand identity using this idea. Their users are the punk bikers –tattoos, leather, black boots, and chain! And you can see elements of their user’s visual identity being translated into their brand identity. The same color palette and textures are used to create the effect. This shows how you can create a strong visual brand association with the help of your users.

4. Apple – Distilling The Lifestyle

Image Source: Unsplash/freestocks.org

Apple also distills their brand elements with the help of their users. What does apple represent? Everything slick, modern, neat, and minimalistic. It represents upscale, fast-paced lifestyle –and that is why they holistically design every single visual element of their brand to uphold this image. Whether it is the color of the gadget, the style of their website, or their signature colors.

The takeaway lesson from Apple’s brand identity; be very clear about the image of your ideal user and their lifestyle. Once you have that image in your mind, you can use it to extract color, font and stylistic themes for your logo, print material, product design, web design and literally everything. The better you do this, the quicker will your message be picked up by the target audience!

5. Nike – Your Logo Can Be The Strongest Tool In Visual Brand Association!

Image Source: nike.com

What is the one thing everyone remembers about Nike, whether it’s a child or an adult? The Swooshy logo of course! Nike’s Swoosh has become such a powerful symbol, that it alone can stand for everything for the brand. This is the visual image that you instantly get in your head whenever you think of Nike. This gives us a very important lesson; that the power of logo is great, and getting the logo just right is important. If you are able to distill and minimize your logo to such an extent where it can work as a stand-alone symbol of uniqueness for you, you know you’ve achieved a very big branding goal!

6. Subway – Incorporate Taglines

Image Source: Logos.Wikia.com/Wiki/LogoPedia

Taglines are often overlooked in branding because we are always trying to be minimalistic. But taglines can actually help you create strong visual brand associations. Incorporating taglines in your logo, or in some other touch point, helps the users decode your visual brand identity in the way you want. For example, Subway’ ‘Eat Fresh’ makes the message so clear for you, that whenever you look at the green and yellow of the logo, you can almost imagine the crunchy freshness between your teeth! Without the tagline, the green and yellow may or may not have stood for freshness. However, adding the tagline sealed the deal. So this is one important takeaway for designers – taglines and text can actually be used to anchor your visual brand associations.

These were just some general tips to get you thinking about the link between brand identities and visual brand associations. As you can see, there are numerous ways to do this, and there is no single correct way –you have to choose the road that works best for you, your brand and your target audience. When you are able to authentically do this, a naturally strong brand identity emerges from this practice – one which stays with your audience for the years to come and helps you in standing apart from your competitors.

Do you have any other cool ideas for visual brand associations or any good examples to share? Let us know in the comments!

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