When launching a project or a company, it is necessary to establish the graphic universe in which your brand will be immersed. This universe will then be used in communication and all printed media (business cards, flyers), screens (website, social networks, mobile application) or physical (showcase, stands).
Your graphic charter is made up of all the graphic elements that will characterize your brand and make it recognizable by your customers. Logos, colors and typography are the essential elements that allow you to create your visual identity. These graphic elements that make up your brand universe determine how people perceive and identify your business.
If you want people to like and recognize your brand, you need a solid foundation embodied in the creation of a graphic charter.
Here are the 3 steps that will allow you to build your graphic charter:
Your logo will be the foundation of your entire brand strategy. It is a representation of your company's identity and vision. You want your logo to be simple, not too abstract, and easily memorable. Your logo should reflect your company's vision. It has an image role in addition to being a gateway for your potential customers: indeed, it is the first showcase that your prospects will discover to interact with your company.
The logo must also be declined in different forms in terms of colors, formats in order to communicate on all platforms and terminals. Thus, it will not be the same depending on the image format or the background color. For example, your site's profile picture or Favicon will have a square format while the logo on your site or your printed materials will generally have a rectangular format. At Geekworkers, we can help you create your logo from A to Z.
Once defined, the logo will be used on your website, business cards, sales brochure, flyers and all other communication elements.
Take care however! When working with a designer, it's easy to deviate from your brand identity. It's often difficult to communicate exactly what you want to someone else. It is therefore imperative to define a graphical chart to exchange with stakeholders and maintain graphic consistency in your various communication channels.
The second step to create your graphic charter is to define the colors of your graphic universe. At the house of Geekworkers, we recommend the use of a maximum of 4 colors: this is an ideal number so as not to disturb the perception of the identification of your brand.
In the graphic charter, you must define these colors, as well as the use of the logo with these different colors in digital format for screens and printed media.
We use standards to define color values with: CMYK, Pantone, RGB and hexadecimal values. This will facilitate communication with your graphic designers during your projects.
Be sure to use colors strategically in your branding. Select a consistent color palette that reflects your company's identity and uniqueness. And don't forget that your color scheme will affect all your other graphic media!
Typography or typeface also has a big role to play in building your visual identity!
It's important to use typography that will reflect your business and the message you want to convey through your communication.
Some brands call on designers to create personal and unique typography for their graphic charter. It's a strategic choice, because it will make your brand even more identifiable among other players!
Nevertheless, it is certain that this represents a significant cost that many SMEs would not have the privilege of affording.
For this reason, Google Fonts has become indispensable for the search for typefaces! New fonts are added almost every day. You will undoubtedly find your pearl there! In addition, Google Font is available natively on many media or digital solutions to create websites on WordPress for example.
The fonts found on Google Font are also natively suitable for use on the web. On the other hand, this is not the case for all fonts that you can download from free databases such as dafont or 1001fonts. Another equally prolific player in fonts is Adobe Font which lists more than 20,000 different fonts on its platform.
So how do you choose your typography from the many font styles on the Internet?
Generally, it is recommended to choose 2 to 3 fonts maximum in your graphic charter. For example: you will use one font for headings and a secondary for paragraphs.
The typography used should reflect your main purpose. For example, for a brand that advocates minimalism or modernity, we can choose sans serif fonts like Arial or Helvetica. These fonts have smooth edges, they reflect a modern image.
Here are some examples of Google Fonts and their context of use
You might be reluctant to outsource your visual identity to an outside agency. However, to stand out from the competition, it is necessary to call on professionals. In addition to benefiting from their expertise, the agencies will be able to support you in building your brand by contributing their ideas and helping you establish a communication or marketing strategy in line with your business objectives.
The main elements that make up the graphic charter will reflect your image with your customers. If they have a good impression of your brand, it will translate to better sales as well as greater loyalty to your products or services.
The graphic charter also makes it possible to maintain homogeneity in its communication and visual identity. Indeed, the main elements of the graphic charter which are the colors, the logo and the font are available in all media and printed media, whether it is your website or your business cards. You can take a look at a project launched by a Swiss start-up, Brandfetch.com, to discover the graphic charter of your favorite brands.
Creating a strong brand identity is not an easy task. In this article, you were able to understand the issues, but above all what could help you create your graphic universe in a simple and practical way.
So ! Ready to create your own graphic charter with these examples?
Contact us now to discuss it!
We advise you to hire a professional to do this. In addition, it is often interesting to confront your ideas with a professional outside your company. This will bring a fresh and objective look.
And then, between us… A logo created by a passionate person will certainly have a more qualitative feedback than the logo drawn on your notebook! 😉
Geekworkers provides you with a graphic charter template in Figma format for your projects.
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Our Web & Marketing agency is present at Lausanne since 2020 and now has more than 25 employees to support SMEs, entrepreneurs and large companies in French-speaking Switzerland.
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