The Brand Glossary: Talk like a branding professional
Humans don’t like feeling stupid.
It’s one of the biggest reasons people don’t start something new, whether it be a business, hobby or let’s say that rebrand project you’ve been considering for the last 6 months...cough...cough.
Now a big piece of getting over this innate fear of being a beginner and feeling like a baby giraffe that’s learning how to walk is a mindset shift and we could talk about that OR we could give you a leg up before you get into the heavy lifting of mindset work.
And dun dunna naaaaa, that leg up is lingo. If you know the lingo you can talk the lingo and if you can talk the lingo you’ll be able to effectively communicate your vision to your designer and team, give clear, relevant feedback that goes beyond “it just doesn’t feel right” so your vision can be brought to life, and sound super smart at parties (people really love it when I go on about the Aesthetic Usability design principle).
Think of this as Merriam-Webster, branding style.
Some of these words you may already know or think you know. Take “brand” for example. It’s everywhere, people love using it, we love using it, but could you actually explain what a brand is? Maybe, maybe not. We aren’t big on leaving things ambiguous so we included the word “brand” along with a lot of other brand related words just to be sure.
Aesthetic
Webster: Pleasing in appearance: attractive
Mostly used as an adjective or a plural noun (aesthetics) referring to the visual beauty of a design. Basically a fancy way of saying “it looks good”.
Brand
Webster: A public image, reputation or identity conceived of as something to be marketed or promoted.
A brand is different from a business. Think of a business as the physical person and the brand as the personality and everything that makes up that personality. Often a brand will outlive the company it was created for.
Brand Book
Webster: Nada
A brand book is a comprehensive document that details the colors, fonts, logos, words etc. to use and more importantly HOW to use them across all aspects of the business. A brand book also tells the story of your brand; when and how it was started, as well as your mission, vision and core values. In other words it keeps everyone on the same page and keeps the brand consistent.
Brand Voice
Webster: Nada
Another piece of the branding puzzle, brand voice, is the way the brand personality is conveyed through language. It is the words, phrases and tone used to communicate with the external audience. If you’re hiring a copywriter they need brand voice guidelines to keep content consistent.
Branding
Webster: The promoting of a product or service by identifying it with a particular brand.
The Webster definition is a little weak in my opinion, but since this is what I do I’m a little biased. Branding is the act of creating a brand, bringing that personality to life and getting it out into the world. It is what makes people fall in love with your product or service and stay loyal to it.
Color Codes
CMYK - The color code used for print mediums (it corresponds to the inks in a printer). It has 4 percentage values and stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black.
RGB - The color code used for digital screens (not to be confused with RBG). It has 3 percentage values and stands for Red, Green, Blue. There are some colors that do not translate from RGB to CMYK so if a design is going to be used in both mediums it is best to start in CMYK.
Hex Code - The color code used mostly for web design. It’s easy to use in a color converter to find out the CMYK + RGB values and is a string of 6 numbers and letters.
Customer Journey
Webster: Nada
The customer journey is the full map of experiences a customer goes through when interacting with your brand. Every time a customer comes into contact with your brand, that is a piece of the customer journey puzzle and an opportunity to apply branding.
Graphic Design
Webster: the art or profession of using design elements (such as typography and images) to convey information or create an effect
A graphic designer uses visual elements to tell your brand story. Graphic design can be applied to websites, social media, logos, collateral and pretty much anything in your business that uses a visual element.
Logo System
Webster: Nada
A logo is static, a logo system is dynamic. It is a graphic framework that adapts to different situations and applications. Instead of getting one mark that you have to use for everything (web, social media, collateral, labels etc.) you have a comprehensive set of marks that fit each specific medium.
Proof
Webster: A copy made for examination or correction
In other words a draft that a designer will send you for you to review and give feedback on.
Styleguide
Webster: Nada
This is one of those tricky words that people use to mean slightly different things. Some use it interchangeably with “brand book”. We like to use it to mean the cheat sheet version of a brand book or a quick reference guide that includes the moodboard, colors, fonts and logo marks used in a brand.
User Experience
Webster: Nada
User experience is how easy and pleasing something is to use, plain and simple. It’s most often used in reference to web design although it can be applied to any product, service or platform.
Wireframe
Webster: Nada
A wireframe is a blueprint of the layout, content and functions of a website. It’s the visual roadmap the web designer typically creates and then hands off to the developer to build.
Curious to know where we get all this genius? We gather our knowledge and wisdom from actual books *gasp*, the ever illuminating world wide web, trusted mentors and of course our own experience.
For all of the “Webster: definitions” we used Merriam-Webster online.
Photo credit: kaboompics.com on Canva