Rebrand a Local Business with Me Week 3: Colors + Fonts |
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Hi First name / friend, Welcome to Week 3 of my 4-week email series on rebranding a local business! 👉🏻 In case you missed my previous emails, you can catch up here: This week, we're continuing to build out the visual identity for Cornerstone B&B by incorporating colors and fonts. After presenting the initial logo concepts to the client in black and white, I gather feedback, do some refinement, and present the second round of logos along with my recommended color palette and font system. Before we look at the results for this project, let's break this process down a bit more 👇🏻 |
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How to create a color palette |
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Creating the perfect color palette for a brand can be surprisingly tricky. It's no wonder that my color palette posts bring me the most traffic of all my blog posts! So why is color so tricky? Personally, I think it's because we tend to have very subjective opinions about colors, and it's hard to separate them from what would objectively work best for our brand and target audience. Also, there are virtually infinite colors to choose from, which can be quite overwhelming. Fortunately, there are ways to strategically narrow down your options, such as: - researching color psychology
- searching for palettes that align with your brand personality or attributes, i.e. “sophisticated” or “adventurous”
- analyzing your top competitors to eliminate their colors and seeing which ones would make you stand out
All of the above are factors I take into consideration when crafting intentional color palettes for my branding clients. |
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How to choose brand fonts |
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Font selection is arguably just as important as getting your color palette right. But again, this process can feel overwhelming if you don't know where to start. Here are some tips on choosing the right fonts for your brand: - Do a lot of research. Look at other brands that capture your ideal aesthetic and take note of what style of typography they use (i.e. whimsical, editorial, minimal, bold, light, etc.) Then search on Google or Pinterest for specific fonts that match that style. Pro tip: Install the free Fonts Ninja Chrome extension to find out the exact fonts other sites are using!
- Look beyond Google Fonts. I have nothing against Google Fonts, it's a fantastic resource that's very accessible. However, did you know there are tons of awesome free fonts out there that aren't on GF? GF is so popular that all their best fonts are overused. Extend your search to find lesser known options that'll make your brand look more unique.
- Consider investing in one or more premium fonts. If you want your brand to look premium, it's worth investing in a premium font. My go-to resources for finding premium, unique fonts are MyFonts and Creative Market.
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Results for Cornerstone B&B |
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Without further ado, let's look at the refined concepts for Cornerstone B&B! Click here or on the image below for a video presentation of this week's results. If you'd like to take a closer look, you may download the PDF I presented here. |
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That wraps up Week 3 of this series! At this stage, the brand identity is essentially complete and all the elements would be assembled into a detailed brand guidelines document. For our final email next week, I'll share some ways this visual identity could be applied to collateral items like business cards and social graphics. The brand may be complete, but the application of it is just as important. As a reminder, here's how this series is structured: - Week One (10/30): Brand Discovery + Mood Board ✅
- Week Two (11/6): Logo Design ✅
- Week Three (11/13): Color + Type Exploration ✅
- Week Four (11/20): Brand Collateral
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💌 Feel free to reply to this email and share any thoughts or questions about the process so far! |
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Limited availability in Dec + Jan for brand + web projects. Inquire for details on my design packages, intensives, and monthly retainers. |
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