Branding is one of the most critical aspects of any business, but it’s not always straightforward. Many brands struggle with consistency and focus, leading to confusion and missed opportunities. If this sounds familiar, rest assured you’re not alone.
Navigating the world of branding can feel like decoding a foreign language. While the Cambridge Dictionary sums it up as the act of giving a company a design or symbol for advertisement, this barely scratches the surface of its depth and complexity.
In reality, branding is a complex story created from a company's mission, values, voice, and customer perceptions. It's a strategic alignment of a company's core values with its brand image. It goes beyond mere visuals to influence how customers feel, think, and interact with a company. In order to fully grasp and maximise its potential, partnering with a business branding agency is beneficial.
What Is Branding, Really?
Branding is a complex topic, which is why it's often confusing. To really get branding, you need to understand business, marketing, and how people connect. Even a full definition of branding might not make things crystal clear on its own. Thus, it makes much more sense when you dive deep into its meaning.
Here is an overview:
Branding is ongoing. Just as fashion evolves or our music tastes change, branding isn’t static. To stay relevant, a brand must adapt to the changing market, consumers, and businesses.
It's structured. A structured process of branding entails identifying who your stakeholders are, establishing your brand strategy based on their needs, and then managing everything that influences your position.
Assets and actions matter. Your positioning should be translated into assets (e.g. visual identity, content, products, and ads) and actions (e.g. brand identity, customer support, human relations, and experiences) that slowly cement the perception of your stakeholders.
Perception is the ultimate metric. How people feel about your brand is the real litmus test. It's the culmination of all branding efforts.
Stakeholders aren't just customers. From the passionate employees who clock in daily, to the investors keeping a keen eye on stock prices, everyone has a stake in the brand's narrative.
The Importance of Robust Branding
Branding is the backbone of a business's identity. When done correctly, it can enhance a business's value and drive growth. A common misconception is that branding is the playground for industry giants. Hiring top-notch consultants and ensuring perfect execution will cost more than other options. Similarly, promoting a big global business with many products will take more resources than promoting a local one. Branding defines your brand's story, and there is no one-size-fits-all strategy.
With dedication and clarity, branding can:
Enhance business value. Just as a seal of quality adds value to products, effective branding amplifies a business's worth in the market.
Drive customer growth. People naturally gravitate towards familiar, trustworthy names. Powerful branding is like a beacon, attracting and retaining customers.
Boost employee morale. Employees wear their company's brand like a badge of honour. A reputed brand can elevate their sense of purpose and belonging.
Forge trust. At its core, branding is a pact, a promise a business makes. When fulfilled consistently, it builds an unbreakable bond of trust.
What Does a Branding Agency Do?
A branding agency wears many hats. Think of them as strategists, creatives, and designers all rolled into one. Their primary responsibility is to devise, implement, oversee, and evaluate your brand's strategy. Similar to an extended team or a new "department" within your company, their job is to deeply immerse themselves in your organisation, to the point where they can feel its heartbeat. They should know your goals, beliefs, commitments, and the way you engage with both your customers and your staff.
Furthermore, they shouldn't just focus on you. A reputable branding agency should also have its fingers on the market's pulse, keeping tabs on your rivals.
Armed with this wealth of information, the agency crafts a clear brand strategy. This strategy charts a path forward, ensuring that your brand not only stands out but also grows in its intended direction.
The Role of Branding in Dubai's Competitive Market
In a global hotspot like Dubai, where businesses flourish in the heart of the desert, branding isn't merely about being seen—it’s about resonating deeply. Though branding and marketing often seem intertwined, each serves a distinct purpose, harmonizing to propel the business forward. Whether you're a seasoned business owner or someone just starting, a branding agency in Dubai will help kickstart your branding journey and guide you in crafting a brand that's authentically yours.
Welcome to the world of brand strategy, where storytelling takes centre stage. In a crowded marketplace, capturing the attention and hearts of consumers is no easy task. That's why incorporating storytelling into your brand strategy is a game-changer. It goes beyond selling products or services; it creates a profound emotional connection, leaving a lasting impact on your audience.
Visual branding is a crucial aspect of any branding strategy. It's the use of visual elements such as colors, typography, and imagery to create a consistent and memorable identity for a brand. In this blog, we will discuss the basics of visual branding and why it's essential for any business.
Colors
Choosing the best colors combinations for your brand is crucial as they can have a significant impact on how your brand is perceived. Colors can convey emotions, set moods, and evoke feelings. For example, red can represent passion and excitement, while blue can symbolize trust and dependability. It's important to choose colors that align with your brand's values and personality and create a consistent color scheme that can be used across all brand assets.
Typography
Typography refers to the style, size, and arrangement of text. It's essential to choose typography that is easy to read and aligns with your brand's personality. For example, a bold and modern font may work well for a technology brand, while a classic serif font may be better suited for a luxury brand. Consistency in typography is crucial to creating a strong brand identity.
Imagery
Brand Imagery can help convey your message and create an emotional connection with your audience. It's important to use imagery that aligns with your brand's values and personality. For example, a fitness brand may use images of athletes and fitness equipment, while a travel brand may use images of exotic destinations. Consistency in imagery is also crucial to creating a strong brand identit
Logo
The logo deisgn is the most recognizable element of a brand's visual identity. It should be simple, memorable, and unique. A well-designed logo can instantly communicate your brand's values and personality. It's important to use the same logo across all brand assets to create consistency and recognition.
Consistency
Consistency is key to creating a strong visual brand identity. Using consistent colors, typography, imagery, and logo across all brand assets, including website, social media, advertising, and packaging, can help create recognition and build trust with your audience.
Visual branding is an essential aspect of any branding strategy. It helps create a consistent and memorable identity for your brand, and can have a significant impact on how your brand is perceived. By using colors, typography, imagery, and logo that align with your brand's values and personality, and creating consistency across all brand assets, you can create a strong and recognizable visual identity for your brand. As a branding agency, it's important to understand the basics of visual branding and help your clients create a strong visual identity for their brand.
At Formulate, we collaborate with businesses from various sectors to create impactful visual branding and captivating marketing collateral. Whether you require a new logo or business card, we are here to assist you. However, we also offer guidance to help you achieve a consistent and convincing brand identity that encompasses all your marketing needs, including print and packaging, websites, and social media. Connect with us today and lets get your project started!
Sports and branding have always had a close relationship, with some of the world's top sports brands becoming household names. These brands not only represent the sports they are associated with, but they also symbolize quality, passion, and the pursuit of excellence. In this blog, we will take a look at the top five best-known sports brands in the world.
Nike
Nike is undoubtedly one of the most recognized sports brands worldwide, and for good reason. The company's iconic swoosh logo is synonymous with athleticism, style, and innovation. Nike's extensive product line includes everything from shoes, apparel, and accessories to fitness apps and wearable technology. The company's innovative approach to product design and marketing has made it a dominant player in the sports industry
Adidas
Adidas is another major player in the sports industry, known for its iconic three-stripe logo and innovative product designs. The company has been around since the 1940s and has since expanded its product line to include shoes, apparel, and accessories for all kinds of sports. Adidas has also become known for its collaborations with celebrities and designers, making it a popular choice among the fashion-conscious.
Under Armour
Under Armour is a relatively new player in the sports industry but has quickly made a name for itself. The company's focus on innovation and technology has set it apart from its competitors, with products such as moisture-wicking fabric and compression wear becoming staples in the fitness industry. Under Armour's commitment to sustainability has also earned it praise from environmentalists and consumers alike.
Puma
Puma is another well-known sports brand, famous for its sleek designs and iconic logo. The company's product line includes shoes, apparel, and accessories for a variety of sports, with a particular focus on football (soccer). Puma has also collaborated with high-profile athletes and designers, further solidifying its position as a fashion-forward sports brand.
Reebok
Reebok is another established sports brand known for its high-quality products and innovative designs. The company's product line includes shoes, apparel, and accessories for a variety of sports, with a particular focus on fitness and training. Reebok has also collaborated with athletes and designers to create products that are both functional and stylish.
That's a wrap on the top five sports brands, these brands are not just known for their products but also for their commitment to innovation, technology, and sustainability. These companies have established themselves as major players in the sports industry and have become synonymous with quality and style through their brand identity.
If you are looking to elevate your sports brand to new heights, Formulate is the premier sports creative branding agency. Our team of dedicated experts merges the dynamic world of sports with cutting-edge collateral design to deliver unparalleled brand experiences. From crafting iconic logos to designing captivating visuals, we specialize in capturing the essence of your sports venture and translating it into a compelling brand narrative.
As a creative branding agency ourselves, we aim to be your trusted partner for all your branding and design requirements, ranging from minor ad hoc projects to complete rebranding. Our team takes the time to carefully listen and comprehend your objectives from the outset, enabling us to design something truly distinctive that leaves a lasting impression. Connect with us today to see how we can help you.
Consistent branding is a valuable asset for any business- it creates a clear and memorable impression of your company. A clear brand identity will anchor your business’s attitudes, values, and products in prospective clients’ minds. For lifestyle brands, however, whose appeal is based on more than just commodities, a cohesive brand identity design is imperative.
But Exactly What Is Meant by a Lifestyle Brand?
A company is considered a lifestyle brand when its customers engage with it for more than just its products. Marketing will be based on the personification of the values, interests, aspirations, attitudes, and opinions of target subcultures. The goods or services sold by such a brand can be seen as an expression of their clients’ style, social status, ethics, and way of life.
Since a lifestyle brand is selling much more than just goods to its customers, fostering trust in the company is essential. In order to buy into the image they’re promoting, consumers need to find the brand’s messaging sincere and authentic. This reaches into every aspect of your business, from design to how you communicate with customers. Inconsistencies in the way a company presents itself are one of the quickest ways to undermine trust and come across as disingenuous.
Cohesion and Consistency to Create Lasting Confidence
As well as making your company memorable, a clear theme throughout the look and feel of your brand helps establish a distinctive identity. Brand recognisability goes a long way toward setting you apart from competitors. It’s wise to create a style guide to ensure the same font, tones, and colour palette are used throughout all your media. Studies have shown consistent use of colour can enhance brand recognition by a staggering 80%.
Beyond the look of your branding and media is the matter of convincing and clear messaging throughout your communications. For a lifestyle brand, creating an emotional connection between you and your clientele is of paramount importance. By nurturing positive feelings trust and loyalty are forged. Working from a company mission statement while creating content relevant to your customers helps ensure consistency in what and how you communicate.
Once you have a mission statement laying out your company’s goals and aims, it is wise to plan out your brand strategy. Being clear on this will help to clarify who you are in terms of values, purpose, and ethos, and how this will be conveyed to customers. More than just looks and design, this will inform things like content, partnerships, communication, and customer service.
Long-form content creation allows you to speak more directly and engagingly with your customer base. It allows you to create a more personal-feeling and friendly relationship with your followers. The best brand identity design agency in Dubai or elsewhere will certainly wish to ensure the look and messaging of your content remain in keeping with the branding of your company.
Blog posts in line with your company’s values and interests will help build that emotional connection with customers. Articles offering reliable advice and input around things that matter to your clients and your brand are an excellent way to build trust. What’s more, branded content is considered a more effective and memorable marketing tool than TV or magazine advertising.
Consistent and cohesive branding sets any company ahead, but for lifestyle brands, it is more than just an advantage. Beyond creating a memorable and recognisable image of your business, it generates the trust and emotional connection between the brand and consumers that customers will wish to buy into. Conveying sincerity and authenticity, it is that consistency that enables lifestyle brands to charge a premium and maintains their customers’ unwavering loyalty.
Connect with us today to see how we can help you.
It can be tough to know whether to hire a freelancer or an agency in Dubai, for your branding and/or graphic design needs.
With the likes of Fiverr and Upwork around, it’s never been easier to find a freelancer who can do the job for a fraction of the price.
But, your decision should certainly not be based on price alone. In fact, there's a handful of considerations you need to take into account before making your final decision...
It can be tough to know whether to hire a freelancer or an agency in Dubai for your branding and/or graphic design needs.
With the likes of Fiverr and Upwork around, it’s never been easier to find a freelancer who can do the job for a fraction of the price.
But your decision should certainly not be based on price alone. In fact, there’s a handful of considerations you need to take into account before making your final decision…
Was 2020 the perfect year to follow your dreams? We take a look back at three branding projects that we have worked on in 2020, supporting our clients in their quest to make their business dreams a reality.
2020 may have been a year to forget for many but for others, it was the perfect opportunity to reassess their own situations. Dan and I, the partners behind Formulate, are a perfect example of this. We saw 2020 as the perfect opportunity to finally bite the bullet and start the creative agency we had spent years talking about.
This was also the case for a number of our clients who decided the time was right to pursue their dreams and ambitions. We were very fortunate to be involved in their journey and support them with their branding and marketing requirements throughout 2020.
Below are three examples of clients, based here in Dubai, who saw 2020 as the perfect opportunity to start their business, in the eye of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Fold - Hair Salon, Dubai
Emily Griffiths is an Australian stylist/hairdresser, who has been working in salons across Dubai for the last six years. She had always wanted to go it alone and in April 2020 she approached Formulate to design and develop the branding for her new salon concept, The Fold.
Emily explained...
"The concept of The Fold has been a passion project spanning over the past 12 month, evolving and growing throughout 2020. After facing many roadblocks including a salon redesign, the delivery of an early baby and a global pandemic."
A space for your hair and soul
The Fold set out to be a space designed for Emily's client's hair and their soul, with a mindful, holistic approach to hairdressing.
She wanted her clients to leave her salon feeling empowered, confident and beautiful, from the inside out. The salon required a brand that conveyed a sense of confidence and trust, which is required when choosing your hairdresser.
We worked closely with Emily throughout the lockdown period, to develop a logo and a brand that played to the name of the salon. It also represented the connection between the client and the stylist, which often goes way beyond just a haircut, especially at The Fold.
The brand was also designed to have a seamless cohesion with the Salon's interiors which have an organic, tonal and textured feel, and the warmth and movement of natural materials.
"Formulate were there for us every step of the way and fully supporting our authentic ethos, helping us develop the brand we wanted.
Whilst we were in fact blessed with a baby in 2020 we also gained our Fold family, for which we will be forever grateful. Working with a team as flexible and easy going as Formulate, when there were so many changes and challenges, took so much stress out of the branding process."
The Fold is now open in Motor City and is a must-try for any ladies based here in Dubai.
Instagram: thefolddxb
Website: Coming Soon
Formulate's Role: Branding & Website Design
See More: Full case study coming soon
Energie Entertainment, Dubai
As we all know, the world took a dramatic turn in February 2020 and many, if not all industries we hugely affect in one way or another, meaning people's careers were greatly affected too.
This was certainly the case for Tyler Davis-Smith, who had been working in events in Dubai for the last six years. Being an industry that was essentially closed down overnight, Tyler was left with plenty of time to look at his life and his options moving forward.
Back to business
After initially diversifying and turning his event management skills, Tyler helped to deliver the Covid-19 field hospitals here in Dubai. He then used the time to reflect and think about his future. He had always held an ambition to do something more within entertainment. Ever optimistic that once we were through the worst of the pandemic, the events industry would bounce back. He wanted to be at the forefront of this turnaround.
As Tyler explained...
"I had lots of events cancelled and have felt the financial and emotional burden of this. My diary was fully booked with events then it all came to a grinding halt. However, it gave me a chance to reassess, look at what I had been doing and look at where I wanted to go."
In August 2020, Tyler approached us to start work on the branding, marketing materials for his new company Energie Entertainment. He had decided to launch an entertainment management company that delivers the whole package for events.
The brief was to develop a brand, website and marketing materials that would reflect the dynamism, energy and excitement of their entertainers.
The brand needed to be transferable between online and printed marketing collateral, this resulted in a fluid, eye-catching design. It was supported by a vivid colour palette, inspired by stage and show lighting.
As the events industry slowly started to come back to life in the third quarter of 2020, Energie Entertainment started to flourish. Tyler has delivered a number of high profile events here in Dubai, leading up to and over the festive period. He hopes to build on the initial success in 2021. Delivering entertainment to events across the GCC region, as the events industry looks to get back to what it does best, entertaining people!
Instagram: weareenergie
Website: www.weareenergie.com
Formulate's Role: Logo design, branding & website design, company profile, social media and apparel.
See More: Full case study here
Barre Effect, Dubai
From a young age Nora Hameidani has had a passion for dance, starting out at a ballet and contemporary academy in her hometown. She then went on to train and perform with several contemporary dance companies in New York. During this time she also fell in love with the boutique fitness scene, through Spin, Yoga, and Barre classes.
Nora moved to Dubai in the summer of 2013, to be the master trainer and assistant director for Physique 57's Middle East's franchise. Nora then went on to teach Barre, Spin and Megaformer classes at various boutique studios around the City.
2020 gave Nora the perfect opportunity to finally go it alone and bring to life the ladies only Barre Studio she had always dreamed of as she explains....
"In the summer of 2020 I decided it was time to make my dream of creating my own fitness brand a reality. I saw a gap in the market for a strong barre studio, and saw the opportunity to create something great."
A branding that works in harmony with the interior
In August 2020, she got in touch with us here at Formulate to discuss branding for her passion project, Barre Effect. The brief was to create a strong, edgy and urban brand but with a feminine and approachable aesthetic, that would play to and compliment the studio's contemporary and industrial interior.
The branding, website and marketing collateral needed to resonate with the studio's target audience of women aged 25-60. It also need to stand out within the women's fitness and dance studio market.
The brand is supported by a colour palette that brings a feel of tranquility, confidence and elegance that also continues into the studio space itself.
The logo is a strong, elegant wordmark that plays to the word 'BARRE' with the horizontal bar running through it. Nora was delighted with the results...
"I had a lot of experience in the industry, but did not know the first thing about branding or creating a website. Formulate helped us to create a beautifully strong brand image, that I am constantly receiving compliments on. From the icon/logo, to the colors and typography, everything came together seamlessly. We are very pleased with the end results."
Barre Effect is due to open in late January 2021 on Al Wasl Rd. It will be a go-to destination for ladies looking for a contemporary Barre Studio.
Instagram: barreeffectdxb
Website: https://www.barreeffectdxb.com
Formulate's Role: Logo design, branding, website design, signage and apparel
See More: Full case study coming soon
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Talk to us today about branding journey to build and brand your dream business.
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