Brand and Butter
The straight-talking branding podcast for leaders who refuse to settle.
Brand and Butter delivers no-BS advice on how psychology, strategy, and design create brands that work. Host Tara Ladd, founder of Your One & Only brand design studio, breaks down the real influence and power of branding – how understanding behaviour and cultural shifts can transform how people see, think, and choose.
Sometimes funny, always honest, never dull. This is the podcast that cuts through industry jargon to talk about what actually makes brands stick.
Tara Ladd is the founder of Your One and Only, who design brands that breathe with culture through psychology, strategy, and design.
Brand and Butter
The Critical Role of Design for the New Age Brand
This episode speaks to the critical connection between brand evolution, visual identity, and consumer memory. I touch on the role of design thinking, colour psychology, typography, and distinctive assets when creating a cohesive and dynamic brand identity that can stay relevant in a rapidly changing market.
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you're listening to Brandon butter a straight-talking occasionally in your face no BS branding podcast for modern marketers and business owners here for those who want to understand the influence and power of branding and how pairing associations, consumer behavior and design thinking can impact what people say, think and feel. I'm your host, tara Ladd, the sometimes funny, sometimes vulnerable and often unapologetically blunt founder and creative director of brand and design agency. Your one and only Hi hi. Welcome to this week's episode of Brand and Butter. One thing that I want to talk about is brand evolution, and part of brand evolution is visual identity and obviously we started as a design agency and it's still our you know our specialty, but we have a whole heap of ideation in the beginning phases now that we love to work on with a lot of clients, but at the very core, it is all about design. Even the way you think is about design, which is called design thinking, by the way, and design thinking is really just thinking about the end to end. You know how people experience it. For instance, if you were to look at a remote control, where the buttons are placed, it's in product design, it's in UI design, it's literally in every facet of design thinking about the way people experience things and the way you know we're going to consume it. It's like end to end things. So it's really looking at the way you design things from a from an holistic and, yeah, holistic point of view. But let's talk about visual identity for a hot minute Now.
Speaker 1:If you've been listening for the last couple of weeks, you would know that I am always hopping on about brand culture, brand alignment, brand values and, especially now, brand community. And when we're looking at it from a way of how you can evolve your identity to stay relevant, that really comes from a place of understanding where the market's at, understanding how you're positioned in that market and really figuring out how you want to be perceived. So, in a nutshell and I will say this as many times until it's drummed into people's heads because literally it's in alignment to what I'm about to say but brand is a memory. Brand is a memory. It is something that you want to keep in people's minds. It's recognition, it's trust, it's image, it's all of those things, and that's why brand reputation is hugely important. If memory did not matter, obviously, neither would a lot of other things.
Speaker 1:So it really comes down to knowing what it is that you want people to think about your brand, what you want people to say about your brand and how you think the imagery and the visual alignment helps to interconnect that. So, when it comes to the elements of a visual brand identity, we're looking at a few things Now. People always go to the logo first, which is an important facet of the visual identity, but there are many aspects of a visual identity that we need to identity trying to skip over my own words, classic ADHD that you need to think about in order for it all to connect together. For instance, we always work with copywriters because we think that or we know that, in order for the consumer to have a really clear understanding about what it is that you do, your messaging needs to be absolutely on point, and as does your brand voice, brand tone and the way that you articulate yourself, and when we come in from a visual standpoint, we have to coincide with that. And so think about it like a meme. Memes can change meaning when an image is swapped out, or when the sentence is swapped out, or the copy is swapped out, and that's really important to take into consideration, because it just goes to show how important both of those things are in communicating on first glance and you'll have people harp on about how important copy is and you'll have people harp on about how important design is. But, coming from the absolute dead center, you need both. Even one word on a page is design. It's not copy, it is design. It's the emphasis of that copy by simplicity in design. And the same way as you could have something really creative and out there, but the copy can absolutely drive home the meaning of that design. So they work hand in hand and when we're looking at a visual identity, what we're trying to do is create a perception.
Speaker 1:It's like when you go out and you wear certain clothes, they are indicative of how you want to be seen that day. If you're going to a wedding, you're going to dress formal or cocktail or something that is in alignment with a wedding event or a wedding attire. And if you're going to a local barbecue or backyard barbie, you're going to be wearing, you know, something casual, unless it's a backyard wedding, and in which case that's a whole bunch of things. But even then your brain would have switched to oh, it's probably in a backyard, but we need to be a little bit more dressy than what you would wear to a backyard wedding, you would have done that calculation in your head. They're unconscious decisions or subconscious decisions, and they're done automatically, and this is something that we need to take into consideration as either service providers.
Speaker 1:So if you're in creative and you're creating development in terms of copy or whatever that may be, as a marketer, or you're a business owner and you're trying to communicate to a wider audience, you need to think about what the perception is that you're trying to create and the image that you're trying to create, so that when you're putting marketing out, people are getting the right message. That's both visual and verbal, and what we see often is that people absolutely nail the message, but the identity is out, or they have a really good identity, but the copy is boring as hell and they really need to work and work together. Yeah, and the biggest things that we look at when we so coming back, the biggest things that we look at is obviously the logo as the identifier. That's like a name to a person, but it's also colors. Colors are indicative of vibes and perception and heuristics, and then, if you don't know what a heuristic is, it's basically a shortcut, your brain shortcut to something. So if you think about a heuristic, for example, is, if you think about environment, chances are the color that comes to mind might be green, or it might be brown, or it might be sand or ivory, things that relate to earthy colors, and that's because they are generalization, stereotypes and just wider common knowledge of how you would associate those things. And so there are elements that you need to take into consideration, or things in unidentified rulings or unspoken rulings that you need to think about when creating an identity. And so I always use an example of if you are to create something, let's use the environmental skew for a second. If you were to be in the environmental space and eliminate the color green, while that can be done, it's probably not a good idea to do that. There needs to be an element of green in there, because you're going. That's something that people instantly identify with the environment, and so having that in there alongside other things is an important identifier so that people can then make that instant connection. Otherwise, they're fighting to make that connection on first glance, and so you're wanting to stay within the realms of the box, but also just step outside of it. So you're wanting to challenge the status quo when you are creating things in line with you know, creating a point of difference. You want to step outside that original box, but not so far outside that people have no freaking idea what you do. So it's also an unspoken language.
Speaker 1:Colour can communicate so many different things, it's been proven. And also there is cultural appropriation. Different countries have different meanings for different things, and so, while it's also good and well to see those beautiful color psychology maps of red means energy and yellow means happiness, they are obviously stereotypes and things that we associate. They're our heuristics, they're what we and our reality from a westernized culture associate with it. But it's also really important, especially if you're an international brand, to think about the different circumstances and different markets that you're going to be entering, because you can't just use the same approach for every single country that you enter. And so this is what I say to people when they're creating a brand is to own your own space first and then look at extending outside, because you will have to have a completely different approach and it kind of is a knock-on effect from there.
Speaker 1:So likewise with color, you need to be thinking about how you can use it, who's in the market with it, like what the alignment with it is, and also inclusion. So one thing that we need to be thinking about from a wider standpoint is how people see. There are a stack of people that are, you know, color impaired or visually impaired and are colorblind or they can't see things as clearly. And so a really important thing to make sure that you have across all of your colors, color pairings, is a decent contrast. I cannot tell you how many people I've seen lately, or brands lately, that have colors that you put them together and they don't pass the the contrast checker. Now you can just go to google and look at contrast checker and it will tell you. But this is why, fundamentally, we will always have a hard contrast with two neutrals and then have accent colors and other colors that go alongside it.
Speaker 1:Because what is the point of communicating to an audience if, like, 30% of them can't actually read it? And it's really interesting, as I've gotten older, how much I am just aware of font. I mean, I've always been aware of font sizes but how much more aware of it that I am now when I need glasses to see some of the copy that I'm reading and I'm like, if that's not readable for me, I'm just going to skip past it Like people aren't going to go to the effort. So if you're making it harder purely on the fact that either A your text is too small or you have the wrong font or the colors aren't a high enough contrast for people to make out, you know, readability I see this a lot in kids' books. It blows my mind when I'm reading to my children at night, they will have like the darkest color on another color. And when you're reading in a nightlight I'm like I can't even read this page Like it's. It's a struggle. So I find this it's so across the board people aren't even aware of it, but that's something that I will always, always check is the color contrast.
Speaker 1:So that's something to think about when you are creating your identity, especially in the color set, or even if you're just using your existing color sets. You can tweak the colors ever so slightly so that they begin to darken or they lighten, so that you do have that discrepancy. Or another thing that you can do is you can use tints, which is what we do, so you can use the full color, hue, which is the full color, and then we do 50%, you know 20%, and then work it way down, or 75, 50, 25, whatever that may be. And then you can use the variations. You can have three colors, but multiple versions of that color based on the tints that you use. So think about that when you are choosing colors and also what those colors represent.
Speaker 1:So if you're meant to be like ballsy and have full of attitude, you're unapologetic, fighting status quo, and then you go and use pastel colors Like I mean that's great, but there needs to be an element of you know boom in your face, like boldness, something that can kind of break that and disjoint that softness because there is an element of action. And so there are these unspoken things that you need to take into consideration. And a lot like a font. People choose fonts because they think that they like them. It's a lot like colors. They will choose color sets that they like. But sometimes that isn't the right thing to do because you're trying to appeal to an audience that you're trying to attract. So if you're choosing colors that you like, it may not be the color set that your audience likes.
Speaker 1:And it's the same with a font. A font can tell you a thousand things. It can also tell you, I guess, the tone. I was like reading something as I said that, but it dictates tone. So if you're, you know, crazy and you're sporadic or you're you're thinking about something like, something that's like handwritten or um, you know, a script font kind of aligns with with daintiness, unless it's like handwritten script, in which case it does look like a, a rough journal.
Speaker 1:And there's there's thinking that you need to put behind your font choice, because there is a whole thing, it's called font psychology. Just like color psychology, there is font psychology and there is round shapes that align with softness and sharp shapes which align with hardness and sharpness and boldness, and you need to understand the articulation of what it is that you're trying to communicate as an overarching message, right? So there are elements there that you know. For instance, I love to look for a rounded A. So there's that, those two types of A's the one that kind of goes down and then creates like a half circle, and then there's the I don't even know what it's called how bad is that? And then there's the other a, which is like a circle a, and they're really hard to find, um, because a lot of them use the other a.
Speaker 1:So when you're trying to find, like when I'm looking to find a really rounded font because I'm trying to articulate the roundness, I have to go on a hunt to find a specific font that will have that a and it will. And sometimes if I find that I find the font that I really like but the edges are too sharp, then I will manually adjust and put curvatures on the edges so that it simplifies and softens the sharpness of the edge. And these are tiny little details that designers put in when they know what they're doing to be able to articulate the right message. And so we have color and we have symbolism and we have, you know, a font choice, and but also we have graphics, and graphics are hugely important because if you have a bunch of different brands that are using the same, the same type of fonts and the same type of colors, like graphics are a really good way to distinguish and differentiate, because they provide these memorable cues. They're like symbolic because they sit like it's, like the Macca's M. You see the Macca's M and you're like Macca's it's. That it's an instantaneous heuristic. You see that, you align, that. You know that. That's what it means. It's a reference.
Speaker 1:And they're becoming hugely important because we're seeing the it's and people's attention spans aren't going anywhere, like. I know that people keep saying the attention spans, um, getting smaller. It's not, it's just that we're more overwhelmed, so we're over, like everything is so in your face. There's a lot more to to consume, we're inundated with things, and so, therefore, things that are grabbing our attention are are more likely, you know, to stay memorable. So. So that's where it kind of comes in. It's like, while they say attention spans shrinking, it's just, it's not. It's just that we're kind of overwhelmed, we're more likely to be, I guess, inundated with things. So we have to try and look like create things that are going to pattern break. So how do you pattern break? And that's what you've got to be thinking about.
Speaker 1:It's more like strategic ways of creating creative and disruptive things, and people are like I don't know how to be creative or disruptive. Honestly, it's easier than you think. It's creating something that is just. Sometimes it's the most mundane thing. Everyone tries to create this big, ballsy, creative out of this world thing and a lot of the times it's just something that's simple. At the end of the day, you create something that someone can take away in less than two steps and I can guarantee you that they're more likely to read it when people I always say to someone it's like that, coco Chanel, it's like, take one thing off as you walk out of the house.
Speaker 1:Too many people are overcomplicating their things because they are just putting more and more and more and more, and I look at this with the typography and the captions on videos as well. You see a lot of people where they've got those one worded captions and, while they may look nice, how are people that have hearing issues meant to follow along? Because we take into consideration that we're watching what's happening on screen with, and not even that like what if you're, you're too busy trying to read such a fast turnover of text that you're actually not watching what's going on in the visual, and so this is the thing You've got to make sure that we're looking at things from a holistic, like a wider lens. I should say where you're like. Okay, if I can't hear, and I'm following this what does this look like? Does the image marry up in sync with the execution of the captions below? So if they're reading, this is exactly what I was saying at the start, with imagery needing to align with words. If they are not in sync, the whole message changes meaning, because if you have words on a frame that has a different image, it's not going to connect.
Speaker 1:So there's all these things that we need to take into consideration, but the biggest thing that I would say at the moment that people need to be really looking into is dynamic identities, and that means, basically, things that can evolve and things that can change, so not necessarily static identities, identities I think we're seeing a big shift away from this. I've been saying this for the last I don't know how long it's been at least two years I've been talking about this but that ability to have some movement within the identity. So there are still some frameworks in place, but there is that access point that gives you the capability to extend beyond just the hard set rules, right? So you can stretch things out a little bit, or you can. You're watching this happen with typography at the moment. We're watching it happen as we speak. Typography is being challenged. Everyone that's like hard rules in typography is having like a heart attack because they're really challenging those conventions, because things have been done before.
Speaker 1:So people are looking at ways to be be adaptive and to to move, because everything's moving so quickly. So how can we stay relevant and evolve our brands to make sure that we're keeping up with culture, culture and and staying relevant at the same time, without having to go through rebrands every five, you know, three years. We're watching technology change so drastically, we're watching people's behavior change so drastically and therefore we need to be very on the pulse with how we see brand now. So brand isn't an afterthought. I would be looking at brand like something that is very much at the forefront now, almost like a separate category to marketing. Not really they kind of cross over, but it's really up there. It used to be that brand was an element of marketing, but now I kind of consider brand its own category and people would be like, no, because that's what's not really.
Speaker 1:Brand is a memory, as I said. So you don't actually need to sell or market the product or market the brand for it to still be a brand. For instance, we look at all these brands that have gone out of business, like Blockbuster, and they are still a core memory. You know they're not selling anything, but they are still there, they are still a brand in your head and therefore marketing isn't actually even a thing in relation. So it's yeah, it's becoming its own thing, and so what we're going to see moving forward is that just brand is taking like a really strong front because people are aligning with values they're aligning with. You know what they stand for, what they believe in.
Speaker 1:But also brands are a huge subset of culture and how we behave and the what we buy and what, what types of brands that we buy, isn't in alignment to our personal identities. Like, what are we buying? That marries up to who we are as people. You know, are you going to invest over here or are you going to invest over here and what does that mean? If you're wearing that brand or you've bought from that brand, like, what message is that sending? And this is the importance of what we're getting at now when we look at brand identities, visual identities coming down from a brand identity.
Speaker 1:Your brand identity is the. It's literally everything. I keep seeing people talk about a brand identity being a visual identity. It is not. It is multiple things. It is internal culture, external culture, it is community, like all of that type of stuff. It's what you stand for, it's the intentions why you're in business, it's you know your wording, it's it's your messaging, it's your tone of voice. It's like all of those things. You know your verbal, visual identity. It is the name, it is the reputation, it's your collaboration, it's the image, it's recognition, it's all of those things. It's literally the identity of the business, right? So it's like saying to a person is their outfit? It's not, it's, it's all these different things, it's the, it's the evolvement, it's the collaborations and alignments that you have and it's also, you know, how they present themselves, so what they say and what they lead by the actions that they take. And so all of that is brand identity and marketing is helping to, like, excel that or what's the right word, amplify that, amplify, thatify that message, so that people know that that's what it is, that you do and that's what you stand for, and all of those things. So there's brand marketing and there's, you know, tactical marketing and strategic marketing, all those types of things, but we'll talk about that another time.
Speaker 1:But what we're seeing now is a huge shift. So the things that I'd be looking at in terms of if you've got an existing brand and you're looking at your identity now and thinking, is this the problem? Have a look at the overarching message, right? So if you were to look at, I don't know, an Instagram profile, for instance, when you go, there is all of it together telling you a story. We're not meant to be looking at things as an individual post. What does the bio say? What's the image in the display picture? Is it a person? Is it a logo? What's the name say there? What is the call to action on the link? What are the top three pinned posts? What are the messages that are being said there? How are the images being executed?
Speaker 1:I like to do a lot of research on pages that grow really quickly and a lot of the times it's not only just the messages that have been said, but a lot of the times it's not only just the messages that have been said, but a lot of the times it's the way that they've executed their content. So a lot of the times you may not have an issue with your content at all. It is just the way that it's been articulated. So it could be that there's been a cool edit. You do a cool video edit or you're now incorporating a messaging framework that you never had before before. So you're saying things in a succinct order that is consistent and so people could start to grasp onto the way that you do things. A lot like Tarantino will cut a movie in an unchronological order. That is like his style.
Speaker 1:So people gravitate, know what to expect. It's that expectation of not not feeling like people are. At the end of the day, people are, hey, change, they love consistency and they love systems and control. So if you're able to provide something that is consistent hence why doing consistent things builds brand trust. It is that, in a nutshell, if your graphics look the same, if your messages are the same, if your tone of voice is the same, like all of those things build trust. And so that also applies with the visual identity. If it's all over the shop, it looks like a hot mess. Same way with your messaging If that's all over the shop, it's a hot mess.
Speaker 1:And so wait, like I said before, if the way that I like to look at it is, if sometimes people just change their covers or their visual hook, so that might be that they have, like this, really cool you know three second frame that they've just included, and you're like, wow, okay, and that's what's appearing or what captures people's connection or attention on the you know the three second feed scroll, and all of a sudden you start to build a bit of you know hype through that and people then, you know, draw attention to it. So Instagram goes oh, people want to see this. Sometimes it's not actually what you're saying, it's how you're saying it and this is basic communication. I think it's like 60% of what you say, or 50% of what you say, 30% of what you say and 20% how you say it, like it's basic information processing.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I guess when I'm trying to say is that when we're looking at the evolution of visual identity or the evolution of brand in itself, visual identity plays a core part in that, because it's like a fashion trend. Really, when you're looking at your visual identity, it's how you look. So, just like fashion comes in and out, so does visual identity, and we see big brands do these refreshes every, you know, five to seven years. We've actually seen a few come back quite quickly. You know a lot quicker, especially over the last couple of years, but it's because you need to stay in alignment and why it's important to not design on trend, because the trend will die out relatively quickly. So if you can find something that's quite safe, that can travel through, it still gives that.
Speaker 1:I like to keep fonts and colors well, not necessarily colors, but fonts relatively safe because they can transition in and out. But color sets do also have a trend. So you start to see, at the moment we're seeing a lot of neons. It's very it's coming, it's gonna die out. So anyone's kind of looking at that. It's like that whole trend will die out soon. Prior to that, we saw like deep, moody colors like the seventies, and then, yeah, it's cycles through, and so what you'll see is people will design on trend instead of designing for the future.
Speaker 1:Designing for the future simply means that you're creating something that will last longevity. You're not designing for the now, but they have assets of the now. I know that sounds so complicated, but you kind of you've got to meet, you've almost got to design like a few years ahead to kind of capitalize on a trend. And that's where designers come in, because they're constantly watching this stuff. So before the mass media kind of or mass media, the mass market jump in and start doing things, designers are kind of already well, well, well aware of it and have already started to execute that stuff. So you can kind of get a bit more in the bank. But yeah, it's like if you can update, photography is also a really important one as well, imagery and keeping those things transitional and things that you can change out so that there is an element of change, but also staying the same but still having that movement. That's really, really important. So I hope you liked that one today.
Speaker 1:Obviously, we've got some things coming up this year that I'm really really excited about. Your one and only is really picked up at the beginning of this year. So I'm so thankful for that because, yeah, we went through a bit of a state last year and I was a bit concerned. But yeah, we went through a bit of a state last year and I was a bit concerned. But yeah, no, no, we picked right back up again. And you know what? I put that down to the fact that this has started to take off lately as well. The podcast you know I've been doing this now for two years and have noticed that that that's picked right back up.
Speaker 1:So it's just, if you're out there and you're feeling a little bit stuck, keep in mind that it's consistent. It's always the long game. Brand building is the long game and just take advice that you think you need and, if you're stuck, find someone that you trust and that you feel that you could invest in, because it's those that try and do everything on their own that do find that they stay stuck for a lot longer, like if you can go into a masterclass or something from someone that you really really like or from someone that you value like. There is definitely some value in that, because it may be just one thing that they say that can shift your thinking. A lot of the times it's just a mindset shift. So, anyway, I hope there was a little waffle on at the end there.
Speaker 1:I hope you liked this week. I will be back next week to talk about something else rather interesting and if you're not on our email list, that one will be going out Wednesday where we break down the psychology behind a lot of creative campaigns and what a lot of brands are doing and how you can do it too. Until then, I will chat to you next week. I will chat to you next week. Did you like that episode? I hope so, because if you did, why don't you head over to whatever platform you listen on and rate and review? It's much appreciated and helps others know what we're about. If you want to follow us, you can find us at yourwannanonly underscore au on Instagram or head to wwwyourwantanonly underscore au on Instagram.
