Lights, camera, action! In the ever-evolving world of digital marketing, video and animation have become the superheroes that captivate audiences and skyrocket brand success. Today, we’re here to shed light on the incredible benefits of outsourcing video and animation, and why B2B and non-profit organization marketing directors should jump on this exciting trend. So grab your popcorn and get ready for a blockbuster blog post!
Lights, Camera, Benefits: Why Outsourcing Video and Animation Rocks in 2023!
Supercharge Your Brand’s Storytelling:
Lights, camera, storytelling!When you outsource video and animation, you enlist the help of talented creatives who are experts in the art of captivating storytelling. They bring your brand’s message to life with visually stunning videos and animations that leave a lasting impression. From compelling narratives to eye-catching visuals, outsourcing takes your storytelling game to superhero levels.
Calling all creative superheroes!By outsourcing video and animation, you gain access to a pool of talented artists and animators who are masters of their craft. They have a knack for transforming ideas into visual wonders that amaze and delight your audience. Say goodbye to bland marketing content and hello to a world where creativity knows no bounds!
Embrace Flexibility and Scalability:Lights, camera, flexibility! One of the fantastic advantages of outsourcing is the ability to scale your video and animation projects effortlessly. Whether you need a single video or a series of animated episodes, outsourcing allows you to adapt to your marketing needs without the hassle of building an in-house production team. You can easily expand or streamline your projects, giving you the freedom to focus on what you do best.
Lightspeed Technology at Your Fingertips:Stay ahead of the curve with outsourcing! Video and animation experts are always up to date with the latest technological advancements and trends. They bring cutting-edge tools and techniques to the table, ensuring your videos and animations are top-notch. From jaw-dropping 3D animations to immersive virtual reality experiences, outsourcing keeps your brand at the forefront of digital innovation.
Maximize Your Marketing Budget:Lights, camera, savings! Outsourcing video and animation can be incredibly cost-effective. Instead of investing in expensive equipment and hiring a full-time production team, outsourcing allows you to pay for the specific services you need. This flexibility not only optimizes your marketing budget but also ensures you get the best return on your investment. Lights, camera, cost savings!
Remember the “good old days” of the Internet, when a handful of precise keywords and a little bit of marketing finesse could get you a snug, secure place at the top of the results pages?
Times have changed, yet many people still mistakenly believe this is how modern SEO is handled. Time and time again they fall for software and offers that try to “guarantee” a top spot on the search engines.
The secret to getting your site at the top of the list is that, unfortunately,there is no secret.
There are, however, some proven strategies you can use to help nudge the odds in your favor and improve your placement in Google. Let’s take a closer look and how you can make sure your site is ranking as high as possible for the keywords you want to target:
Get The Basics Right
The first step in any impactful search engine ranking plan is to get the basics right. With the right foundation, you’ll already be creating fertile ground for mentions, backlinks, likes, shares and other signals that Google uses to rank pages.
That means that as these “triggers” come in and multiply, Google and other search engines are taking notice and adjusting the rankings accordingly. So what exactlyarethe basics? I see your eyes starting to glaze over in boredom — but look over this part carefully. You don’t want to miss anything that could cost you precious ranking “juice” down the line.
Search Engines Determine Your Ranking by a Mixture of Keywords and Links
The exact proportion of links and keywords, as well as the formula behind the ranking are like the search engine’s “secret sauce”, and they’re not about to share that with the masses. That being said, however, search engine optimization specialists have uncovered a lot of solid
principles that can be leveraged in order to make your site rank as well as possible.
They include:
Keywords you want to rank for in the website title– Google has collected a lot of information about how we search the web. To the surprise ofabsolutely no one,they’ve determined that we’re most likely to click on pages that contain the keyword(s) we’ve searched for.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you stuff as many keywords as possible into the title. Google may be a search machine, but it’s not stupid, and it’s no longer easily manipulated the way it has been in the past. Pick one or two of your most desired keywords for a given page, and put them in the title. That’s really all there is to it.
Keywords in headings– Another good practice to incorporate in your content is using your preferred keywords in your heading 1 and heading 2 tags on your website. To Google and other search engines, these are like the headlines on a newspaper — the larger they are, the more important and therefore the greater the chances that the page is actually about the given keyword or phrase.
Here again, this doesn’t mean shoving your keywords into every headline or your content as much as possible.Quality over quantity— which leads us to the next part of the SEO equation:
Backlinks matter, but some matter more than others– As you continue to create solid, relevant content revolving around your chosen keywords, other websites will start to pick up on that content. Here’s where the quality over content part really matters.
Let’s say you write a piece using your best possible keyphrase. It’s chock-full of good, solid information — what people in the industry call “evergreen content”, because the advice never gets outdated or stale.
Website owners tend to be a lazy lot when it comes to doing a lot of research and investing the time and effort in producing something of outstanding quality.They’d much rather just link to other authorities on the subject.This is great news for you, since you want to be precisely the type of authority that they link to!
Now, if one of your particular pieces of content is about how to hire a graphic designer and what to look for, links from the local donut shop down the street won’t matter one pixel.
That’s because a donut shot isn’t relevant to hiring a graphic designer. Backlinks from industry-leading blogs, news sites and resources that deal with graphic design, however, are.And those are precisely the kinds of links you want.
Content Still Rules, But…
You’ve probably heard the old adage that on the internet, “content is king”. While this does hold some truth, it’s also a fact of life that the internet is full of sub-standardstuff. Cheap content is churned out with production-line quality, and itshows.
This kind of content doesn’t do anyone any favors, and gums up the search engine gears. It might rank decently in the beginning, but as more people determine that it’s seriously lacking in relevance or quality, Google and other search engines pick up on these signals and devalue it in the rankings accordingly.
If that sounds like a huge waste of time for everyone involved, that’s because it is! But because these types of articles can be created relatively quickly, it’s a matter of flooding the web with cheap sites in an attempt to feign “authority”.
Although it sounds like the fast, easy and cheap way to rank your site, at the end of the day, it’s the optimization equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. Content rules, but quality content holds the crown.
“Although it sounds like the fast, easy and cheap way to rank your site, at the end of the day, it’s the optimization equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. Content rules, but quality content holds the crown.” – PAULA SPEIGHTS (DIZZLE GRAPHICS CREATIVE AGENCY)
Optimizing Beyond Google
Although we’ve talked a lot about Google, they are by no means the only search game in town. Yes, they may rule supreme in actual search, but there are many, many more signals that Google picks up on from other authoritative platforms on the web. For example:
Facebook– for likes, shares, follows and other social signals
Twitter– for retweets, follows and “talking about this” signals
Yelp –for local businesses and local reviews
LinkedIn– for insights and connections between executives and decision-makers
Mega-Brands– Well-known brands rule the roost when it comes to rankings, and they have the financial backing to stay there. If you’re looking to compete, you’ll have to consider the distinctive benefits ofnotbeing a mega-brand.
There’s also an inherent trust for people shopping at sites they know and recognize. They’re much more likely to buy things like electronics through sites like Amazon or Best Buy than a site they’ve never heard of, no matter how high that site ranks.
News and Industry Influencers– These are the well-known news sites that people turn to for industry news and to follow the advice of key social influencers — the Wireds, the Forbes, and so on.
Although you may not be able to beat these long-standing social and industry behemoths, you can create a presence on many of them, and doing so can help you attract more attention from the audience you’re looking to target. This segues right into our next point, which is…
Go Where the Users Are
Countless Google searches have lead us to check relevant social, review and comparison sites before we buy. It’s just human nature. You want to get the best possible deal on a product, or see what others have to say about a particular service so you don’t get ripped off.
That means rather than trying to compete with the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Yelp, you work to broaden your profiles on those sites. Connect with your audience where they’re searching and where they’re holding discussions. Don’t just blatantly advertise your business or try to insert yourself into a conversation, though, people can sense they’re being sold to from a mile away.
Instead, participate as a professional — answer questions, give insights, take the time to nurture relationships and conversations. It will pay you back over time, not just with search rankings and other social clout, but also intangible things like trust and credibility — and those are things that simply can’t be faked.
Instant Results Will Cost You
The types of search engine optimizations we’ve covered so far fall under “organic ranking” — it’s natural, but it takes time and patience to develop. If you need to be seen in the search engines quickly, then it’s going to cost you.
Google makes a massive chunk of its profits through its paid advertising platform. And while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with paying to be seen on the search engines, many people are using ad blockers, which means your ads will never see the light of day, even if the person searching is your ideal customer.
That’s why it’s far better to start an organic SEO strategy and build up a presence over time while optionally leveraging paid ads to handle other marketing efforts, like lead generation and list building.
It’s Okay to Ask for Help!
If all of this profile-building, relationship-nurturing, keyword-inserting. Search-strategy stuff has your mind reeling, all hope is not lost! It’s perfectly find (and highly recommended) to ask for help! At Dizzle Graphics, we’re much more than just graphic design. We’ve helped organizations and companies of all sizes improve their rankings and cement their business as a authoritative leader in their respective industries.
If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you, call us at (813) 603-8896 orlearn more.
Several factors affect the cost of software development, regardless of the size of the company or the location of the developers:
1. Complexity of software
The complexity of the project is the first thing that will affect the bulk of your budget. It shows the number of unique features that are needed to make a successful app: number of screens, workflows, automation requirements, process intertwining, dependent/independent paths, and more. If your app has a lot of complex logic, it will take a bit more time to code and test. If it does, your app probably has some complexity that warrants special attention.
2. Size of custom software
The size of your app is also another factor that will affect the cost of developing it. It depends on the number of screens and pages that the app will include.
Small size – ranges from 10 to 15
Medium size – ranges from 25-40
Large size – more than 40
3. Platform
The next factor that affects the cost of developing a custom software product is the platform that you intend to build it for. There are various types of platforms that can be used to develop apps for, such as Android or iOS. Depending on the platform you choose, the cost of developing custom software may vary. For example, Android is becoming more popular due to its growing popularity in the device markets.
When you choose a massive platform like Android, it can require more development efforts to achieve the ideal performance. A startup may choose to develop their own app for Android, then deploy it on other platforms once they have a successful app.
Developing apps for different platforms will require separate development teams. Doing so will cost you more than just a single team.
Geographical Factors in Software Development
Here, we will address the issue that many customers are concerned about: does it matter where your developers are from? How will geography affect your work with the IT contractors?
4. Creative design
Having vibrant and creative designs on the app is a great idea, but it can also spike the cost of developing custom software. This includes the development of complex and fancy UI elements that can make your app look stunning and attractive. If the complexity and time-consuming nature of the app justify the expense, then developers will ask for more money.
5. Integration with other systems
Most software products require some form of system integration to work seamlessly. For most of them, this usually involves integrating with third-party apps or implementing predefined integrations with existing enterprise apps.
Although it may seem cheaper to integrate with third-party apps, some software products may also require the development of new APIs to integrate them seamlessly.
Integrating your custom software with third-party solutions can be challenging though, as each app has its own unique characteristics. If your app requires a wide range of integrations, such as database migration or an API, then you may be required to pay more.
Generally, the higher the complexity, the more it costs.
6. Migration of existing data
Having a backup of the data can help prevent the loss of vital information. If your existing system already has data that you want to migrate to your new software, then migrating will be the best option.
Succinctly, migration is a process that transfers data from an existing system to a new one. It involves creating a script that will transform the data into its new format. The effort involved in preparing the translation rules and writing the scripts can add a bit more time to the project. Most of the time, this process is run once the software has been finished, to ensure that everything is working seamlessly. And after that, it is carried out several times to ensure that the data is translated correctly. The effort involved in this process can add a bit more time to the project.
7. Team required – size, seniority, hiring models
Size:Once the project has been defined, the next step is to determine the team size. If you need a larger-scale enterprise app with multiple new features and a variety of customization options, then a larger team may be necessary. Most of the time, a small team will be ideal for a project with multiple roles.
But for every project, at least four roles are required. This means that a developer, a project manager, a business analyst, and a QA tester need to be on board for the project.
Useful tip – For a small or medium-scale project, the Developer may also serve as the tester. The Project Manager may also oversee the Business Analyst and other tasks.
Seniority:The level of expertise of the team is also highly valued. The hourly rate of a top-level developer can be dramatically different from the rate of an entry-level one:
How Developer Seniority Level Matter to the Cost of Software Development
One of the main factors of the software development cost is the software developer seniority level. Here, we figure out what these levels are and how they affect the price.
Hiring models:When it comes to choosing a developer, you’re often presented with multiple hiring options and a variety of hourly or fixed-rate options:
A fixed-rate contract is typically the most common type of deal. It gives the developers a definite sum that’s agreed upon, and there’s no room for change.
The hourly-rate model is more flexible when it comes to accommodating the changing requirements of the app. It provides you with the flexibility to accommodate the changes in the market.
Thededicated teamis an attractive collaboration model for startups. It involves an established company hiring a developer and paying them during their service.
Here is a table for a brief comparison of hiring models:
8. Time frame for delivery
The timing of the development of a custom software project is also one of the factors that influence the cost of the software. The longer the development process takes, the more budget you spend.
It is difficult to determine the exact time frame for the development of a custom software project. Each step of the way, the complexity of the work can affect the time frame.
How much does it cost to develop custom software? Custom software development can range anywhere from$40,000 to $250,000 or more, depending on a variety of factors. It is difficult to predict the upper limit for software development costs. However, it can also reach millions for complex projects, which often require multiple developers and multiple iterations.
How much does custom software development cost per hour?
The hourly pricing model of software varies depending on the complexity of the project and the location of the technology partner.
How do you calculate development costs?
Request an estimate from several companies and you should have a list that contains the following items. This way you will get transparency in the estimation of the price:
Compile a list of tasks and the resources required to complete them – break the project down into smaller, individual tasks, so when you assign them to team members with hourly rates, it’ll be easier to calculate how much each of them will cost.
Identify and allocate resources to tasks based on your team’s capacity
Estimate the task length to create a project schedule (with some buffer)
Use project cost estimating tools to track budgets in real-time
Is software development expensed or capitalized?
Due to the continuous growth of software companies, it’s important to keep track of the various costs associated with the development of software. These costs are typically capitalized on a company’s balance sheet.
In general, software development can be capitalized in two ways. For internal use:
Examples of software that are not sold to the public include customer management systems and internal accounting systems.
For sell or public use:
This software is to be sold, leased, or marketed to external users.
Now when you have a clear vision of custom software development costs – here, we give an overview of what to look at in the proposals provided by different vendors.
Finding the right implementer for your tasks may take a long time and can be frustrating, especially if you have deadlines creeping towards you. This is why it is important to make the searching and hiring processes as efficient as possible.
Before you even receive a proposal from a potential contractor, you normally spend time:
Finding companies or individuals who may be interested in and capable of doing the job you need,
Corresponding and negotiating with them, and
Researching their backgrounds and previous work through portfolios and client reviews.
At this stage, it may be wise to shortlist the contractors from whom you even want to receive a proposal, and here’s what to take into account:
Communication patterns:the way potential contractors communicate with you during the pre-proposal period is a quite accurate, if not prettified, reflection of how they work generally. If they’ve already missed a couple of deadlines or made promises but never delivered, you may not want to bother waiting for a proposal from them.
Portfolio:if you checked their materials or examples of their work and didn’t like those, perhaps the contractor is just not right for you.
Compatibility:take a look at who the company or the person worked for before to see whether your business is similar to those. Naturally, if you are an aspiring startup, and the guys you want to hire have been working for large companies lately, there is simply no match.
The quoted price gap
Picture it:I’m a customer; I’ve received a few proposals from teams who I think can do the job right, but the proposals are totally different. The teams are going to approach my project in completely dissimilar ways. The gap between the lowest and the highest quoted price is vast. I’m frustrated and don’t even know where to start to evaluate the proposals.
First things first:let’s consider the price extremes. If the quote is unexpectedly low or unexpectedly high, it will normally mean that the contractors didn’t put too much effort into the process of estimation. Anyway, here are possible reasons:
Unexpectedly low price
The contractor is planning to launch your product in its minimally viable form as soon as possible but does not presume you will need further support, maintenance, or improvements. (Signs of this are the lack of descriptive documentation, lack of automated tests, and poor architecture.)
The contractor is ready to sacrifice certain parts of the development process that are not essential but necessary if you want perfect results: an example is extensive testing on several stages.
The contractor has analyzed the scope of work negligently and gives you an unrealistic quote; the quoted price can later go up.
Rare: the contractor is a fraud; they want to get at least some money from you and are not planning to deliver any product at all. (A sign of it is the lack of documentation explaining what exactly will be done and how.)
Unexpectedly high price
The contractor is a big company; they’re not too much interested in small-scale clients, and their estimation for one can be somewhat frivolous.
The contractor is overcautious and plans to involve many specialists in the development process to safeguard the high quality of the final product. What the contractor is afraid of here is a lack of certainty in your technical requirements.
Rare: the contractor wants to rip you off. (A sign of it is the lack of documentation explaining what exactly will be done and how.)
The way a potential contractor will approach your project will depend on not only your specifications but also the contractor’s expertise, corporate structure, availability of specialists, and many other factors. Now let’s take a look at what in a proposal can help you understand whether you want to work with this contractor or not.
Pricing model
Some guarantee they’ll do the job for a fixed compensation, and some suggest starting off on an hourly basis. What to choose depends on how well your tasks are specified. If a fixed price is proposed, make sure the contractor has a convincing description of how they’ll handle the tasks: they must be sure they know what they’re doing if they’re going fixed.
Fixed price:includes the cost of potential risks (it can be 20% or 300%, you never know), and detailed requirements are a must, but there is no flexibility or scope management, and there is, sadly, no guarantee you will get the result you’re picturing in your head now.
Time & Material:there is no guarantee you will get the project implemented within the budget, but there is more flexibility in the development, and approaches can be agile. This option is also usually preferable in long-term projects because it implies a more or less stable monthly budget and allows adjusting requirements without having to receive approvals on each small task from the contractor’s entire management.
Pricing Models in Custom Software Development
The pricing model in IT needs to be assessed in various contexts, including your business’s size and specific characteristics, and your willingness to take the risk. In this publication, Mad Devs answer your questions about pricing models with clarity and transparency.
Scope of work
Do the contractors describe in detail what they’re planning to do? A good estimate will surely show that the contractor has figured out what the customer means and what he or she needs. Consider the following:
What are the components of the estimation? Are they general or detailed?
General components:e.g., the estimation features three sections—backend, frontend, and design—and says that the development of each will take, say, three weeks. Such general estimates provide to the customer little to no understanding of how exactly the components will be developed, and this may prevent you from making an informed decision.
Detailed components:the estimation elaborates on what technologies will be used to implement specific functions, includes the work of project managers, QA specialists, and other professionals, and predicts possible complications and risks. A meticulous approach most likely reveals the professionalism and knowledgeability of the team.
What questions had the team asked before preparing the estimate? Were they relevant and insightful? Did they pay attention, ask follow-up questions, and apparently try to gain insight? If you have three yeses, you’re on the right track.
Are the questions the contractor asks you strictly technical? Some choose to stay safely within your specifications, while more experienced contractors will critically assess your ideas and suggest doing things in a way that, say, will be more competitive on the current market. So their questions will include those about your target audiences and business goals.
Statement of Work vs Scope of Work
Learn what differences between the statement of work (SOW) and the scope of work and how knowing this difference will make your software projects great.
Team composition
Seniority level:it’s important to whom the contractor is planning to entrust your project. To tackle some tasks, you need senior specialists, while other tasks can easily be handled by juniors. You should not worry about having low-level professionals on your team, but you should make sure the contractor explains in which parts of the planned work they think juniors will do just fine and why.
Selection and communication:you need to know that the seniority level of the team members can be verified. Can you interview them before accepting their terms? Can you communicate with the team directly? If not, you may want to look for mediators who can help you make sure that the level of your contractors is as declared.
How Developer Seniority Level Matter to the Cost of Software Development
One of the main factors of the software development cost is the software developer seniority level. Here, we figure out what these levels are and how they affect the price.
Tech stack
Obviously, the same tasks can be completed through the use of different technologies, and the tech choices are major contributors to the final estimate. The key considerations here are:
Development vs. integration:how much custom software do your contractors propose to develop? If ready-made modules or libraries will be used, do the contractors justify this decision?
Backend:what languages and frameworks are proposed? The choices between, say, Python and JS or between Swift and Objective-C will depend not only on what the contractors are capable of handling but also on what they think, based on their expertise and research, is viable and popular in the industry now.
(In mobile development) Native vs. Hybrid:do your contractors propose to develop applications separately for different platforms or to use cross-platform technologies? Depending on project objectives, there are advantages to each of the options.
Specialists:the costs of work vary from technology to technology, and some contractors may simply not have the right specialists available for your project at the moment. Make sure, though, that the allocation of tasks is done according to your purposes and in your best interest as opposed to the contractor’s convenience only.
Use of ready-made components
As mentioned above, some may offer to develop things from scratch, and others may suggest integrating third-party services.
Development from scratch: maybe more reliable but is expensive.
Integration:may be faster, but the final product will depend on a lot of external things. Also, this approach may not actually be so cost-efficient because existing solutions can be rather pricey.
Example: admin panels. You can buy ready-made admin panels from many online services, and they can work just fine for you. However, experts suggest that each such solution has its limitations, and if you hit those in the implementation of the project or later, you’re in trouble. An admin panel developed from scratch provides more flexibility, but it is costly and time-consuming. There’s no universal answer: the decision needs to be made between the customer and the contractor in each individual case.
Organizational and development processes
Pay attention to the complements to the estimate, if any. A contractor who knows what they’re doing will attach documentation describing the organizational and development processes, product architecture if needed, and the tests that will be administered so that the risk of failures is reduced. The things we recommend to look for in the proposal are:
Transparency:the contractor is totally open about what will be done and how; the processes are not described vaguely or obscurely.
Knowledge Management:the contractor explains how the knowledge and experience of different team members will contribute to the implementation of the project.
Communication:the contractor expresses themselves clearly, and the documentation is overall readable and appealing.
Software Maintenance Costs: Factors & Ways to Reduce
How to not overpay for maintenance and support IT solutions at the right price? Today, Mad Devs Customer University turns to the best practices in the industry to answer these questions.
Conclusion
The rise of customer-centric tech has forced businesses to develop custom solutions to address their specific needs. Despite the high cost of custom development, many businesses still believe that having a tool that fits their needs makes them stand out. The cost of software development is hard to grasp due to the complexity of the projects involved. But, without a good estimate, you are prone to overcharging.
The considerations in evaluating a proposal are evidently diverse, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. What has been attempted here is to show that proposal evaluation is a complicated process; the potential contractor and the materials they provide need to be assessed in various contexts, including your business’s size and specific characteristics + your willingness to take the risk. In virtually any real-life scenarios, things will pop up that haven’t been mentioned here.
There’s more to crafting a memorable brand than putting together a quick logo and color palette. Instead of calling it a day there, successful brands take the time to design a well rounded brand identity – one that combines a strong purpose with intentional visual and written elements.
Here, you’ll learn the seven key elements of brand identity design, and how they work together to build a consistent brand your audience will love.
New to the branding game? Let’s go over some important context.
What is brand identity?
A brand is the sum of how a person, product, or business is viewed by its audience and/or customers.
Brand identity is how a businesswantsto be viewed.
These two ideas often go hand in hand, but can sometimes be at odds, depending on how well a brand is able to cultivate and maintain their brand identity.
If we zoom in a bit, brand identity design includes everything from logos, and typography to colors, packaging, and messaging. Ultimately, the goal here is to create an ecosystem of visual and written elements that complement and reinforce your brand’s ‘why’. Once established, your brand identity can both attract new customers and help your current customers feel at home.
If you were about to interview for a big new job, you wouldn’t show up in sweatpants. You’d want to present yourself as a well put together, competent, and approachable candidate.
The same idea applies to your brand.Your brand identity is the face of your business, and you want to put your best face forward for your audience.
Along with building credibility and trust, a strong and consistent brand design should also give people insight into what your brand is all about. For example, do you use bright, pastel colors to convey a cheerful, playful tone, or do you employ detailed line art in your logo to imply an artisanal level of quality? When you’re thinking about what you want your brand identity design to look like, consider what it willfeellike as well.
To give you a better idea of what we mean, take a look at these three brilliant examples of brand identity:
3 examples of strong brand identity design
When you’re designing your own brand identity, there’s no need to start from scratch. Here are just a few examples of great brand identity design to get some inspiration from.
And while it’s important to create something that’s uniquely your own, there’s nothing wrong with taking a note from some of the greats.
Hootsuite
If you look at a lot of tech brands today, you’ll notice that many tend to use similar no-fluff, utilitarian branding principles. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, it can become hard to differentiate brands after a while.
We like how Hootsuite’s redesigned logo injects some new color and personality into the social media marketing platform. It’s friendlier, more approachable, and most importantly, more human.
Kodak
Sometimes, the best rebrands happen when you go back to your roots. In 2006, the company had already eliminated the big red “K” block in favor of a simpler wordmark, but then they decided to reverse the decision. Using a fresh sans-serif font, they were able to create a simple and fresh new take on their logo and typography. It just goes to show that sometimes the smallest of changes can have a big impact.
We love how easy these guidelines make it to view the history of Kodak’s branding, along with the when/how/why to use each design.
Burt’s Bees
In a beauty industry full of incredibly bright, futuristic, or luxurious branding, Burt’s Bees stands out for its humble, down-to-earth aesthetic. With muted colors and thoughtful artwork depicting the brand’s founder, the brand calls back to its purpose – to honor the natural world by creating environmentally-conscious products.
How to build a successful brand identity
Now that we’ve taken a closer look at some great examples of brand identity design, let’s dive into the seven elements you’ll need to build a brand identity your audience will love.
1. Establish a clear purpose and position
The first part of establishing a brand identity is determining your purpose and goals.Brand purpose is the ‘why?’ behind everything you do. Why does my brand exist? Why is my product or service better than the competition? Why does our brand look/feel/communicate the way it does?
According to Arielle Jackson, startup founder, and Google veteran: “Your purpose is how you want to change the world for the better.” Jackson also recommends this diagram as a guide for determining your purpose:
Jackson explains the diagram like this: “In one circle, you have cultural tension. This is what is happening in the world that’s relevant to you. In the other circle is your brand’s best self. This is what your company delivers at its prime,” says Jackson. “The intersection of these two areas is… ‘the big ideal’ — or your purpose.”
For a great example of a succinct, tangible corporate purpose, check out this statement from Apple:
“Apple’s 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.”
Not too shabby, right?
You’ll also want to spend some time thinking aboutbrand positioning, or the unique value that your brand brings your audience. Think of this as your brand’s ‘elevator pitch’. All the work done here will inform your strategy as you create a logo, decide on a color palette, etc.
Zooming out, brand positioning is the process of making your purpose actionable. By naming your target customer and differentiating yourself from the competition, you’ll lay the groundwork for your brand to accomplish your purpose.
2. Conduct thorough market research
A brand’s purpose and positioning can (and should be) informed, at least in part, by market and customer research. Research is crucial to understand the “cultural tension” described in the previous section. Forbeginners to market research, there’s a wealth of content online to help get you started.
Oftentimes, one of the best ways to conduct market research is to simply talk to a lot of people. For example, phone interviews allow your teams to have detailed, human-driven discussions with your customers – something that could be helpful if you want to appeal emotionally to your audience.
Beyond phone interviews, online survey tools,like Survey Monkey, are a fast way to gather a lot of information. Don’t forget to look into available government resources too, like thishelpful toolkitfrom the US Small Business Association.
Good market research can also help you determine your main customer personas, a term that is a slightly different concept than “target customers.” Your customer persona(s) go beyond just defining what problem a customer has and gets into the nitty gritty details behind your focus customers’ professional and personal traits. Defining these traits will help you know what kind of personality your brand should have to appeal to customers, which brings us to our next point.
3. Craft a loveable brand personality
“If your brand were a person, what would they be like?” It might be a bit cliché, but this is a smart way to think about brand personality.
If you get your brand’s personality right, it will shine through in every part of your brand identity. Brand personality greatly impacts thevoiceand tone used in your marketing materials and other communications. Why is this important? Your customers will get mixed messages if your brand’s personality isn’t well established, and they may have trouble connecting emotionally with your brand.
If you’re having a hard time getting started, here’s an exercise to try: Which celebrities or fictional characters best represent your brand? Is there an actor or actress, musician, or public personality that embodies the same traits as your brand? This could be a good starting point for nailing down different aspects of your brand’s personality.
Once you’ve pictured the kind of person your brand would be and listed off a few attributes they have, it’s helpful to think about how your brand will come to life through your voice and tone.
Your logo is central to your brand identity design. It’s the piece of your brand identity that most people will be exposed to. It needs to line up with all the other elements of your brand identity and the broader emotional appeal of your brand.
A few guidelines Marq CEO, Owen Fuller suggests on making a logo with an impact:
Make it memorable.Are there unique elements/colors/etc that make it stand out?
Make it simple.Can a 3rd grader draw it?
Make it versatile.Can you apply it across multiple mediums and channels?
Make it evocative.Does it make you something?
Make it timeless.Will it work as your brand grows?
For example, we all know this logo:
Disney has built a brand that evokes nostalgia and magic. The playful script oozes creativity and fun, which tracks with the overall brand Disney has established over the decades.
A memorable brand is often the simplest brand. Take a look at the logos of the world’s top 3 brands (according to Kantar):
What do all three have in common? Intentionality in color, design, and simplicity.
Speaking of simplicity, choosing a simple logo makes it easier to apply to different mediums. Whether you’re designing for a product, digital marketing, or print, actively designing with every channel in mind will ensure a successful logo development from the very start.
5. Choose an attractive color palette
Evocative and full of emotional potential, your brand colors are often just as memorable as the logo design. Consider looking into the dynamics of color theory when choosing the palette that best represents your brand.
A lot ofcolor psychologyis intuitive, like blue expressing calm and red and yellow expressing passion and energy. Depending on the tint or shade of a color you use, that emotion can be adjusted. A tint is a color mixed with white, making it lighter, and a shade is a color mixed with black, making it darker. A lighter tint of blue conveys tranquility, while a darker shade of blue often conveys trust, an effect that many banks use in their color schemes.
Be aware though that color connotations can differ wildly between cultures. For example, while yellow is often seen as a bright, happy color in the US, it is linked with mourning and death in places like Latin America and Egypt. If your brand plans to do business internationally, it’s important to double check that the colors you want to use don’t have any unintended meanings.
When it comes to creating a workable color palette, designers should select a set of primary and secondary colors to be used for specific purposes. Staying consistent with this palette is key – the more you use it in the same way, the more you’ll be able to build brand equity over time.
A few more considerations on picking a great color scheme:
Make sure your palette has enough contrast when paired with text.This ensures all your marketing materials are easy to read and accessible.Use this toolto double check your palette.
Double check that your palette reinforces the emotions you want to evoke.If your brand is all about health and wellbeing, strong colors like burgundy or magenta might be at odds with your intended brand identity design.
6. Pick the right typography
Stressing about finding just the right font may lead others to brand you as a “typography nerd,” but you’ll come out ahead when you pick a font that works in harmony with your logo and colors.
Fonts are powerful.The most famous fonts are recognizable even when taken out of context. You’ll want a single primary typeface to lead your brand design, which should work well with your logo and color palette. It should also, like your logo and color palette, be simple.
Here are a few tips to keep in mind when choosing brand fonts:
Don’tuse overly intricate fonts that are hard to read.
Provide font guidelines for headlines and body text.
Don’tuse more than two font families on a single document. (If it feels like it’s too much, it’s probably too much)
Domix contrasting fonts (such as a serif and a sans-serif).
Give guidelines on font size and line length in your brand guide.
For example, here are several font pairings that work well together:
7. Leverage on-brand graphics and photography
The final step in creating a brand identity is to build an extended visual language with supporting graphics, design assets, iconography, and photographs.
They cover a whole range of brand design considerations:
A reductive (or “flat”) approach
A preference for geometric shapes
Icons always face front
Straight, hard shadows as opposed to curved, soft ones
Standard background colors
Icons align to the pixel grid
Icon padding according to shape
Because of Google’s close attention to their extended visual language, when you see a Google icon, you know it’s a Google icon.
Perusing other brand visual guides can help you get a better idea of what potential visual elements could work for your brand.
Maintaining a brand identity
Once you’ve got the perfect brand elements to work with, it’s time to secure your brand identity togetherwith a comprehensive set of brand guidelines.
Brand guidelines offer an easily accessible playbook to educate your teams on how, when, where, and why to use each of your brand identity elements. With these guidelines, anyone from your company should be able to put your brand to work in a consistent way.
Once you have these guidelines in place,using customizable templatescan help save your team valuable time. Instead of creating every piece of marketing collateral from scratch, leveraging custom templates makes it easy to quickly create on-brand materials, even if you’re not a graphic designer.
Key Takeaways
While there’s always the possibility of redesigns and re-evaluation ahead, starting off with a strong, confident brand design and unified brand identity will add clarity and consistency to everything you do. Over time, your unique brand identity will be the one that pops into people’s heads when they have a problem you can solve.
Ready to start building on brand?Sign up for freeand explore our brand template library today.
What comes to mind when you think about web design vs web development? The names of these two aspects of website creation hint at what establishes them as dissimilar, but there are more nuanced differences that make these two concepts vastly unique from each other.
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In this post, we’ve rounded up the four main differences between website design and web development — including some which may surprise you. This post will help you better understand the most significant distinguishing factors between web design and web development. You’ll also learn more about how these critical ingredients impact marketers.
What is website design?
Website designis concerned with both the site’s usability and its aesthetic. The layout and color scheme, for instance, are two facets of the website’s appearance where theweb designerwould concentrate. Their goal? To create a website that’s visually appealing and digestible.
Ultimately,good website designseeks to score high points for user experience. A site with successful web design offers aesthetically pleasing features, is easy to navigate, feels intrinsic to the brand, and fits the customer base.
Because web design is so focused on thevisual aspectsof the user interface and experience, web designers traditionally produce or work with deliverables such as storyboards, logo design, format, UI & UX design, and color palettes.
What is website development?
On the contrary,website developmentcenters on the mechanisms that allow the site to work correctly. A web developer is responsible for making your web designer’s ideas come to life and making the site functional through coding. Keep in mind that there are two categories ofwebsite developers:front-end and back-end.
A front-end developer concentrates on writing code that determines how the website displays the web designer’s concepts. However, theback-end developermust correctly manage the data within your site’s database and enable that data to display on the website’s front-end.
What’s the difference between web design vs web development?
Of course, there’s some crossover when you’re evaluating web design vs web development, so it’s not uncommon to find a developer with a working knowledge of both. However, these two facets are disparate, and investing in both is essential for delivering anexceptional user experience. They work in tandem to craft an engaging, functional, comprehendible website. Here are some of the most significant disparities between the two.
Website developers are not responsible for creating assets.
The main difference betweenweb designand web development is that while web designers make visual assets that add aesthetic value to the site (and enhance user experience), web developers are responsible for adding those functionalities. The developer will translate the designer’s mockups, wireframes, and other assets into code usingJavaScript, CSS, and HTML. So the creation of visual assets is the responsibility of the website designer, whereas using code to make those pop up on the website is the job of the website developer.
Website designers are not responsible for writing code.
Another difference between web design and web development is that designers usually do not write code. Of course, there are exceptions — but generally speaking, designers aren’t held accountable for coding.
Consider a web designer’s primary responsibilities. These include using an editor such as Photoshop to develop images, creating mockups, and designing layouts. However, coding is not involved in any of these tasks, so that’s where web development steps into the picture.
Alternatively, some companies opt to work with‘no code’ website buildersso designers can beautify the site and enhance the user experience without coding.
You’ll usually pay less for web design vs web development.
Traditionally, web design is less costly than web development. ZipRecruiter indicates thatweb developerroles usually compensate $36/hour, whereas designers make an average of $29/hour. There are anomalies, but usually, you’ll pay less for web design vs web development.
Why? Because web development requires training such as coding. Supply and demand also impact the average cost — there are likely more web designers than developers. However, if you seek an adept web designer or developer, you can expect to pay more than the average rates.
Website development seeks to add functionality to the site; website design aims to add aesthetic appeal.
Remember this: the difference betweenweb design and web developmentboils down to the role that each plays in website creation. While website development adds functionality to the site through code, website design seeks to enhance the user experience andinterfaceand make the website one that customers will want to view. As a result, these subsections of creating a website are equally essential.
Web design vs web development: what are the similarities?
Because web design and development aim to create a viable website experience for users, they have some commonalities. Diving deeper into the similarities between web design and web development will help you better understand why both are vital to producing a successful website.
Both have a role to play in creating an engaging user experience.
If you want customers to keep coming back to your website,focus on user experience. Why? Because user experience ensures that customers have a positive association with the website and, therefore, the product. If your site’s user experience is lacking, customers will become frustrated and decide to take their business elsewhere.
You might be wondering how both web development and design contribute to this. The answer is simple. While design guarantees that customers will have an easy-to-navigate experience on your site, development ensures that the website is properly functioning. A website that doesn’t work correctly isn’t valuable to consumers, no matter how beautiful it is.
Both must work in unison to develop a cohesive site.
Maybe you’re wondering if investing in website designanddevelopment is necessary, and here’s why the answer is yes. Both have to work in unison to develop a cohesive, functional website. Without design, a website would feel impersonal. Without development, a website wouldn’t operate correctly. The result of design and development working in unison is an exceptional web experience.
What should marketers know about web design vs web development?
Marketers should keep a few things in mind regarding web design and development. For one, communicating with the developer and designer is imperative. The more specific you are about what you’re looking for, the happier you’ll be with the outcome. Creating a functionality list of must-haves is an excellent way to ensure the results will match your expectations.
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