Brand Design and Photography: Why Do They Matter?

If you're in the e-commerce sector it’s difficult not to talk about brand design. While we're continuously bombarded with brands and logos everywhere we go, making a lasting first impression is crucial. This article tackles how cohesive branding, website design, and product photography impacts your brand image.

Brand Personality

Building a company's brand identity takes a lot of time, effort, and money. How the brand will appear, how customers should feel when they interact with it, and where the brand should be remembered, are all essential questions one should ask when forming a brand identity. When all these factors are decided, a brand personality emerges.

After creating your brand personality, how a customer perceives and interacts with the business establishes the brand image. What people say, think, and feel about your company, goods, and services is your brand image.

Who you are, who your consumers are, and how you address their problems are all defined by your brand positioning. You must be consistent with your brand identity once you have created your brand positioning and message. Maintaining brand consistency helps your organization gain awareness, trust, and credibility.

Your marketing activities must be connected to your brand basis, whether they be web pages, blog posts, social media, white papers, infographics, or e-newsletters. It's easy to lose sight of your brand's core and begin making inconsistent marketing decisions.

Elements of a Cohesive Brand Identity

Logos

Your company's logo is its face—and it should play a prominent part in your marketing, sales, and content. Your logo should reflect your brand and appeal to your target market. Product logos should be consistently featured on product materials and web content if you have them.

The well-known Nike swoosh is an example of how a logo can help create a company's image and transform it into a trustworthy, renowned brand through repetitive usage. The strange symbol on the Nike emblem is commonly referred to as a "swoosh" in allusion to the sound we hear when something moves quickly past us. The symbol curve brings into mind the sound of sharp air, speed, and movement.

Brand Colors

The colors in your brand color palette—similar to the forms in your logo or the words in your brand name—are distinguishing elements of your brand identity. According to some studies, 84.7% of consumers say that “color” is their primary reason for buying a specific product. Colors have meaning attached to them, so it’s very important to select the main and complementary colors that will fit your brand’s adjectives. Today, even the smallest brands can end up going international. Knowing what different colors symbolize in different parts of the world will help you build a great brand image. Check out this international color symbolism chart to give you some ideas.

Imagery

Brand imagery refers to all of the graphics that represent your company's identity. From billboards to Instagram, websites to print ads, the images that make up your brand imagery can be found in a multitude of places. These images elicit an emotional response from the spectator (known as "brand feelings"). Some brands use stock photos, while others take their own. In recent years, brands have begun to replace photographs with graphics and illustrations. It doesn't matter which path you take; just keep your imagery consistent.

Always employ unique angles to catch a busy customer's eye as they scan through their social media feeds.

Website Design

Your website should be developed with your target demographic in mind, and it should increase user experience. It is one of the most significant components of your company's online presence, so make sure it's well-designed.

Visual Design

Your brand and everything it stands for are reflected on your website. It is typically one of the first things people look at when getting to know a brand, and so it helps in the formation of a first impression.

Colors, fonts, photos, and other design aspects on your website all contribute to your brand identity. As a result, you must carefully select those pieces and ensure that they are consistent throughout your website.

If you have a set of brand colors that fit with your logo and other parts of your brand identification, you should utilize them on your website as well.

Keep your layout minimal, clean, and built in a way that draws attention to the most critical components as a general guideline. In addition, the number of menu selections or elements in a drop-down menu should be determined by the preferences of your target audience. You can try out a few different layouts and do split tests to see which one performs best for your audience.

Choose easy-to-read and clearly visible fonts. If your target audience is young, you can experiment with fun and stylish fonts; otherwise, keep a simple and minimalistic typography design.

If you’re looking for inspiration on how to design a clothing website, Bohemian Traders is a good place to start. The minimalistic design offers soft colors, clear and easy-to-read typography, and a very neat layout. Visitors to this eCommerce website can easily navigate between clothing items based on the latest arrivals, occasions, accessories, or sale items.

UX Design

When it comes to UX design, it's all about getting inside your visitor's thoughts. So giving your users an easy, seamless, and delightful experience is a must! The idea is to deliver information quickly and even make them smile.

4 key factors:

• Utility: The website should assist people in selecting and purchasing the items and services they require.
• Usability: The customer journey must be straightforward and simple, with no extra clicks, time wasted on overloaded sites or difficult menus, frustration from not receiving feedback from the system, and so on.
• Accessibility: Persons with disabilities (dyslexic, color-blind, etc.) and people with a low degree of digital literacy, for example, must be able to use a design that is accessible.
• Desirability:  Referring to the app's appearance and feel, which will make the user experience pleasurable and encourage them to return.

Here is another great website that smartly uses UX design. Esqido is jam-packed with close-ups of the product and its complex packaging. Furthermore, they feature a brief video describing how to apply artificial lashes on their homepage. This eCommerce website is very useful if you need some inspiration for photographing makeup or beauty products for your eCommerce site.

Product Photography

Did you know that 22% of returns happen because a product looks different in person than it does in photos? The quality of your visual presentation is frequently used to determine the perceived value of your items and the trustworthiness of your brand. Customers will feel more comfortable handing you money if they can visualize and understand the things you sell. That means having high-quality, attractive product photos is critical.

The gold standard of eCommerce photography is products photographed against a white or light neutral background. That's because the solid background makes it easier to examine the item in detail, allowing your product to appeal to a wider audience.

Lifestyle photographs are vital also since they help customers to imagine themselves using a product in real life. Even better if the lifestyle photos you use match their daily lives so they can imagine themselves using your products!

You may have the best product in the industry but if the product images are not well-done, you won’t attract the customers’ attention.

Here’s a great example of product photography on a well-designed website. The product shown on Muroexe’s website is photographed against a white background, but there are also other photographs of it worn in a daily life setting.

We hope that we gave you an approximate idea of why brand design and photography matter. Get creative and think about how you can boost your brand image with these tricks. Don’t forget that visitors only need to spend ten seconds on your website to form an opinion. Make a memorable first impression with a strong brand personality.

 

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