Setting Up Your Digital Presence
How to brand yourself for digital advertising.
Choose Your Colors
Design Your Logo
Find Your Platform
1) Choose Your Colors
Whether we'd like to admit it or not, people make judgements about appearance. The colors you choose for your brand say a lot about you and can produce ideas and feelings about your brand. It is important to choose these colors wisely and to know what they say about you.
Take a look at this chart from A History of Graphic Design: Chapter 79, A History of Color, Color Wheel, and Psychological Impact of Color (guity-novin.blogspot.com)
As you can see, we associate colors with characteristics, so it is important to choose colors that are associated with traits your brand values. For example, if you are branding a security company, you would probably not want to create a black and red color scheme- as this may be associated with death and danger (definitely not a good look for security). Instead, you may think about blue and grey, since this conveys a sense of peace and security.
2) Design Your Logo
The next step in establishing your digital identity is to design a logo for yourself. This logo is also something people are going to use to make inferences about your brand. Just as the colors convey meaning, so do the font, style, and overall look of your logo. Start things off by checking out the logos/brands of some competitors. What do you like about it? What do you dislike?
Once you have a general idea of what you want, it's time to start designing. This can be an overwhelming step sometimes, but luckily there are plenty of free platforms designed to make this experience as easy as possible. Here are a few of my favorite cites to build logos on...
While designing, keep in mind the image you want to portray. When you add an element to your logo, make sure supports this image. Going back to the example of the security company- when they are choosing a font for their logo, it may not be best to choose a super swirly or crazy one since that isn't consistent with the brand.
3) Find Your Platform
Finally, it is time to find the right platform for you. Today, there are countless mediums for digital advertising. When choosing which is best for you, think about which platform is best to reach your target audience. This could be a website, blog, social media, YouTube channel, or a combination of all four. The good thing about this step is that there isn't a right or wrong answer, it's just about getting the information to your consumer. Think about the platforms they mainly use and start there. You can develop and add more as you go!