Why consistency is vital to your branding

While “branding” can be defined in many ways, it comes down to the message conveyed to customers when they hear your name. It’s how customers know what to expect from your products and services. This is why it’s vital that the visual representation of your branding remains consistent. The same logo, the same colors, every time. 

But creating consistent branding can be a challenge, especially for non-designers. Luckily there is Canva, a graphics tool for all levels of designers, that makes creating consistent branding easy. 

Consistency is the key to creating a memorable brand image 

If you’re consistent in presenting your brand, it will be easier for potential customers to remember your company.

Think about it: if someone sees your logo on every one of your marketing materials, whether it’s an email newsletter, social media post, or website banner, they’re more likely to associate that logo with the work that comes from your company. This increases their trust in and affinity for what you have to offer. 

The same goes for colors, fonts, and voice—if those elements stay consistent across all of your marketing efforts, it’s much easier for people who interact with them to feel like they know who they’re dealing with when working with a company or brand.

With Canva, creating consistent branding is easy

Canva is an online tool that allows you to create and customize dozens of different marketing materials like flyers, posters, menus, brochures, letterhead, social media posts, business cards, and more. Choose from their numerous pre-made templates and customize them with your brand’s colors, fonts, and images. 

You can also create your design from scratch using the designer tool. The interface is user-friendly and easy to learn, so even if you’re not a professional graphic designer, it won’t take long before you get the hang of it. 

Canva is free to use and offers a variety of pricing plans for more advanced features. However, upgrading to the Pro plan, at only $9.99/month, is required to access the Brand Kit functionality. Canva offers several other benefits to paying members as well.

How to setup and use Canva to easily be consistent with your brand elements

Once you’ve identified your brand’s logo, style, color palette, and fonts, it’s time to create a brand kit in Canva.

To get started, click on Brand from the main Canva menu:

A few core elements will be essential to your brand kit. They lie at the heart of what your brand offers and are the tools you need to best convey your brand message.

Your logo reflects your personality (or should)

Your logo is the cornerstone of your brand. It’s your brand’s first impression and lasting image, so it should be memorable, easy to read, and easy to replicate.

That’s why ensuring your logo is consistent across platforms and assets is so important.

To add your logo to your Canva brand kit, go to Brand on the left menu and upload your logo:

NOTE: If your business needs a logo, we’ve discussed creating a logo yourself with online tools or commissioning a logo on Fiverr. 

Use color with intent

Your colors set the visual tone for your brand. Think about how red is associated with Coca-Cola or brown with UPS. It’s important to decide on your colors and note which specific shades you use.

When it comes to color psychology, there are two main goals:

• To make your brand stand out and be memorable
• To make your company (and product or service) seem trustworthy and reliable

Here’s a shortcut to add brand colors to your Canva brand kit. Add a random shape to a design. Take the green circle below, for example. Select the circle, then bring up the color drawer by clicking on the small green square in the menu bar across the top.

Then use the color picker, and select all the colors in your brand one by one. As you select them, write down or note the color code.

Then return to your brand kit, and use the highlighted plus sign to one by one add those codes to your color palette.

Use the right fonts

The right font can make or break your brand’s message. It’s important to use fonts that are easy to read and match the tone of your brand.

Here are some guidelines you should keep in mind:

• Use a font that matches your brand’s personality. 
• If you want your business to feel serious and professional, choose a font with serifs (the little lines at the top and bottom of letters). 
• If you want it to look modern and fun, opt for sans-serifs (without those little lines).
• You can also experiment with different weights (thickness) or styles (bold vs. italic). 
• Choose only one or two fonts and use them all the time. Here’s why.

Canva includes hundreds of fonts with a premium account, including most Google fonts. Read why we like Google fonts for your brand fonts. And if you own a unique brand font that is not in Canva, you can upload it to your brand kit. You can also set your header styles and weights within the Canva brand kit. 

Create templates for your content

When it comes to creating consistent branding, the first thing you should do is create templates for your content. This will save you a lot of time and effort and make it easier for you to keep your brand consistent across platforms.

You can create templates for various things: social media posts, blog posts, email newsletters, etc. You can even set up templates that other people in your organization can use if their job requires them to post on your behalf regularly.

The best thing about Canva is that it is only limited by your imagination, and there are plenty of resources on the Branding Compass blog and within Canva to inspire you. 

To set up a template, save your design as a brand template, and then you or your team can use them to create future designs.

What if you don’t know what fonts and colors to use in the first place?

If you’re still feeling lost, don’t worry! Branding Compass has many helpful resources to help you with professional branding. 

Branding Compass was created to help business owners understand branding and start the process of developing a strong brand, even if they only have a small budget. Like many other business owners, you may find the branding process overwhelming. You know the process is important to your success, but you don’t know where to start. 

Branding Compass will take you through the same branding process that high-end branding firms use. Branding Compass can help you articulate what’s truly special about your product or service. 

Then, you’ll get recommendations on the best colors, fonts, and visuals for your branding, and when you’re finished, you can take this information and create your branding kit in Canva! 

Get started for free today.