Why high-quality company branding should be created prior to the website being designed

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Okay, so let’s say your stuck in traffic, and around you are a sea of cars and company vehicles, and all may look pretty bland, rather generic you might say?

Yet, every now and then, there’s a company vehicle that stands out, it might be a van with simply brilliant graphics, a bright bold colour and an easy to remember website which is bold, and grabs your attention.

For example, a builder that focuses on high-end builds, using a bright colour, a picture showing a large extension they have built, and a company name that may have nothing to do with construction, but one which sticks in your mind, and so does the website.

Or it might be a rather fancy restaurant down in Cardiff Bay, it might have a really modern name, a colour which is rather unique and again a name which you won’t easily forget.

Now, you can start to see why having a set of brand guidelines, or “marketing strategy” created before the web design process starts is so crucial, as you want consistency, you want the same colour scheme used on the shop front, as what’s used on the companies lorries, or on the companies website.

So for example, lets say you run a recruitment agency, and you want to standout from your direct competitors here in Wales, so in the companies brand guidelines, you use a bright colour purple, this can then be assigned a “hex code” this code can then be used so that the companies cars match the companies shop and the website.

So, when it comes to hiring a local website designer, you can simply send in an email your companies brand guidelines, that’s including which hex codes to use, then the web developer, when designing the brand new company website, they will know to use that colour purple lets say in the main design of your companies new website.

 

What are “brand guidelines” and why are they important

 

So, brand guidelines are simply a list of design choices the business has made, so for example, often the guidelines will stipulate, which logo to use, which font to use, and which colours, as well as for example what the colours of the main menu should be, what the font colours should be and much more.

Now, sometimes, a business that’s setting up in Wales, well, sometimes they jump straight into having a website built, but if you don’t have a set of brand guidelines, what can often occur, is that the marketing starts to get inconsistent for that company.

What do we mean by that, well, simply put the font and company logo used on invoices, business cards and leaflets might not match the companies website.

So, why does your agency think the brand guidelines should be created before the website gets built?

It can really help your web developer, this is regardless of whether they are building a completely unique PHP website, or using another coding, what often the “front-end” web developers need is a set of brand guidelines to work from, this will instantly tell them, which font to use for example, or which colour the footer should be.

It does also save the Cardiff web developers, who may well be building your website time, as otherwise, it might mean that you as the business owner needs to receive many phone calls from the web designers, such as which colour the footer should be, which font should be used, how the drop-down menus should work.

So many questions, yet, if the designers were to have a set of brand guidelines, well, this can sometimes help a lot.

The company website should be built so its all consistent with the companies brand guidelines

There’s no point in say having 100 lorries on the road, each which are painted, lets say a colour of red, yet then when you go on the companies website, well the same colour red is not used, this causes the marketing to be inconsistent.

 

Be consistent

Having your marketing agency create a quality set of brand guidelines, can help your digital marketing agency to be consistent.

So for example, the right logo can be used on the companies website, on the companies social media accounts, such as Facebook and on the companies business cards.

Also, lets say you own lets say a restaurant in Roath Cardiff, and you have say 10 delivery cars, you may want the colour of those cars to match the companies website, for this, often a set of brand guidelines will need to be created by designers.

 

Tell your company’s story

Okay, so it shouldn’t just be the case that your business needs a new CMS website built, lets say using the coding language PHP. And, its not just a case of e-mailing around say 10 agencies, and getting a quote and that’s it.

No, you should pick a design agency that wants to take the time to understand your company, how its evolved into what it is today.

So, lets say you run a parts store, your company is based in Leckwith Cardiff, and you’ve been selling parts for lets say 50 years, why not make this central in the design of the website?

So, for example, why not sit down with the web developers and the marketing staff, and say, lets make the companies history central to the websites design?

Why not therefore:

–        Create a company timeline

–        Add to the companies logo how long the business has been trading, for example a date of when the company formed, and the current year

–        Add an about us page, which adds all the companies staff

Therefore in the brand guidelines, you may wish to stipulate, that you want to make clear that your company, based here in Wales, has been trading for a long time, so why not add this to your companies logo?

 

Standout

Create a set of brand guidelines, and a website which allows your business to be different, this way you will be creating a more unique brand.

For example, if your web designers use a bright colour, such as a bright shade of orange, with a unique PHP design and a bespoke logo, your business will standout.

Can you hire an agency in Cardiff that takes care of brand guidelines, designs a website and also takes care of your businesses online marketing?

Yes, here at Top Space, many companies in Wales hire us to build a website, improve the companies seo, design a logo, write content marketing every month, so we can offer a complete marketing solution.

If of course you just want a company website built, then our web designers and developers can build a brilliant website for your company.