Five Things Fashion Can Teach Us About Branding

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Today’s guest post is from my dear friend Ursha! She will be sharing with you 5 tips as fashionistas that you can use in your branding.

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Branding is a frequently discussed topic in the online business industry, yet as a fashionista entrepreneur you might not quite understand it yet and struggle to make your branding communicate the right message in the right way to your audience.

Let me show you a few tips from the fashion industry and how to use them to understand the underlying principles that make up a good brand.

You will be able to apply these tips right away, and in the end, it will help you to make your brand look more stylish, polished, and consistent online. Let’s dive in!

Tip #1 All the pieces of your brand need to look like they belong to the same collection.

Fashion and branding are not that dissimilar. In fashion, all the pieces of a fashion collection including the jackets, shoes, purses, skirts, etc. need to combine well together. It is the same with brand identity.

All the pieces of your brand identity need to look like they belong to the same collection and need to be structured in a way so that each piece combines well with another.

Imagine if you would separate all the elements of your brand, the colors, the fonts, the patterns, etc. those elements should be able to combine and rearrange in several ways without your brand losing its visual consistency.

So when deciding on your brand’s colors, patterns, and fonts make sure they all look good together and can be used in several different combinations. Each combination should strengthen your brand’s visual identity.

Tip #2 Less is always more in fashion and branding

We hear the phrase “less is more” in the fashion and beauty industries often. But what about in branding?

In branding we often hear about the importance of a “clean design” but what exactly does this mean?

Does this mean that you shouldn’t combine too many styles together or that you shouldn’t combine too many colors together?

Well sometimes, but not necessarily. There are brands out there that use multicolor palettes and combine multiple styles together and get away with it just fine still looking very “clean”.

They are able to pull it off because they are using the “less is more” principle.

Imagine using the “less is more” principle when applying to your branding, simply means that in each separate manifestation of your brand, whether that be a logo, a post, a banner image, you need to resist the tendency to stuff all the elements of your branding into that one single piece.

Even though your brand might have a lot of different ways it visually expresses itself, you need to make sure you are not trying to show it all at once. Every time you are putting together an image post or creating a cover image, you need to make sure you are applying “less is more” principle and are choosing only a few elements to combine.

Tip #3 Never wear two dominant colors/patterns/styles in one look

In fashion, we often hear, “big eyes or red lips but never both at the same time.” Or “never wear two bright and highly saturated colors in one look.”

The same rules apply in branding.

Let’s say you have two very saturated and bright colors as part of your brand. Hot pink and yellow. When designing your post images, decide which one will be the dominant one for each post and use the other one just as a supporting color.

The secondary color should always be used to a lesser extent than the primary color.

Using colors in this way will make your brand’s visual identity appear more grounded and professional. That will subconsciously communicate to your ideal client that working with you will be a calm experience and that they can trust you because they are dealing with a professional.

On the contrary, when the colors of your brand are all over the place and scream too loudly that communicates to your ideal client that working with you will be a chaotic and overwhelming experience. The more visually grounded your branding is, the more trustworthy and professional you will appear.

This communication is happening on a deep subconscious level of course.

Tip #4 Use principle of “matching” to enhance brand consistency

Our brains are wired in a way that they always look for patterns, and they feel very uncomfortable if they can’t find those patterns.

When I talk about “patterns” here I mean similarities or repeating elements.

So to make someone subconsciously feel comfortable when engaging with your brand it is important to use the principle of “matching” in your brand identity.

Matching translated into the language used in branding would be called “consistency.”

You will achieve a brand consistency by visually “matching” pieces of your brand together.

In fashion, matching manifests as wearing red shoes and red lipstick in one look or wearing a gold belt with a purse that has a gold buckle.

In branding this would manifest as follows:

You would have a lined pattern in your branding, and it would appear in your posts as a background. Then that same pattern would appear in the skirt you are wearing in your banner image.

Matching elements serve the purpose of visually tying the pieces of your brand together.

Pick one to three elements that you will use in every single visual manifestation of your brand.

Maybe it is a gold overlay in your logo that you will then repeat as a gold background and then use in every single image post. Or perhaps it is a specific color and pattern combination that you will repeatedly use in all of your cover images and posts. The choice is yours.

Tip #5 Accessorize

Just as wearing the right accessories can make your outfit look more expensive, using detailed elements in your branding will make your brand look a higher quality.

Expressing an attention to detail communicates to your ideal client that you are a person who pays attention and cares. Again, this is happening at a subconscious level.

For example, let’s say that you have a dotted circle as part of your logo. Repeating that same element in a post in a different way will show that you are paying attention to details.

Or let’s say you use lines in your logo. Decorating your posts with those same type of lines will make you look like you are someone who notices small things and cares about good quality.

This will show that you are someone who is conscious about details and pays attention to small things.

I hope this post has helped you better understand branding.

Bio: I am Ursha! I’m very passionate about style and everything that relates to beauty. I feel in love with branding when I realized that branding is nothing else but a communication language with which we express who we are, what do we do and our unique value to our audience.

It was nice of you to stop by.

Until then, happy hiring, and best wishes with your business.

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