How to Create a Unique Visual Identity for Your Blog

Your blog’s visual identity plays an important role in your brand. It is a visual consistency that immediately tells your reader who wrote the post or pinned the pin. This is specifically important for visual marketing platforms like Pinterest and Instagram.

In this post, I will discuss the elements of your brand’s visual identity and how they should be used as part of your blog’s branding. These elements will make all of your marketing efforts more cohesive and much more effective for your blog.

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What is Visual Identity and Why Does it Matter?

Last week, I wrote a blog post about finding your blog’s perfect brand identity. While your brand identity encompasses all of the elements that make up your branding, visual identity only includes the visual elements of your blog’s branding.

If you remember, last week we defined branding as your business’s reputation, or in the words of Jeff Bezos, “what people think about you when you aren’t in the room.” All of your visual elements are part of your brand and play a huge role in brand recognition and marketing.

Much of today’s marketing is very visual. It is very common for brands to use visual marketing campaigns on social media, Pinterest, television ads, and on their websites. Today, most of us receive the majority of our marketing messages via our smartphones.

This is a trend that is going to continue to increase for the foreseeable future. Embrace it. Start developing a visual identity for your blog today!

The following elements are the most common and important parts of your visual identity. Be sure to consider each very carefully when developing or improving your blog’s branding.

Logo

Logos are iconic with some of the world’s largest brands. If I mention Nike, Coca-Cola, or Ford, you can picture those logos, can’t you? They are known worldwide. When you create your brand’s logo, this is the kind of visual brand recognition that you are going for.

Most of us are not graphic artists. It’s okay to start with a basic DIY logo for your blog, but as you gain readers, you should really consult with and hire a graphic designer to help you make the best logo for your brand.

I recommend this because graphic designers understand how the eye (and mind behind it) view graphics. An experienced graphic designer understands the psychology of design and you really want that to translate into your brand.

If you can’t afford a designer, use Canva or Google Drawings, part of the Google Docs suite, to create a logo on your own. You can always update to better branding later, but you will need a logo to represent your brand from day one.

Submark Logo

Your submark logo is essentially the same as a crest, watermark, or emblem. It is a smaller version of your logo that is easy to use on all of your brand’s communications. It takes elements from your brand’s logo to establish a visual identity on a much smaller scale.

If you decide to hire a graphic designer, be sure to discuss this element as part of your graphics package. You will need these elements designed together, so it is best if they are created at the same time.

If you can’t afford a designer or don’t have design skills, keep it simple. Stick with your initials or the first letter of your brand and basic shapes. Once again, create the submark at the same time you create your logo to make the job easier and to keep it all cohesive.

Favicon Icon

When you visit a website, you will often notice an icon to the left of the page’s name in the tab of your browser. This is called a favicon or site icon. If the submark logo is the abbreviated version of your logo, the favicon is the abbreviated version of your submark logo.

In most cases, it is a simple letter or easy to recognize symbol so you can easily identify which page is loaded on each tab. Although small, it should be an element of your brand’s visual identity.

Once again, include this in your branding package and have it created or create it at the same time as the logo and submark.

Tagline and Keywords

Not all blogs need a tagline. When I started JackieIson.com, it was intended to be the website of my professional writing portfolio. At the time, my tagline was my job title; Blogger and Freelance Writer. Over time, the blog kind of evolved on its own and I removed the tagline in favor of my name as my brand.

This allows me to blog about blogging, which really is a passion for me. It also gives me the freedom to change the theme of my blog, if I need to in the future.

However, if you have a niche-specific blog title, a Tagline isn’t a bad idea. Instead of your blog being “The Crafty Crafter,” it can be “The Crafty Crafter: Upcycling at its Best!” It gives you an idea of what the blog is all about and helps you narrow your niche. That will gain a more targeted audience.

Your tagline can also be incorporated into your logo or not, that is your choice. Discuss this will your graphic designer and ask what he or she recommends.

Page Design Elements

Each piece of your page should be specific to the visual identity of your brand. Your headers, background patterns, and textures play an important role in branding and connect your brand across multiple platforms. The following elements are a few you may wish to consider when branding your blog.

Patterns and Textures

You can use patterns and textures to break up monotonous text and headings or for the background of buttons or labels on your blog. These have a wide variety of uses and are worth looking into.

If you have a busy blog, you can use bland, simple patterns and textures to tone down the page down. However, if you have a text-based blog, the texture and patterns can add visual interest to prevent the page from appearing boring and break up text strategically, making it easier to read.

Be sure to include these in your social media campaigns as well. This will tie together all of your platforms in one neat little, branded package.

Headers

Your page header is as important to your blog as your logo. It should carry over from one page to the next and should include your visual identity’s design elements, like patterns, textures, and possibly your logo.

Each theme has a specified size for the header, so check out the website for your WordPress theme to find out what the recommended size for your header is and use that as a guide for creating your header.

You can easily create your header in Canva for free. Don’t stress about it, just play around with your brand’s design elements until you are satisfied. Just keep in mind this is above the fold on every page of your blog, so it is important that you brand it properly.

Fonts and Typeface

I’m sure that most of you have played around with fonts before. I remember that this was a big deal around the sixth grade for myself. You wanted to use a font that was cute, pretty, or showcased your personality, and your teacher hated it. As bloggers though, fonts and typeface play an important role in branding.

First, you need to know that a font is a file that you download or use within software to change your text, whereas the typeface is the unique combination of fonts and other elements of the text. Rosanna of “By Rosanna” explained it best when she compared the food of a meal to the fonts and the meal itself to the typeface.

In this blog post, she also points out that each font has its own unique personality. It is important that you match the personality of your font with your brand. You can combine multiple fonts to establish a typeface or use specific fonts for various areas of text.

However, I will caution that you should consider readability above all else. If your reader can’t read the text, he or she won’t immediately understand what it says and may not click through to your blog or stick around once they get there.

Also, choose a maximum of three fonts to use in all of your blog marketing communications and on the blog itself. Having too many fonts will take away from your blog, so use them wisely.

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Color Palette

Your color palette is probably the most important element of your brand’s visual identity. You will use your color palette throughout your blog and on every single social media post you make, so it is important to choose wisely to convey the right message.

The following are some of the things you should consider when choosing a color palette.

Color Psychology

In a previous post, I briefly mentioned color psychology, so you may already be familiar with this topic. Essentially, it means that each of us has specific cultural and visual concepts behind every color, which means that each color has a mood and creates an impression.

In general, warmer colors (reds, yellows, and oranges) tend to get more engagement for social media posts. Green makes you think about finances, money, and wealth while blue suggests trustworthiness. This is both a personal and cultural phenomenon.

Consider the colors of your brand very carefully as they will have a huge impact on your blog. You want to choose something that conveys the emotions behind your brand via your color choice.

To learn more, check out this CoSchedule post on colors. It’s probably a lot more than you will ever need for your blog, but they go into a significant amount of detail about color psychology as it applies to a visual identity.

Main Colors

You want to choose two main colors for your color palette. These colors are the primary colors that you will use in your marketing messages. For example, on this blog, my primary colors are a dusty peachy pink and a warm dark grey.

These tones contrast well enough that I can almost interchangeably use one for a background and the other for text. This works great for most of my social media posts. Don’t be afraid to try out a few graphics and review their performance before you settle on your two most dominant colors.

Accent Colors

Accent colors can be a contrasting color or complementary color for your two primary colors. I only have one accent color for my blog, a nice greige. This keeps things simple for me. I tend to use it in background photos and sometimes for text when I want it to stand out from the rest of my text.

My blog posts are semi-professional in tone, so this works for me. However, if you have a more personal brand, you may wish to choose bright or bold colors as your accents. This is fun and can be great for your brand.

Neutrals

Every blog needs complementary neutral shades, one light, and one dark. One should be an “almost” white and the other an “almost” black that works well with your main colors without impacting your accents. For example, I use a light, putty greyish tone for my light and a very dark, cooler brown that is almost black.

I tend to use these for text in my graphics and on my blog. They work really well for my alternative Pinterest graphics when I really want the text to pop.

Photos and Images

Your stock photography or blog images should all be fairly similar in three aspects; Style, Color, and Content. This is important throughout all of your branded platforms, once again, because it creates brand continuity, your visual identity.

Style

I like the photos I use to be bright, clean, feminine, and a little magical. For example, the main graphic on this post is of a sunset image of fireflies (or maybe fairies?) in a jar. The image in my header is a dandelion whose seeds are being blown into the air by a breeze, suggesting to make a wish.

I am also a sucker for beach themes and sunsets because that is what I am working for. I am working for the freedom to enjoy more of these with my friends and family. Chances are that if you are here, you are too.

Color

Once again, color and tone play a role in my images. I always try to choose images on-brand. If an image is just too dark, certain colors, or really far off brand, I won’t use it.

It may have the style and the content I like but won’t work well for my brand. For example, greens and reds would really clash horribly with my current color palette, so I simply don’t use them (although they are two of my favorite colors.

Content

I try to keep the content of my graphics relevant to my post or theme. For example, my recent “IHOB” Campaign post, contained a stack of pancakes in the photo, but the photo was also on-brand via the color and style of the shot.

I like the content to reflect the style and vice versa, so that’s what I try to go for, although, I will occasionally try out something different from time-to-time to see if it works better.

Layout

One of the most surprising elements of your blog’s visual identity is the layout of the blog, as well as images on the blog. Choosing the appropriate theme for your blog is just the first part of your blog’s layout. It is up to you to control the elements of that layout.

On my home page, I start with my identity (header and logo). This immediately lets my reader know exactly who I am and what I do. Immediately following this, I have three “label” images across the top to take my reader to their most likely target destinations.

Then, I include the usual; a banner for my opt-in freebie, a featured post, popular posts, and branded labels at the bottom of the page. This layout is part of my brand and has a clean, optimistic feel.

It also includes my featured images, which also have their own branded layout. If you visit one of those posts, you will find a branded title Pinterest image with the same layout.

This layout is part of my branding and helps connect all of my blog posts and pages together, as well as my social media. I also include my Jackie Ison brand board from Pinterest on the homepage. As you can tell, there is a branded layout on all of the pins that display. That is no coincidence. It’s clear branding.

Creating Your Visual Identity

Now that you better understand the elements of your brand’s visual identity, I hope that you can go out there and make some great branding choices for your blog.

Do you have any branding advice? Please share that with us in the comments below.

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