10 Things to Consider When Building a Consistent Visual Style That Speaks Your Brand

Your brand’s visual identity is the language that tells your audience who you are before they read a single word. A consistent visual style builds trust, creates recognition, and makes your brand feel professional and intentional.

Here are ten key considerations to help you shape your visual language:

1. Define Your Brand Personality

Start by clarifying your brand’s personality. Is it bold and energetic, minimal and refined, or warm and approachable? Your visual style should reflect these traits.

2. Understand Your Tone of Voice

How your brand communicates should shape how it looks. Is it professional, literal, factual, or funny? This is important to consider along with the brand personality. It helps guide design decisions.

3. Create a Cohesive Colour Palette

Choose a primary colour that represents your core identity, not just a colour you like but one that helps you stand out against a canvas of competitors. Then add complementary shades for flexibility. Limit your palette to three to five colours for consistency.

4. Select Fonts That Speak Your Voice

Typography sets the tone. Serif fonts (the ones with the tails) feel traditional and trustworthy, while sans-serif fonts (the blocky ones) convey a modern, simple, and bold style. Stick to one primary font for headings and one secondary font for body text to get started.

5. Establish an Art Direction

Photography and graphics should share a common tone: bright and vibrant, energetic and bold, natural and earthy, or muted and minimal. Define rules around what images and graphics you use and how these should be edited.

6. Develop a Brand Style Guide

Document your choices: colour codes, font names, logo usage, and imagery examples. This guide ensures people use your brand consistently across different places. Consistency makes your brand more impactful and memorable.

7. Apply Consistency Across All Channels

From your website to social media, email newsletters to printed materials, you should consistently use your colours, images, logo, and other visual elements. Consistency does not mean using the same thing everywhere but rather applying your visual elements the right way in the right places.

8. Consider Accessibility

Your visual style should be inclusive, especially in digital contexts. Ensure colour contrast allows readability and meets accessibility standards. Test your fonts to confirm that different sizes are legible across devices. This helps make your brand comfortable for customers to see and interact with.

9. Plan for Scalability

Your visual identity should work across different formats—digital, print, signage—and complement your business as it grows. Consider your goals for growth and make sure your visual identity captures this. This will future-proof your style and support your expansion.

10. Build in Flexibility Without Losing Recognition

Consistency does not mean rigidity. Setting brand guidelines is like defining a playbook, not a rulebook. Over time, as your business evolves, your brand will need to do the same. Having a strong and consistent visual identity makes this easier. Do not be afraid to experiment and update your visuals to stay current, but keep core elements intact so your audience still recognises you.

Why It Matters

A strong visual identity is not just about aesthetics, it is about communication. Think of your visual identity as the body language of your brand. It is less about what you say and more about how you look when you say it. When your visuals align with your brand values and purpose, they reinforce an emotional connection that turns casual viewers into loyal customers.