How To Brand Yourself As A Filmmaker (Part 2) – Visual Branding
By filmmaker and graphic designer, Ela Gancarz
Your visual style is usually the first thing noticed and remembered by the audience. Good design is a key competitive factor and a powerful tool in today’s business world. Do you know how to use it for your personal brand?
Visual branding is a unique “alphabet” of design elements (colors, shapes, fonts etc.) used to identify a company or a product and to communicate its qualities, values and “personality”. In the earlier article, we’ve outlined ways to find a cohesive, clear brand identity. Taking this into consideration, now you can start to build your visual brand.
First of all, you need to create your style guide. The goal is to find a consistent and cohesive picture of your brand. Be sure to choose well all the elements:
FONTS – Choose two or three fonts for your texts. In case of a movie title, you can use a customized font that will become a logo for your movie. Take a look at some famous examples:
COLORS – Corporate colors have always been strong signals. But remember, you need to choose only one or two colors that will become a consistent associative element for your visual branding. The world’s biggest brands usually use only ONE color, for example: Starbucks –green; Coca-Cola-red, Facebook-blue, Nikon-yellow.
COMPOSITION – If the set of colors and fonts is not sufficient, you can try to find a particular style for your graphic compositions. Unfortunately, what’s effective for a movie poster, may not work for a web page! However, you can always find something that will give a consistent direction in your graphic choices. For example, decide if you want your style to be asymmetric and dynamic or static? Multi-layered or very straight forward?
Although your visual style has to present the company’s identity, it should never over-communicate! Try to keep it simple. And make sure that the graphic elements are cohesive and included on ALL company materials. Your visual branding is a long-term creative solution that should be applied consequently in all forms of brand communications (websites, business cards, advertising etc.) Visual brand language is a key ingredient necessary to make your strategy authentic and convincing. With a set of simple durable rules you will keep control of your image!
About Ela Gancarz
Ela Gancarz is an art director and designer who specializes in branding, entertainment advertising, commercials and web strategies across a variety of media including film, photography and installation art. Find out more by visiting www.DeLightFilm.com
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Thanks for the comment – I like it when people leave comments. You have some good points. And yes, I’m from PA originally… Grew up in the middle, outside of Harrisburg. Hope you’re well!
Jason, great article! I might also add to keep it simple, and to know that different fonts and colors communicate different messages. I recently learned that you’re originally from here in Pennsylvania. May I ask what part? Here in Pittsburgh, there’s quite a bit of filmmaking taking place.