Are Your Telling the Right Story with Your Brand?

Last week I was at the North Pole (Sault Ste Marie, ON) visiting family. One afternoon during the stay, I discovered a BBQ joint about a 15 minute walk from my hotel and decided to head there for lunch.

I'm preparing to go into a logo design project for the VOpreneur brand, and as such, I've been paying A LOT of attention to logos and design lately. Walking through the downtown area to the BBQ spot was no different.

As I walked past all the businesses I was taking notes of design, fonts, colors, and other aspects of their branding. With each observation, hoping it would help me get closer to narrowing down what I want with the new VOpreneur logo.

It also got me to thinking about voice actors and how they brand themselves in general.

Through my private coaching I have the opportunity to look at a lot of websites. This has also been an enlightening experience over the years. Just like walking passed the businesses at the North Pole, I also take notes on websites. What I like, what I don't, what I'd change, etc.

From all this I want to offer you a few tips to consider when it comes to designing (or assessing) your own branding.

3 Tips for Better Branding

1) What Do You Do?
I walked by several businesses with really fun and creative names, but those names gave zero indication of what the business did. I couldn't discern their product or service offering, and to me, that's a fail.

Takeaway: If I go to your website right now, is it glaringly obvious immediately that you're a voice actor. A microphone picture, does not a voice over website make!

2) Fonts Matter
I'm a self admitted font nerd. I spend way too much time looking at fonts, but in my defense, I say it's because fonts matter. As I was looking at some of the different logos on buildings, there were more than a few that I couldn't easily determine the business name because of the fancy font choice. It may have been artistic and "pretty" but if it's not practical, does it really matter?

Takeaway: Have five outsiders look at your logo and website fonts. Are they easily legible? Script fonts can look great sometimes, but other times, they can be really difficult to read. 

3) Contrasting Colors
Some of the logos were difficult to read because of their color choices. Not all colors work together, and brights on brights or darks and darks can be difficult to read. That's why I tend to lean towards contrasting colors. It also provides a visual break (and cue) that can draw the eye to the content.

Takeaway: Is the text on your website, logo or business card easy to read? Have you had an outsider confirm this? Sometimes we're too close to our own stuff and we can't see the flaws. We need those outside opinions.

Make a Great First Impression

How you present your brand matters. It's a big part of your overall impression. Even though sites like Canva have made graphic design accessible to us all, that doesn't mean we're all graphic designers. 

I'm ok making graphics for social media. But when it comes to something important like the logo representing my brand, it's worth it to me to spend the money to consult with a professional.

I can't say that a good logo has ever directly earned a voice actor money, but I'd be willing to bet a bad logo (and overall poor brand presentation) will cost a voice actor money.

If your first impression is amateur, it's hard to sell yourself as a professional.