Brand Strategy

Brand Components

A brand system has three distinct layers: visual identity, verbal identity, and experiential identity. Each serves a different purpose, and together they create the full picture of how people perceive your organisation.

10 min read

TL;DR

Visual identity is what people see — logos, colours, typography. Verbal identity is what people read and hear — tone, messaging, naming. Experiential identity is what people feel — service quality, spatial design, digital interactions. A complete brand system addresses all three.

Visual identity

The visual layer is what most people think of when they hear "branding." It's the most visible, but it only works when it's rooted in strategy. A beautiful logo attached to the wrong positioning is just decoration.

Logo System

Primary mark, secondary marks, icon variants, clear space rules, and minimum sizes. A flexible system, not a single file.

Colour Palette

Primary, secondary, and accent colours with clear hierarchies. Hex, RGB, CMYK, and Pantone values for every application context.

Typography

Heading and body typefaces, size scales, weight usage, and line height rules. How type creates hierarchy and personality.

Photography Style

Composition preferences, colour grading direction, subject matter guidelines. What your imagery should feel like, not just look like.

Graphic Elements

Patterns, textures, icons, dividers, and supporting graphics. The toolkit that adds depth and recognition beyond the logo.

Layout & Grid

Spacing systems, grid structures, and composition rules. How visual elements are arranged to create consistency across formats.

Verbal identity

How you sound is as distinctive as how you look. Verbal identity covers the words, tone, and messaging frameworks that make your brand recognisable even without the logo.

Think about brands you know well. You could probably identify their writing style in a lineup. That's not an accident — it's a verbal identity system at work.

Tone of Voice

The personality expressed through language. Are you formal or conversational? Authoritative or approachable? This guides every piece of copy.

Key Messages

The core narratives your brand returns to — your origin story, your differentiators, your value propositions. Consistent without being repetitive.

Naming & Terminology

What you call your products, services, and internal initiatives. Consistent naming builds recognition; inconsistent naming creates confusion.

Taglines & Straplines

Short, memorable phrases that capture brand essence. Not always necessary, but powerful when done well and used consistently.

Experiential identity

The experiential layer is the hardest to design and the most impactful. It's what people actually feel when they interact with your brand — the speed of your website, the warmth of your receptionist, the clarity of your onboarding process.

This is where brand promise meets brand reality. You can have a beautiful visual identity and compelling messaging, but if the experience contradicts them, trust evaporates.

Experiential identity includes digital interactions (website, app, email), physical spaces (offices, retail, events), service design (how customers are treated at every stage), and sensory elements like sound, scent, and texture where applicable.

How they work together

The three layers reinforce each other. Your visual identity creates recognition, your verbal identity builds understanding, and your experiential identity earns trust. When they're aligned, people don't just know your brand — they feel it.

When they're misaligned, you get cognitive dissonance. A premium visual identity paired with a budget experience. Warm, friendly copy on a website that takes ten seconds to load. Professional messaging from a team that never follows up.

A brand guidelines document should address all three layers, not just the visual one. That's the difference between a style guide and a brand system.

My Approach

How I build brand systems

I don't deliver logos — I deliver systems. Every brand project starts with strategy and ends with a toolkit your team can actually use across all three identity layers.

Discovery

Audit existing touchpoints across all three layers. Identify gaps between what you say and what people experience.

Strategy

Define the visual direction, verbal framework, and experience principles that will bring the brand strategy to life consistently.

Delivery

A complete brand system document with assets, templates, and guidelines your team can implement without needing a designer on call.

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