The purpose of branding is to draw in the proper clients and establish a connection of some kind with members of a target market. Since the ultimate purpose of branding is to elicit an emotional response, a basic understanding of human psychology is necessary to accomplish this consistently.
Build your identity by establishing brand-defining keywords and using these words to shape the company voice, tone and aesthetic. Check out the Fair Harvest Coffee logo. Even at a glance, the brand shows who they are and what they love most: coffee, social consciousness, the earth and the environment. Every great brand should be easily explained with a few solid descriptors.
Think of it this way: some of the most successful brands in the world got to where they are because of a sense of confidence, not because they were offering a particularly unique product or experience. Look at Lululemon. Plenty of fashion companies make athletic wear, but there’s something inherently confident about the way they go about it. They’re just different.
Your beliefs play a large role in upholding your brand identity and communicating it with others. But how you do this is up to you. Some brands take a more subtle approach, while others opt to weave values into a logo itself, like the “Eat Fresh, Eat Local” tagline in the Columbia Farmers Market logo above. Branding leads to new directions, too!