Lesson 5: Design your website to reflect your brand
In the last lesson we learned that your website should reflect your company’s brand. This means that the overall look and feel of your website should match your brand colors, fonts, and logo in order to give your business or non-profit a consistent and recognizable identity.
In this lesson, we’ll provide you with some resources and then do an activity to help you make design choices that are best for your brand.
COURSE CALLBACK
In Course 1 we learned that your brand is all the ways a customer experiences your company and how they feel and think about your company as a result. Brands are important because they drive differentiation, establish trust through consistency, and build customer loyalty.
Your website should look how your brand feels
Colors, images, and fonts can do a lot to project your brand personality. For example, is your brand bold and professional? You could use bold fonts and a daring accent color throughout your site.
Or, is your brand airy and whimsical? You could use pretty pastels and sprinkle in a script typeface (a fluid, handwriting-like font) to communicate this. Or, is your brand austere and bright? Ample whitespace and a sans serif font could reflect this on your website.
Want to dive deeper into this topic? We’ve collected a few resources below on how to choose colors, images, and fonts that reflect your brand. Read through them at your own pacing, and prioritize whatever seems most useful for where you’re at.
A beginners guide to visual brand design
How to choose brand colors for your website
Let’s walk through how to select and implement brand colors on your site.
Font and typography basics for online businesses
Fonts can be a little confusing, let’s go over the basics!
Branding website, blog, and social media images
Learn ten easy ways to brand your digital properties.
A beginner’s guide to branding your business
Discover everything you need to brand your business.
Activity: Brainstorm your visual brand
Let’s put these principles into action. Pull out that handy-dandy “Evaluate your brand” worksheet you developed in Course 1 and review the qualities that you want people to associate with your brand. Feel free to add to this list:
Imagine your business or non-profit was a person. What are the top 10 words you would use to describe this person? Write them down.
Next, brainstorm some key aspects of your visual brand through answering the following questions. You can jot down your notes at the bottom of your “Evaluate your brand” worksheet:
- What colors and hues would best reflect your brand personality AND complement your logo?
- What type of imagery would best reflect your brand personality? What story do you want to tell with your brand and what images could work together to tell that story?
- What fonts would best reflect your brand personality AND still be easy to read on your website? (Note: Readability is very important in picking an effective font. If you find a fun font that captures your personality but is a little busy, consider using it for headers or titles on your site, and then use a simpler font for the main text.)
NEED SOME HELP?
If you need some inspiration to help you answer these questions, you can browse GoDaddy’s templates here for examples of different looks.
You’ve got a fabulous business, and now you have some ideas of how to translate your vision into a stunning visual brand. Now, you’re ready for the really good stuff—building your website! We can hardly wait, so quick! Click on to the next lesson.