What’s a brand?

A brand is the perception of a company.

Your brand is what people think of when they think about you. It’s your reputation. It’s influenced by your values, your products, your marketing, your customer service. It’s shaped by magazine articles about you, how your stores smell inside, and what your neighbor’s mom said about you at the grocery store. And yes, it includes your logo, website, and business cards. Everything people encounter when they interact with your company adds to their perception of you: your brand. 

“Branding” is the effort to influence this perception. You can’t control what your neighbor’s mom might say. But you can do your best to make the right impression.

What’s an identity?

An identity is a brand’s set of visual elements.

A subset of a brand is the brand identity (also called corporate identity or identity system). The key word is identity. Just like with people, checking an ID proves you’re you and not somebody else. The tangible elements you can see when a company communicates with you make up its identity design:

Logo, colors, fonts, icons, letterhead, business cards, envelopes, websites, packaging, uniforms, office aesthetics, promotional swag, social media, email blasts, signage, messaging

A brand style guide is a document that records this identity. It keeps everyone on the right track, using the right fonts, colors, and more.

What’s a logo?

A logo is a mark that represents a company.

Of all the visual parts that make up your brand identity, your logo is the strongest point of recognition. It doesn’t need to tell the world everything you do. It’s a tag or identifier. A red bullseye doesn’t reveal all the clothing, housewares, and food you can buy at Target. But it works as a quick mental trigger for everything you’ve learned about Target over time. And if you knew absolutely nothing about Target, you could still make some guesses about the style and personality of the company by looking at the logo.