Branding 101 — How to create a brand strategy and visual identity for your small business (case study from a branding studio)
Table of contents
Step 1—Research and positioning
Step 2—Brand strategy
Step 3—Visual brand identity
Why you don’t need to invest in pro branding when you’re just starting
When you’re starting out, hiring a professional branding agency might not be the best idea. Early in your business journey, tweaks and pivots are inevitable, and investing thousands in branding too soon can leave you with something quickly outdated. Learning the basics of branding yourself is a more sustainable choice, giving you the flexibility to adapt without repeatedly hiring professionals.
In this blog, I guide you through the branding process and help you DIY your brand in a way that’s thoughtful, strategic, and sustainable.
I’ll be using Glowness to illustrate each step. Glowness is a UK-based skincare brand launching in 2025. I’ll walk you through how I built its brand strategy and visual identity over at my branding practice, Kyau Studio—and how you can apply these principles to your own small business.
Let’s dive in.
Step 1: Research and Positioning
The first step in the branding process is research. Before diving into strategy or visuals, you need to understand your market from a branding perspective and define your positioning.
Your positioning = the unique place your brand will occupy in the market. Your positioning should:
Align with the preferences and needs of your target audience.
Differentiate your brand from competitors.
Reflect your brand’s core essence, values, and mission.
Number 1 and 2 involve analyzing competitors, understanding your target audience, and identifying gaps in your niche. We’ll dive into Number 3 in the next step.
1.1 Understand Your Target Audience
To connect with your audience, you need to know who they are. This involves gathering insights about their:
Demographics: Age, gender, location, income level.
Psychographics: Values, interests, lifestyle, buying behavior.
Preferences: What kind of brands they are drawn to and why.
For my clients, I create a few buyer personas to bring their ideal customers to life. This involves imagining a day in the life of their target audience, understanding their pain points, and figuring out what solutions they’re looking for. When you have a clearer idea of who exactly you’re talking to, it’s easier to create visuals and messaging specifically for them.
Here is a simplified version of some buyer personas I created for Glowness during the research phase:
Buyer personas for Glowness, a UK-based skincare brand launching in 2025, by Kyau Studio.
1.2 Analyze Your Competitors
Research your competitors to uncover:
Strengths and weaknesses: What they’re doing well and where they’re falling short based on what you’ve noticed about your target audience.
Are they doing something exceptionally well that your target audience responds really well to?
Are they missing something in their visuals, messaging and overall approach that could make them more appealing?
Visual identity: Their logo, color palette, typography, and overall aesthetic.
What seems to be universal in your industry?
What are the “visual rules” of your industry you want to comply with?
Is there an opportunity to stand out and do something different?
Messaging: Their tone of voice, values and the key messages they communicate.
Once you’ve analysed 3-5 competitors, you’ll have a list of elements you can apply to make sure your brand stands out, resonates with your ideal customer and communicates the right message through its visuals and messaging.
For example, here’s the visual identity analysis I did for one of Glowness’ competitors, including a recommendation for Glowness.
Competitor visual identity analysis for Glowness, a UK-based skincare brand launching in 2025, by Kyau Studio.
Step 2: Brand Strategy
Once the research is complete, it’s time to build the brand strategy. This phase involves piecing together all the research to answer key questions:
How will the brand stand out from competitors?
How will it appeal to the target audience?
How will it embody the brand’s essence, values and mission?
2.1 Elements of a Brand Strategy
A strong brand strategy includes, at the very least, the following components:
Target audience definition: A clear and detailed profile of your ideal customer.
Brand values: The core principles your brand stands for.
What are the values your brand genuinely stands for? Its moral compass?
Brand pillars: The tangible, unique value you deliver to your customers.
What are the elements that translate your values into tangible benefits for your customers?
Brand personality: The elements that define your brand’s character.
Imagine how your brand would be if it was a human being—the conversations it would enjoy having, its sense of humour, hobbies etc…
Tone of voice: How your brand communicates with its audience.
Think about how your brand will express itself in as much detail as possible: sentence structures (short, clear, complex?), figurative language etc…
Brand story: Including your mission, vision, promise, tagline, and founder’s story.
Mission: Core purpose and reason for existing.
Vision: Long-term aspirations and desired impact.
Promise: Short-term, specific commitment to your customers.
Tagline: Condense the essence of your brand into a few memorable words.
Founder’s story: A consistent and strategic narrative that links business and founder.
Positioning statement: A concise summary of what sets your brand apart.
After the research phase, defining your target audience should be easy. The other elements of your brand strategy should be informed by the research phase to be relevant in the context of your market, but also require lots of introspection to reflect your brand’s core essence.
2.2 My favorite brand strategy tool
One tool I love to use is brand archetypes. Brand archetypes are 12 brand profiles created by Psychiatrist Carl Jung. They’re based on extensive research on how humans connect with brands.
I use brand archetypes to solidify the brand’s personality and ground it within scientific research, making sure it resonates with the end customer.
By identifying a mix of 2-3 archetypes that align with your brand’s essence, you can guide your visual and messaging decisions. For example, colors, typography, and tone of voice can all be inspired by the traits of your chosen archetypes.
I’ll make a blog post on this soon 🫶🏽.
Here’s a simplified version of the brand archetype mix for Glowness:
Archetypal mix for Glowness, a UK-based skincare brand launching in 2025, by Kyau Studio.
Step 3: Visual Brand Identity
With a clear strategy in place, it’s time to translate it into visuals. The goal is to create a cohesive visual brand identity that communicates your strategy effectively.
3.1 Start with a Mood Board
A mood board serves as the bridge between strategy and visuals. It’s a curated collection of:
Typography styles
Color inspirations
Photography examples
Textures and patterns
Your mood board should capture the essence of your brand and act as a reference point for creating visual elements.
Below is the mood board in the creative direction chosen by the Glowness team:
Mood board for Glowness, a UK-based skincare brand launching in 2025, by Kyau Studio.
3.2 Build Your Visual Identity System
A complete visual identity system includes:
Logo and Variations:
Primary logo (full version)
Secondary logo (a more concise version)
Brand marks or logo marks (optional symbols or icons)
Below are the logo and marks I developed for Glowness.
Don’t worry, you’re not expected to know how to create designer-level visuals when you’re just starting. For example, in The Streamlined Guide to Branding & Social Media Marketing, I break down step-by-step how to design your brand with beginner-friendly techniques, using simple platforms like Canva or even presentation platforms like Keynote or PowerPoint.
However the goal here is to illustrate this blog with a real-life example so you can see exactly what I’m talking about.
Logos & marks for Glowness, a UK-based skincare brand launching in 2025, by Kyau Studio.
Color Palette: A harmonious selection of colors that reflects your brand’s personality.
Glowness example:
Typography: Font pairings for headlines, subheadings, and body text.
Glowness example:
Photography Direction: Guidelines for the type of imagery that aligns with your brand.
Glowness example:
3.3 Compile Your Brand Board
For client projects, I document all elements in brand guidelines—a reference manual for maintaining consistency across all brand touchpoints.
However, this is too advanced if you’re just beginning. Instead, you can simply put together a brand board—a one-pager summarising the visual elements of your brand.
This ensures that whether you’re creating a social media post, packaging design, or website, your brand looks and feels cohesive.
Here’s the brand board I guide you to create in The Streamlined Guide to Branding & Social Media Marketing:
Why DIY Branding is the smart choice for small business owners
Investing in professional branding too early can be a costly mistake for small business owners. Your business will evolve, and your brand needs the flexibility to grow with it. By learning the branding process, you can:
Make strategic changes as your business develops.
Save thousands of dollars by delaying professional help until it’s truly needed.
Build a brand that feels authentic and aligned with your vision.
That’s exactly why I created The Streamlined Guide to Branding and Social Media Marketing. It’s designed to bridge the gap between needing a professional and going in completely blind. The guide simplifies the same processes used by agencies, so you can create a market-ready brand for your small business with:
Step-by-step guidance
Cheat sheets & resources
Timeless marketing that sells
AI-powered support
Let’s break it down:
Step-by-step guidance: From brand strategy to visual identity to marketing activation, the guide walks you through each step with easy-to-implement exercises, prompts, and real-life examples from multiple industries.
Cheat sheets & resources: Including design guidance, typography advice, free/affordable design resources, and where to conduct market research online.
Timeless marketing: so you can learn to activate your brand with tried-and-true, foundational marketing principles such as buyer psychology, buyer types, the buyer journey, the rule of seven, how to create content that converts, and more.
AI-powered support: The guide comes with Emma, your pocket branding and marketing assistant, here to help you brainstorm, work through each step, and implement faster.
Conclusion
By focusing on the foundational elements of each brand-building step—research, strategy, and visuals—you can build a brand that grows with your business and resonates with your audience. The key is to take a strategic approach that balances authenticity and practicality.
If you’re ready to take control of your branding journey without breaking the bank, check out The Streamlined Guide to Branding & Social Media Marketing. This guide provides step-by-step instructions, cheat sheets, and an AI assistant to make the process manageable and effective. From crafting your brand story to activating your strategy with timeless marketing principles, this guide has everything you need to succeed.
Start small, stay consistent, and watch your efforts grow into a brand that not only stands out but truly connects with your audience.
Do you feel less intimidated to build your own brand? I’d love to hear about it—leave a comment below and let’s chat!
