Anytime you come into contact with an organization, you’re experiencing a brand moment. The wrapping for your fast food cheeseburger? Branding. The voice on the other end of the phone at Verizon or AT&T? Branding. The gargantuan displays at retail stores? Branding.

And coming from someone who works with a myriad of brands, I’ve found that the visual side of branding comes down to three key components: logos, colors and fonts. These three elements are the foundation of a brand and are key in creating a recognizable identity for your product. In this case, your product is your school or district.

Finding and organizing these elements will be a game changer for maintaining consistency with all of your communications. You want your patrons to recognize your information immediately, develop a trust for the source, and to feel a sense of pride and connection with your brand. This all starts with you creating your visual identity and then being consistent with the usage of those elements. At the bottom of this post, we’ll dive into a short checklist to help you get organized and/or get started.

For a lot of you, pieces of your brand have already been decided. This is okay! The goal of this branding journey is not for you to reinvent the wheel. The goal should be to recognize your key branding elements, organize them, and then create a culture of consistency surrounding those elements. 

And when it comes to daily application, you have to dig into the details, otherwise you’ll find your self creating and recreating elements all of the time. Organization pays off in the long run.

For example, we don’t just need a logo, but to have a few variations of clear and versatile file types to be able to apply that logo whenever and wherever. We don’t just need colors, we need accurate color information so that it views the same across all platforms and usage. We don’t just need a font, but an identifiable communicator that aids and organizes your messaging.

If it feels a little overwhelming, don’t worry about it — it’s all in the checklist, right here!

Need help identifying or developing brand elements for your school district? We can help with that — connect with CESO Communications today!