The Power of Brand Storytelling Through Design

Humans have an intimate relationship with stories for over hundreds of thousands of years. In the paleolithic, we used stories to kill time (there was no TV or Internet) and to share and remember our history before we invented letters. From Odyssey to Game of Thrones and Harry Potter franchises, our stories shaped our society and allowed to share data in a way specially designed to raise emotions.

Brand storytelling is about evoking emotional reactions, while incorporating facts about a company. We’re past the point of traditional marketing – Our product is the best! Nowadays, customers want to know how a product is made, who are its makers, and what makes it best. Here’s how you can tell a story about your brand through design.

Advertising and storytelling

Turning a story into a branding tool requires it to be narrated in an authentic and transparent way. It needs a core belief (the moral of a story) and it should help the audience reach the happy ending they were waiting for. The more powerful the moral of the story, the stronger its impact will be, and in turn, the better the relationship between a customer and brand will be.

Most brands create user personas to help them better understand who those people that purchase their products are. If you do this, you will understand not only who buys from you, but also who doesn’t – and find strategies to reach those people.

The key goal of advertising it to attract long-term attention from the audience. Another goal is to engage consumers on a more personal level. You need to make them feel at home with your brand, and try to create a relationship that enriches their decision of choosing you.

To brand, is to tell a story

Branding is an idea and image that people have of a company, or its products and services. Storytelling affects your audience through binding the image and the idea together. Create a story to get people talking about your brand. With a good story, your audience moves from admiring to speaking highly of your company, buying and believing in you.

Customers value products more, and thus pay more, if the information about it is presented in the form of a story. Shifting products via storytelling is one path towards growth, but it’s only one part of this story. Future-facing companies put their workers and customers – the people – as their core value, in order to walk forward together. For instance, you can use personalized payroll cards for your employees – to tell a story about your brand while putting your workers first.

People remember great designs and stories. Branding is completed only when a business’s name, visuals and logo create a combination of physical and emotional reactions which evoke feelings of how a business should make them feel.

Look and feel

Looks and feels are all about deciding how you want to speak your story – with inspirational photos, videos, keywords and colors that evoke some feelings about your brand. This will in turn streamline the communication between you and the designer when designing your brand is in question. Just take care with references of symbols and colors that you choose to evoke within your design. You don’t want to miss out on a potential client.

You can then work with a designer to continuously carry your brand’s storytelling through all of your designs. Audiences like continuity. Powerful, consistent visuals create a feeling in individuals that a brand has completed its research for presenting itself with a particular image and standard that matches their story.

Discover your story

What story to tell? Remember what made you want to start your business in the first place. Insert this passion into your story. Create a list of what you value most and then turn that into your mission statement. It should encompass the following:

• Your audience

• Your industry

• Your location

• What makes you different

• Your product/service

• Your values

While a mission statement doesn’t have to have all of this, such categories will serve you as a stepping stone into formulating your story.

In this modern world, there comes a time to return to the values of old – telling a story. You know your story. And you know your business. Now use this knowledge to design a story about your brand. One that will be remembered, and which will evoke positive feelings in your customers. Isn’t this the reason why you started your business in the first place?