Creating a brand for your business

When I started on this journey to transform a fabulous hobby into an actual business, I consulted my father, who has owned and run his own businesses as long as I can remember.
His biggest and best suggestion so far has been to create a "brand" for myself.

When all things look similar and continuous, people see professionalism and that's what I was going for. Since Dad owns a printing company, and does this for a living, I knew he was on the right track. His graphic designer made my banner first, based on a rough draft I made on Microsoft Publisher. Here is my banner. (The actual banner is the same color as the postcards and business cards below.)



Wanting to use the banner image on my website, I cropped the image and loaded it on the front page. The web address on the banner had changed, and I felt having the entire bottom of the banner image would be redundant. You can see it here. www.fancyfacesbydiane.com.

Then I ordered some post cards, business cards and window advertisements to promote myself.

Post cards:


Business cards:


And obviously, my window ads:


Keeping the image all the same helps with the idea of creating a brand. (Same lettering, same image, same colors, etc.)
Eventually, I'll see fruits of this campaign.

Article - Creating A Brand

lOOKEN GOOD

Wow, Shannon! How exciting to be on the same track as you! Much further behind, but it looks like you thought through this the same way my dad was teaching me. Way cool! Thanks for sharing.

Obviously your dad knows his stuff.

it's not the most unique way of doing it, but using something like vistaprint and keeping consistent on your template themes helps with this. Can't say that I'm perfect in that regard, I like to switch things around too much, but I plaster my clown face on everything and make that my recognizable piece.

Diane and Shannon, thanks so much for the info. Don't know if I'll ever try to make a business out of this thing I love but if I try, I want to do it right! Info like this is invaluable as first impressions in a smaller town will make you or break you!