Our Best Tips for Keeping Your Brand Magic Consistent
- Stephanie Audette Connor
- Jul 18
- 5 min read
Ensuring your business shows up with the same magic everywhere right requires organization, focus, and commitment—but it’s well worth the trouble. Brand consistency has the potential to increase a business’s revenue by 10–20%.
If you have established branding but are finding it tricky to keep a consistent look and message across your channels, this post is for you. Get ready to learn our favorite tricks for becoming a distinctive brand that people recognize and remember!
First, let’s talk about why consistency matters.
Think about how many brands pass by your eyeballs each and every day. If you kept count, you’d probably be in triple digits by lunchtime!
With so much content coming at your audience, the best way to make an impression is to become a regular presence, one they can quickly and easily recognize whether they pass a van on the road or scroll by your social post. And, of course, when you stay top-of-mind for potential customers and have demonstrated your value, you’re more likely to be the solution they choose when they’re ready to book or buy.
Keep Your Brand Identity Guide Close
When you work with a professional designer, be sure to request a Brand Identity Guide that captures all the details you need to use your branding effectively. At awen & co, we always provide a helpful guide that includes things like:
How to use your various logo lockups (and how NOT to use them)
Your brand colors (including the exact codes to use when selecting colors digitally or for physical products)
Your brand typography (the fonts to use for headlines, body copy, and more, and details like which character spacing to use)
Your brand patterns and icons
If you DIY your branding, check out this simple one-page template to capture your logo, colors, and fonts.
Something as simple as mixing up the shade of blue you need may accidentally chip away at your brand recognition. Meanwhile, when you use it properly color can increase brand recognition by 80%. Using your guide as a reference makes it effortless for everyone on your team to implement your branding correctly.
Set Up Your Brand Kit
Lots of businesses use Canva as their DIY design solution. If your brand uses this tool, we highly recommend setting up your CanvaPro Brand Kit. In your Brand Kit, you can upload logos, icons, patterns, and even photography.
When you open a new design or design template in Canva, your Brand Kit assets will automatically appear at the top of your font and color menus. You can select logos, icons, font styles, and more to add to your designs from the “Brand” section on the lefthand sidebar menu. If you have a team, you can even go to the Brand Controls screen and require that all designs use brand colors and fonts!
You can also set your styles in other programs, like Microsoft Word, to ensure that every document uses the right colors and fonts.
Choose DIY Templates Wisely
If you thought your Brand Kit would solve all of your problems, we’re sorry to be the bearers of bad news. The reality is there’s more to consistent branding in Canva than using the right colors and fonts!
You also want to choose templates that fit the vibe of your brand and align with your design. Resist the urge to create new social templates unless they use layouts and elements similar to your base designs.
For instance, if you have a brand that uses rounded corner buttons and other softer elements, you wouldn’t want to select a template that has a lot of 90-degree angles or harsh elements.
This is a quick list of a few things to look out for:
Line Quality (Does the template use a line weight and angles similar to your branding?)
Shapes Used (Do the shapes feel like they belong at the same party with your logo and other brand elements?)
Image and Icon Styles (Are the images sketchy, detailed, monochromatic, or multicolor?
Layout (Does the overall design feel similar to your other designs in terms of spacing, element placement, and typographic hierarchy?)
Define Your Photography Style
We encourage our clients to invest in custom brand photography whenever possible. Relying on stock or AI-generated images may seem like a simple solution, but these photos can negatively impact your brand perception by making you look unprofessional or too similar to other competitors.
“Investing in personal brand photography is crucial if you want to stand out from the crowd,” shares Tammy, owner of Tamara Merri Photography. “Good brand imagery makes your company feel more approachable and professional, which can help people easily picture what it would be like to work with you or use your products. That trust and confidence is the key to someone booking or buying!”
A professional photographer can help you define the style of your brand photography, ensuring that it supports the personality you’ve established with your designer. When you do need to add additional imagery—either day-in-the-life cell phone shots or images from Canva’s library—try to stay within the established aesthetic.
One of our favorite ways to keep photographic styling the same is to commit to a common filter if you choose to use photo filters within Canva or Instagram. Making similar editing adjustments can also contribute to a cohesive look.
Clarify Your Messaging
As designers, something we love to see is when our clients understand the importance of their messaging. Beyond visual consistency, it’s crucial to communicate in ways that communicate your value and capture your audience’s attention using your authentic brand voice.
You can do this independently or work with a professional to establish your brand voice and messaging guidelines. Some things to consider defining include your:
Mission Statement
Core Values Statement
Key Value Proposition
Brand Personality
Brand Voice (including tone and style guidelines)
“Think of foundational brand messaging elements like the words equivalent to getting your logo files, Pantone colors, and fonts from a graphic designer,” explains Copywriter and Brand Messaging Consultant Amanda Grazioli. “With you are clear on your visual identity and your messaging you can save time, maintain consistency that helps people recognize and remember you, and get greater ROI from all of your other marketing efforts!”
Are you feeling ready to share your brand’s magic with consistency?
We hope these tips inspire you to keep your brand looking, feeling, and sounding the same no matter where your audience finds you.
If you want help creating a visual brand worth remembering, we’d love to connect.
If you’re still in the early stages of your business journey, download our free mini Brand Identity Guide template to document your style until you're ready to work with a pro!