Branding and Design: Understanding the Basics

Last month, Founder University alum Scott Bair stopped by to share his thoughts on branding and design, from an early-stage founder's perspective. Now a Partner at Lunour Branding Studio, Scott helps thousands of founders up their game when it comes to understanding UI, logos, website design, marketing, and how they all need to come together to establish and grow a young business.

PART 1: BRANDS VS. BRANDING

Scott begins his talk by differentiating the concept of BRANDING from just the basic notion of having A BRAND. The term "brand" just refers to someone's gut feeling about your company or product. "Branding," on the other hand, is a process. Scott refers to it as "the unending act of perception management."

Marketing can best be described as an ongoing two-sided conversation between a company and its customers. A brand is both speaking to customers while also monitoring the public's reaction to whatever is being said, and consistently adjusting and updating the message in real-time based on that feedback.

It's a constant process by which your company differentiates itself from others in the same space, while offering a constantly-evolving but, at core, consistent message.

PART 2: FINDING YOUR BRAND

Next, Scott identified four questions that startup founders and teams should ask themselves in order to help understand their brand and define their communication strategy. These are:

1. Why are you motivated to build this company?
   • Startups are hard work... So what is the idea or the feeling that convinces you to keep pushing ahead, and how can you communicate that to your users and potential customers?
   • This speaks to your Purpose as a founder.
2. What does "happily ever after" look like for your users?
   • Rather than just thinking specifically about Product Market Fit (PMF) and the specifics of the service your providing, consider how you want users of your product to feel after using it, and how their lives are improved holistically after interacting with your company.
   • This speaks to your overall Vision.
3. How are you making your vision a reality?
   • What specific steps will you need to take in order to achieve this "happily ever after" outcome? 
   • This speaks to your Mission and it's important to share not just with your potential customers but your team as well.
4. What actions are rewarded vs. disciplined?
   • It's essential to set and clearly communicate your company's Values up front, and think with intention about the kind of company and corporate culture you hope to build.

PART 3: DESIGN BASICS: LOGOS & COLOR

Scott's talk then moved from the theoretical to the practical, delving into core visual and aesthetic concepts like choosing your company's colors and designing your first logo. For many new customers and users, a logo or home page will be their initial interaction with your brand, so it's important to make a strong first impression.

The key to a great logo is, in a word, SIMPLICITY. Too many companies try to pack too much information into a tiny space. A logo's job is not to communicate EVERYTHING that's significant about a company, but to serve as a, clean, direct, immediately recognizable and ever-present visual icon.

One important way that a logo communicates this info quickly and efficiently is through color. Different colors are emotionally coded, and have different implied cultural meanings, and it's important to consider how these align with your particular company or brand. For example, people tend to find blue a calming color that's often associated with trust and familiarity. This is why it's used for companies like banks, financial service providers, and hospitals; it's important for people to know that these brands are reliable and safe.

On the other hand, red is often considered a lively, energetic, and passionate color that's associated with activity and excitement. Hence it's often employed by retail stores (like Target) or fast food restaurants (like McDonald's).

PART 4: BASIC PRODUCT DESIGN TIPS

Finally, Scott shared some additional advice for designing your first website and promoting your product online.

He recommends starting with a lot of white space, even TOO MUCH white space, and adding only essential elements, simplifying wherever possible.

In general, the talk stresses the importance of being strategic in setting up your website, visually prioritizing the most significant items and calls to action while de-emphasizing everything else.

For example, during the onboarding process, it's important to both have a NEXT button allowing users to continue setting up their account, along with a BACK or DELETE button allowing them to reverse course or back out of the process. Obviously, you want to encourage people to complete the onbording process and become new users, so it makes sense to put a strong visual emphasis behind that NEXT button while doing whatever you can to make that BACK button fade into the background (while still making it relatively easy to find for a user in genuine need).

The key is not to assume that users will already know how to navigate a website and just lay out the options for them, but to personally guide them through the interaction, step-by-step.

Shoutout to Scott Bair for giving this excellent talk to our Cohort 10 members! Follow him on X @Scott_Bair for lots more great insights like these and don't forget to watch "This Week in Startups" Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 12 pm CT for lots more insightful and compelling interviews with CEOs and founders.