Most long-term business owners will end up changing something about their brand down the line. The times change, and to keep up, your brand has to change, too. If your branding is starting to feel stale, it’s probably time for a refresh. You might need an updated logo, a new way of communicating with customers, or a completely overhauled branding identity. When you’re navigating a rebrand, it’s important to make changes without completely losing sight of who you are as a brand. Making smaller, subtler changes is the key to successfully refreshing your brand—but what are some of the smaller, subtler changes that you can make? Let’s look at some simple ways to refresh your brand, and how they can make your brand look fresh without taking away from its original appeal.
Make a Subtle Change To Your Logo
The logo is a huge part of your brand’s overall identity, so it’s important to make changes that are dramatic enough to justify the change but still subtle enough that your customers can still recognize your brand from a glance. Most modern logos are streamlined and simple. They use sharp lines, abstract shapes, and simple colors, and steer clear of outdated features like shadows and embossing. The easiest way to update your logo is to flatten it, which means reducing its complexity by cutting down on the number of shapes and colors.
Swap Out the Fonts
Another simple way to refresh your brand is to swap out the typefaces you’re using. If the once-popular font you used to brand your business just doesn’t catch people’s attention the way it used to, it’s probably time to change it. You’ll want to pick out something that’s modern, versatile, and easy to read. Fonts like Droid Sans, Lato, Oswald, Ubuntu, April Fatface, and Josefina Slab fall into the above categories and are free for commercial use.
Expand Your Color Palette
If you want to modernize your brand, consider updating the color palette of your marketing materials. Most modern color palettes incorporate bright, vivid colors, like magenta, lime green, orange, and electric blue, but that doesn’t mean you need to saturate your brand to make it more relevant. You can update your brand by adding a complementary color to your existing color palette or by changing the hue or intensity of the colors that you’re already using. The best part about playing with your brand’s palette is that the changes you make don’t need to be permanent. You can include a flashy new color as part of a specific brand campaign and swap it out whenever the trends start to change.
