The visual identity of your website should not be neglected since it represents the basis of your online communication. The graphic charter allows you to stand out from other brands, to recognize you immediately and to attract potential customers. It can evolve at the same time as your company, as shown by the giants Microsoft or Apple who regularly rework their visual identityWith imagination and a lot of perseverance, it is possible to develop your own aesthetic, although most companies prefer to work with graphic design agencies to help them develop a coherent style.
What is the graphic charter of a website?
A brand style guide defines a company's visual identity online, as well as across all communication materials such as business cards, envelopes, and posters. It involves creating a logo, a typeface, and selecting colors and graphic elements. Before developing your visual identity, it's crucial to define your values and analyze the image you want to project to the world: maintain consistency throughout your communication strategy. Your logo should be instantly recognizable, like Google's, which constantly evolves while remaining true to its brand guidelines. Despite its simplicity, it's iconic and now adapts to the Material Design developed by Google.
How to define your graphic charter?
Developing your graphic charter is a very personal step. There is no miracle recipe but these few non-exhaustive tips can help you in the creation of your visual.
- Define your guideline : the graphic charter forms the guideline of your visual identity, so it is not to be taken lightly. It is not enough to go fishing for inspiration, it must be personalized and thought out. The best is still to develop mood boards, on Pinterest in particular, where you will be able to list your inspirations and values. Also determine the emotions that your company carries and associate them with colors that will stimulate the association of ideas among your visitors. Finally, follow the path of "modular design" mentioned by Max Elbling which consists of choosing 5 shapes, ten colors and three typographies in order to create the identity of a company.
- Tackling Logo Design : a logo must be simple, but effective since it is the support of your company's communication. It can be found on the website, business cards, invoices, press releases, and even in the browser's address bar thanks to the 1&1 Favicon Generator For example, the logo must be in a format that can be adapted to any medium. The best thing to do is still to contact a professional who will design a logo according to your budget and requirements, or to use participatory design sites such as Creads.fr.
- Integration of the graphic charter : once the graphic charter is ready, it will be necessary to adapt it to your website by integrating logo, graphics, key characters and dominant colors. This allows you to make your page pretty, user-friendly, and recognizable from the first glance. Finally, remember to remain consistent and keep the same visual identity on the web and in paper format.
To properly define the graphic charter, it is necessary to have proven skills in web design. The implementation of my two sites required a huge amount of work at this level. The most difficult thing was having to choose the best logo after launching an external consultation for its creation.