How The Digital Landscape Has Changed Branding

Branding was a lot simpler back in the day. You’d get your logo done, put it on a sign and away you go. Then came the internet and suddenly a logo wasn’t enough. The scope of what a brand could be broadened as businesses took to the web. Given that the early websites were quite basic but eventually there came a need for images, colour schemes and specific fonts. A brand needs to be recognised and while it used to be the logo that identified the business, now it is so much more. This is how the digital landscape changed branding.

The possibilities with branding have severely increased with the rise of the digital landscape. Brands aren’t just a logo anymore, but an entire visual entity. Colours, fonts, images, they need to be versatile enough to transfer from online to the shopfront and in a way that can be recognised by the public. It’s here that brand strategy has become a bigger part of branding. With so many elements working together to represent one business, everything needs to be cohesive. With the number of brands now visible online, strategy is essential in making sure you stand out and hit your target audience.

While there is definitely more to branding than there used to be, we as humans needed to of course make it as convenient as possible. Template and stock sites have swamped the digital landscape, making logo and branding design cheaper and more accessible (at the expense of quality). This budget option has helped start-ups get up and going more easily, but on the flip side, has tempted already established businesses to choose price over quality. For professionals like myself, it has meant really pushing my strategic side as my point of difference and relying on the results of those strategies to justify the worth.

If anything, the digital landscape has made branding more accessible and the industry more competitive. It has changed the way we see a brand and for that matter, changed the way we do business in general.