4 Elements to Creating a Beautiful Brand Aesthetic
Your aesthetic is your visual style, sense of beauty, and artistry. As it pertains to personal branding, your aesthetic is how you style your branded content in a way that appeals to and attracts your ideal client. It speaks to their senses and is a great way to connect with your audience on a subliminal level.
It’s important to have a cohesive brand aesthetic that is both authentic to your personal style AND evokes the emotions that you want you audience to feel when they interact with your brand. Whether it’s luxurious and high-end, funky and colorful, or down-to-earth and approachable, it’s important to use a strategy that is aligned with your business goals when developing your brand aesthetic.
If you don’t have an established brand aesthetic, your visual collateral may be all over the place, and appear sloppy and indecisive. As a result, your marketing will be inconsistent and seem less professional. And you’ll be risking losing potential clients working with you. Because first impressions LAST, and what you put out there to represent your brand online MATTERS.
Here are 4 elements to consider when creating a Beautiful Brand Aesthetic:
COLOR SCHEME
Pick 3-5 colors that are your BRAND COLORS.
Not a natural creative? Keep it simple by tying your favorite colors (the ones your wear and decorate your home with) and assemble them in a way that evokes the right mood.
You can use palette creation tools like Coolors to play with different combinations. Be intuitive and ask yourself if these colors “feel like you.” Ask others how your palette resonates with them!
Decide on those colors, use them on all of your marketing, and don’t stray. Find creative ways to infuse 1-2 of these colors in each piece of content that you create.
2. MOOD
WHAT IS YOUR VIBE?! Is it edgy and strong? Soft and ethereal?
Do some self-discovery by journaling a list of all of your personality traits and your personal style. Make note of the brands and fashion styles that resonate most with you and try to draw 2-3 general themes.
You’ll want to really dial in your brand personality in a way that feels authentic to you and the client experience that you offer, so that you can effortlessly stay consistent with it.
If you can figure this part out, you will start seeing LOTS of similarities between you and the types of leads that you attract to your business.
3. EMOTION
What emotions do you want to evoke within your brand? How do you want people to FEEL when they experience you? Is it joyful? Inspiring? Motivating? Tap into the effect that you want to have on people.
Emotions come down to internal factors, such as the emotions that you yourself want to feel, as well as your CORE values.
Brainstorm what your values are and establish the emotions in your aesthetic based on those values. It could be joy, freedom, strength, autonomy, or the like.
It takes some practice to visually translate your value system into an aesthetic. Start by doing some market research and figuring out the values of your ideal clients, as well as the brands whose aesthetics are aligned with theirs. From there, you’ll be able to draw some connections between internal factors and visuals.
4. LIFESTYLE
Lifestyle is a huge opportunity to create a connection with clients by showing them common lifestyle aspects you share with one another.
Lifestyle is the secret sauce of your branding, as you can be relatable and desirable by giving others a peak into how you live. Remember, people work with you because they like you!
Show your audience what you do in your leisure time based on your CORE values. If it’s wellness, then use symbols and photos related to healthy food and exercise. If justice is a core value for you, then use visual references to equality and victory.
TLDR; your brand aesthetic is the style of your brand based on a consistent color scheme, mood, emotion, and lifestyle. It takes some self-discovery and practice to design an aesthetic, especially if you don’t have a creative or design background.
But fear not, you can develop your creative style and learn how to express yourself and your values in order to subliminally attract your ideal clients.
Need some help deciding on your aesthetic? Take my Brand Style Quiz and get a personalized moodboard today!