6 Steps to Design a Brand Aesthetic: Examples That Resonate With Your Audience

The aesthetic brand you create for your own business can differentiate between success and failure. It sets you apart from competitors and helps customers identify with your brand.

It can reflect your company’s values, create an emotional connection with potential customers, and help build brand loyalty. But how do you create a brand aesthetic that resonates with your audience? For example, for crypto and Web3 companies, where trust and transparency are key, the right brand aesthetic can simplify complex concepts and foster a sense of community.

Here are six steps to consider when designing a brand aesthetic that speaks to your target market.

Understanding What Establishes a Brand Aesthetic

Brand aesthetics is an important part of brand identity that helps customers identify with your brand, create an emotional connection, and build brand loyalty. A brand aesthetic represents various elements such as colors, typography, illustrations, images, icons, etc.

Source: LinkedIn

Analyzing Your Target Audience and Competitors

When creating a unique aesthetic branding, it’s important to consider the target audience. This can be done by analyzing what type of visuals appeal to them. Knowing their interests and preferences will allow you to tailor visuals that speak directly to them. It’s also important to consider your competitors so you can stand out from the crowd by using visuals that are unique to your brand.

Source: LOGO.com

Analyzing your target audience and competitor is essential when creating a brand aesthetic. Understanding your target audience's interests and preferences will help you identify visuals that will grab their attention and speak directly to them. You should also consider how your brand can stand out from the competition by using distinct visuals that are unique to your brand.

Research your target market, what interests them, and how they prefer to receive content. This can be done through surveys or interviews with potential customers and by looking at data sources like Google Analytics or social media channels for insights.

Analyzing your target audience and competitors is essential when creating an aesthetic branding because it allows you to create visuals that appeal directly to customers while setting yourself apart from the competition. By doing this research upfront, you can develop visuals that speak directly to customers and effectively represent your brand's values.

Source: StellaPop

Building Brand Identity

Building brand identity is essential for establishing a brand aesthetic that resonates with the target audience. Creating a unique style with authentic, consistent, and memorable visuals is important to differentiate yourself from competitors and build brand loyalty. To create a brand identity that stands out, it’s important to consider your brand’s mission, vision, goals, values, personality traits, and more.

Your idea of the brand’s mission and values will help define its purpose and shape its personality. Knowing why your brand exists and what it stands for will inform the visuals you use for its aesthetic. Your goal should be to convey these ideas succinctly without any ambiguity or confusion.

Consistent branding is crucial for creating a cohesive visual style that enhances brand credibility and familiarity. Consistency is key when creating a brand identity. To build familiarity and trustworthiness, you want customers to recognize your brand across all mediums – from billboards to website headers.

Source: LinkedIn

Use cohesive colors across materials such as business cards, letterheads, logos, etc. Choose typography that is legible and easy to read regardless of the size of the text. Use illustrations or icons that reflect the brand’s message while being compatible with other visuals used by the company or brand.

When creating a brand aesthetic that resonates with customers, it’s also important to keep things fresh by occasionally introducing new visuals or changing existing ones while maintaining consistency with your brand identity. This can be done by updating branding elements, such as colors or typography, while keeping core elements intact with consistent brandings, like logos or graphics.

Understanding Different Design Styles

Understanding different design styles is essential to developing aesthetic branding that resonate with customers. Design styles are the visual elements used to create brand visuals, such as typography, color, imagery, and more. Different design styles can be combined in various ways depending on the brand’s intended message and desired aesthetic.

Source: Unsplash+

Design styles range from minimalist to sophisticated, modern to vintage, playful to serious. When creating brand visuals, it’s important to consider the brand’s mission and values so that the design style resonates with them.

For example, the logo for an innovative brand might opt for a modern aesthetic, while one with trustworthiness might use clean lines and bold typefaces.

Classic iconography can be used in design styles to evoke emotional responses and illustrate detailed craftsmanship, especially in styles that incorporate rich, elaborate elements like the Baroque design aesthetic.

It’s also important to consider your target audience when selecting a design style. This will ensure that your brand visuals speak directly to them. For instance, you may want to use vibrant colors and expressive fonts to target young adults.

Source: LinkedIn

Choosing the Right Color Palette

Choosing the right color palette for brand visuals is crucial when establishing brand aesthetics. The colors used in the brand design should be harmonious, appealing to customers, and reflective of the brand’s own personality, message, and values.

Using a cohesive color palette throughout brand visuals helps create consistency and reinforces brand recognition. Bright or neon tones may reflect energy, while pastel shades could evoke serenity or peace.

However, it’s important to remember that different color combinations can convey different meanings in different cultures, so it's important to consider the target audience when selecting colors.

Creating an appropriate color palette also requires understanding how colors interact. Combining two similar hues can make the brand visuals appear lifeless and monotonous while combining too many contrasting ones might lead to confusion or chaos. It’s best to pick three or four main colors to form the base of brand visuals and some accent shades for highlights and emphasis points.

Source: Unsplash+

It’s also important to pay attention to color symbolism when creating brand visuals – certain tones may have positive connotations in one culture but negative ones in another.

For instance, in Western cultures, red is often used to represent love and passion, but it can symbolize death and danger in Eastern cultures. Similarly, blue is seen as a sign of trustworthiness in Western countries but sadness in Eastern ones.

Picking the Typography

Picking the right typography for brand visuals is essential when creating brand aesthetics. The typeface used in brand visuals should be appealing, harmonious, and reflective of brand values. It must be consistent throughout brand visuals to ensure unity and brand recognition.

There are two main categories of font types – serif and sans-serif. Serif fonts feature small lines at the ends of characters and appear sophisticated and classic.

They work well for brands wanting to convey trustworthiness or a conservative aesthetic. On the other hand, sans-serif fonts are more modern and minimalistic, conveying simplicity, cleanliness, and professionalism.

It's important to pick two fonts – the main font for headlines and titles and the accent font for body texts. Choosing different weights (bold & regular) within the same font family can also help create consistency throughout brand visuals without overdoing it with too many fonts.

Source: Unsplash+

Engaging in Storytelling

Engaging in storytelling is a creative and powerful way to create meaningful brand aesthetics and set your brand apart from competitors. Telling stories helps create an emotional connection between customers and the brand, making it more memorable and engaging.

When creating brand visuals, tell stories that reflect brand values and communicate brand messages. It’s also important to consider the target audience when crafting brand stories, as certain elements may resonate more with them than others. For instance, a brand targeting young adults might feature trendy visuals, while one targeting older customers might use more classic designs.

Source: National Geographic

In addition to incorporating brand messages into the stories, creating visual cues can also help make them more captivating by evoking feelings of nostalgia or anticipation. For example, light objects such as balloons or birds might signify joy and freedom, while dark colors or shadows could evoke fear or uncertainty.

Creating impactful brand visuals that tell engaging stories is essential for establishing successful brand aesthetics that resonate with customers. Understanding how different elements interact with each other while staying mindful of the target audience will help ensure that your brand visuals are memorable and effective in communicating brand values without overwhelming viewers.

Brand Aesthetic Examples

Minimalist

Brands with a minimalist aesthetic often embrace simplicity, clean lines, and a minimalist color palette. Examples include brands like Muji or Everlane, which focus on minimalistic design, sleek packaging, and a clutter-free visual identity.

Source: everlane.com

Vintage/Retro

Brands that embrace a vintage or retro aesthetic draw inspiration from the past, often incorporating nostalgic elements, classic typography, and retro color schemes. Examples include brands like Levi's or Fossil, which evoke a sense of nostalgia and heritage.

Source: levi.com

Bold and Vibrant

Some brands opt for bold and vibrant aesthetics, utilizing bright colors, energetic patterns, and eye-catching designs. Examples include brands like Fanta or MTV, which employ vivid color palettes and dynamic visuals to create a sense of excitement and youthful energy.

Source: coca-cola.com

Luxury and Elegant

Luxury brands often adopt an aesthetic that exudes sophistication, elegance, and exclusivity. A brand's aesthetic stems from its identity, often drawing inspiration from historical styles like Baroque to establish a unique and resonant visual appeal.

They utilize high-quality materials, refined typography, and sleek designs. Examples include brands like Chanel or Louis Vuitton, which employ luxurious visuals, premium packaging, and a sense of opulence.

Source: chanel.com

Nature-Inspired

Brands incorporating nature-inspired aesthetics draw inspiration from the natural world, using earthy tones, organic shapes, and botanical motifs. Examples include brands like The Body Shop or Burt's Bees, which emphasize their commitment to sustainability, natural ingredients, and environmental consciousness.

Source: thebodyshop.com

Read more

• Minimalist Logo Design: Streamlining Your Brand's Visual Identity
• Stand Out in 2025: Your Go-To Guide for Brand Awareness
• Creating a Strong Brand Voice: Expert Advice and Best Practices

Conclusion

Crafting brand visuals that capture customers' attention and represent brand values is key to establishing a successful design aesthetic. By understanding how different elements interact, such as font types and visual storytelling techniques, you can create brand aesthetics that are memorable and effective in communicating your brand messages.

With careful consideration for the target audience, you can develop brand visuals that truly resonate with them while setting yourself apart from competitors. Ultimately, by considering all these factors when creating brand visuals, you’ll be on your way to building an engaging and impactful design aesthetic for your business.