Why Create A Visual Identity

Professional marketing materials start with your visual identity, which includes all the colors, images and fonts that represent your company graphically. Just as you should create a way to verbally identify and differentiate yourself from others, you also need to create a visual way to do the same.

Since the beginning of time, humans have used symbols and designs to communicate with one another. In corporate America, we’ve come to know these symbols as “logos,” which comes from the Greek word logos, meaning “the word” and the stylistic elements and designs that remain consistent throughout all marketing materials as the company’s “corporate identity system.”

Most big companies put together a formalized corporate identity system that describes

• what the core message of the company is
• what the company’s identifying colors and fonts are
• appropriate uses of the corporate logo
• examples of photography and illustrations that accurately represent the image the company wants to convey

If you work for a large real estate brokerage firm, you are probably familiar with their branding requirements. For instance, many large real estate firms require that you place their logo in specific locations or use their colors. Of course, you must comply with the company’s requirements, but you should also create your own visual identity.

Why? Because it’s possible that you’ll change real estate firms one day. At that point, it’s extremely important that you’ve built a brand for yourself rather than simply promoting your company. It doesn’t benefit you if prospects don’t remember your name and instead call up the local Re/Max or Century 21 office because that’s whose logo and colors they’ve seen on all your mailings.

When you create your own identity, you are marketing yourself as the real estate agent of choice rather than simply one of the many Re/Max or Century 21 agents out there.