Let’s dive into how I built branding for a small business—a yoga studio in Alicante, Spain. The complicated thing about this project was that there were two people to please, and of course, myself! (I need to be happy with my work too.) At that moment, they didn’t have a clear vision of what they wanted to provide to the market, nor did they even have a name.
Branding will be directly influenced by the concept and mission that the company has, so you need to have that clear from the beginning. Nowadays, thanks to the internet, branding is important for everyone. Almost everybody has a personal brand, but it is especially important for small businesses as they need to be remembered enough so clients can look for and find them online too.
Finding the Perfect Name
To be honest, finding the perfect name was a huge challenge! Initially, they were sending names day and night, but without any context or thought behind them. It was like a two-week asynchronous brainstorm. I had enough, so each of us chose our favorite, and I started testing some logo ideas.
After seeing the different proposals, we were not happy with the result. Each of us has a different style, and we were not aligned about the concept of the studio. So I asked some more questions:
- Which emotion do you want to transmit?
- Send me Pinterest pics or Instagram profiles of brands you identify with.
- Do you want to be conservative or modern?
- Do you want to be friendly or serious?
- Do you see the concept growing outside of your first studio?
- What is the gap in the market that you want to fill?
- What is your value proposition? (As I was doing the marketing, I needed to find this too)
- Do you want to be spiritual or physically focused?
So Vibra Yoga was it. The domain was available and there wasn’t another studio with the same name. Some other reasons why we chose Vibra were:
- It is not directly related to the yoga/spiritual world, so it can be more welcoming to new yogis.
- It is in Spanish, to be closer to the audience.
- It is modern and positive; in Spain, we say “tienes buena vibra” to mean someone has a good vibe.
- It is easier to remember than names directly related to yoga. In my opinion, when a lot of brands have a name related to a topic (shala, dharma, om, namaste, etc.) it is easier for people to forget or confuse them.
Let’s Work on Visual Identity
While working on the name, I was also developing the visual identity, but obviously, it was going nowhere at the beginning (because there wasn’t a defined concept).
Once the name was approved, I created three concepts: a fancy one, a minimalist one, and a modern one.
We agreed that to be open to everyone and unique, I needed to create a mix of minimalist and modern. The key this time was presenting some examples of how to implement that (I created a mockup of the header of the website).
In the end, we chose earth colors, but bold enough for them to captivate attention, simple but modern typography without looking too fancy or expensive, and abstract rounded forms to follow the idea of a natural brand.
After creating the first flyers and website, I realized we needed pictures of people doing yoga poses. The thing is, the yoga studio was being renovated (complicated to take pictures). Also, we wanted to be diverse, so I created a unisex blue mascot to make the brand more friendly and inclusive.
About Brand Voice and Communication
The team is a novice at opening a small business, so we wanted to exalt that they are close to the public and available to help, etc. They don’t want to build a franchise but they want to create a community space for people who like yoga.
Because of this, it was clear to us that we would have a conversational and informal way of communicating. We also want to use emojis and slang to make it easier for clients to connect with the team.
Another key thing was not talking like yogis; remember, we want to bring new people to the world of yoga. So we need to be easy to understand for everybody, to the point that most of our content strategy is focused on educational content.
Lessons Learned
- Create some thoughtful questions to send to clients before starting to work on their projects. It doesn’t matter what service I am providing, I need them to stop and think about what exactly they want.
- Work less, don’t do 5 different concepts or ideas. Fewer options make it easier for them to decide, and then I can iterate specific things instead of starting from scratch.
- Ask for brand examples, not images. It is easier to find a cool logo, but it is difficult to find a whole brand concept
- Start with the communication. It is usually something that clients have more clear; give them some adjectives and keywords and see how they react to them.
And this was it! Hope this is useful for small businesses to define their brand more effectively.