Things they don't tell you about following design trends

In a world where people seem to be longing for authenticity,
don't be afraid to be stay true to yourself.

Tempting as it may be to mimic along when we see a cool trend, this may not be the best thing for our business. Our tastes change over time, so it’s natural to want to change things up accordingly. That’s why it’s important to create a brand rooted in strategy. When we know our ideal client / customer, we can ensure our brand continues to reflect their interests.

I’m not saying you should never change, there are plenty of good reasons to change things up when your brand isn’t feeling aligned. When things feel good as a whole, but a bit outdated, you can consider a brand refresh to spruce things up and keep your look up-to-date. If you want to read more on that topic, you can read through my earlier post by following the button just below.

Why not follow trends?

I’ll be honest, there have been moments in my life when I just wanted to fit in. Perhaps we all go through that, as a child and as an adult, we can lose ourselves in the noise—feeling compelled to follow the majority.

These are often vulnerable moments when we are more easily swayed by other people. Maybe this is why people say you should be careful who you surround yourself with. At the end of the day, do we want to put our time and energy into people who don’t feel right for us? Or do we want to be ourselves and see who our true fans really are?

Key points to keep in mind when you feel tempted to change your logo in an attempt to follow a trend.

Muddles your mission

When you continually shift around your visual brand by following trends, you might start to lose sight of why you started and where you are going. You end up muddling your mission and getting lost in someone else’s dreams.

Confuse your audience

Committing to a new, trendy logo means updating all your brand touch points to keep your visual brand cohesive. Otherwise, your audience is going to start getting confused—unable to keep up with what you look like. If you are changing things up as quickly as bees darting from flower to flower gathering pollen. Inconsistent and ever changing? How can they rely on you to be there when they need you?

Hinders brand recognition / memorability

Chasing trends leads to an undefined and chaotic brand that looks like everyone else. When you look like everyone else, you can’t stand out. Instead you blend in like a stick bug on a tree branch. Is that how you want to present yourself to your audience?

We want to make it easy for your customers to find you, if you are constantly changing with trends you could have a new look every couple of months. When you stick to your brand standards, you create a unified brand for your customers making it easy for them to find you when they need you.

Quick expiration

Trends come and they go—the irony of following trends is that they are going to make you look outdated before the year’s end. Trends tie you to a specific time period and this doesn’t work well in the long run for many brands.

Expensive and time consuming

Changing your brand to keep up with the latest trends is going to cost you, quite literally. Take a second to think about all your brand’s touch points—social media, business cards, banners, signage, tags, stickers, and more. Even more of a nightmare is thinking about revamping your website to reflect your ever-changing brand.

All of these changes take time and energy away from promoting your products or services. In turn, distracting you from working towards your mission. It’s easy to fall in love with the latest BIG thing, but if we follow trends for our visual brand we confuse our audience and hinder our brand recognition. This can also lead to a lack of trust in your brand.

Thinking deeply before making big changes to your brand helps keep your mission on track, while following trends speeds the process up and doesn’t leave time for reflection. When we don’t take time to make business decisions, things may start to feel misaligned causing frustration and burnout.

Discussing your options with an outside perspective can give you new insight, save you time, and save you money. This could be a business partner, friend, coach, consultant, thought partner and sometimes even your designer. If you need someone to talk through this with, I highly recommend Angela from Angela Ellison Creative. She is an expert at sorting through what’s important to you and gently guiding you in a direction that aligns soundly with your business mission.

What can I do when I'm tempted to follow the latest trends?

Let’s say your audience is a youthful crowd that is constantly shifting and evolving on an individual scale. They like the newest, shiny thing and are eager to be involved with the next big thing. What do you do in this scenario without disrupting your brand?

There are ways to follow trends without making them a central part of your visual identity. After all, its’s fun to be trendy sometimes. Here are a few creative ways to remain relevant without creating chaos within your brand:

• Print limited runs of custom merch that follow a trend (I’m talking stickers, apparel, tote bags, etc.)
• You can design something trendy and cool, while also creating excitement around a limited release. This helps you remain consistent while staying fresh.
  
  
• Change up the way you show up for online promotion
• Social media is ever-evolving and people won’t likely be thrown off if you change things up on your feed. You can experiment with secondary brand colors, layout, type treatment and more.
• Branching out into a new platform can also help you feel creatively inspired. You can use this to reach a new audience and broaden your community.

• Expand your logo family and add a new alternate mark that can be used while the trend is relevant instead of adjusting your primary one. When the trend passes, you can retire the mark or keep it on hand when a trend comes back around.

• Perhaps something more unexpected is changing up the way you are writing copy for your brand.
  
• Maybe part of your brand personality is humor, write a set of digital ads that incorporate that side of your brand's personality.
• Copywriters can help you branch out of your current writing style—I highly recommend Jess from Grounded Copy Co.

Final thoughts for reflection:

1. Everyone has their own journey through life—don’t be afraid to make your own way, just like a choose your own adventure book.
   
2. Everyone is going to tell you what they think—take what feels right and leave the rest.
   
3. Everyone has their own version of success—what is yours?
   
   

If you're ready for a big change and need some support along the way to create a brand that looks and feels like you—I'd love to join you on your journey, fill out a contact form to get your brand transformation started today!