Creating Your Editorial Brand

By having a clear brand, any post or advertisement you make is recognizable as coming from you and you seem more professional, thus gaining your clients’ trust. You can better build relationships and loyalty.

Creating your brand is a process you may revisit throughout the lifetime of your business. You want to go through the process of putting together the elements of your brand and creating your branding documents. If aspects of your brand aren’t working or if your business grows and develops, you will want to revisit and tweak or add to your brand.

Sometimes you even have to go so far as to rebrand: new name, new colors, new logo. But usually when you revisit your brand, you just need to add elements to your brand: add a tagline, new services and offerings, additional colors, customer experience elements, etc.

When we think of branding, we usually think of the visual elements, but a brand is more than that.

The visual elements of your brand act as the identifier for your company. But to fully create your brand, you need to determine what you want your customer experience to be and the features of the services you offer.

What customer experience do you want to create? As you build your customer experience, answer these questions:

My customer experience strategy:

I am available to respond to emails every day except my two days off, and I communicate what days those are. While I prefer to keep all communication via email, I will schedule a phone call if that makes the client more comfortable, or if they feel email isn’t meeting their needs. To prevent clients from feeling anxious or unsure in what can be a daunting process, I explain my process thoroughly and send clear emails that answer all their questions (my availability and communication style) and guide them throughout the whole process.

I work with clients in a collaborative partnership, ensure all clients get the quality they deserve through applying all feedback and seeking out opportunities for personal development, help my clients learn to write better by leaving comments to explain some of my stylistic changes and providing resources for them, and strive to infuse humor and fun into the process (this comes from my core values of collaboration, quality, education, and humor).

While I send template emails and act professionally in my interactions, I will remember they are an individual person and will try to add content unique to them in some of the emails (how I will connect with them emotionally). However, information needs to be conveyed and not everything needs to be personable, so some emails will be down to business (communication style). I will also allow my personality to come through in my comments with them (how I will connect with them emotionally).

As an editor, I strive to serve as a guide—a beacon—who builds a trusting partnership with my clients, and I will support them through their journey. This means that I don’t just edit their manuscript and send them on their way; instead, I help them find people for their next steps, I support their book launch, and I promote their book. And while I am editing, I ensure that my queries are helpful suggestions that clearly show they are included in the partnership and that they can decide which changes to accept or reject and how to incorporate my suggestions (my promise to clients and what it looks like).

While we are all editors and offer editing services, your brand showcases what makes your services unique. By unique, I do not mean that no one else is doing it. That would be impossible. I just mean something that may vary from the standard editing requirements.

Some distinct services ideas include offering:

If you’re thinking, I don’t want to add any features, I just want to offer standard editing services, that is completely fine. But you can make them distinct with your editing style.

As mentioned, the visual elements of your brand mark your identity. So in order to select visual elements, you need to determine how you want clients to perceive you and your personality. It’s easier for us, as editors, to do this because we are our brand, so you can use your personality as a guide rather than having to determine the personality of a full organization.

So the first step is listing adjectives that describe how you want to be perceived as an editor and that describe your personality. Then use those adjectives, the distinct features of your services, and your desired customer experience to help guide you in your choice of fonts and colors.

You will want to have at least two fonts so you can have a different font for headings than for the content on your website. You can have up to three fonts, but I wouldn’t pick more than three because you can just use variants of your font to differentiate between different subheading levels.

Now, remember your adjectives, desired customer experience, and distinct service features as you select your fonts.

How I picked my fonts:

Some of my adjectives—clear, unique, smooth, calm. I aim to be clear in my communication, and I like to stand out and be unique, but I hope to foster a smooth and calming experience for my clients. Then remember in my customer experience, it is important to me that I am personable, friendly, and inviting. So I wanted fonts that align with that.

My AvenirNext font is clear but unique. It is a clear, easy-to-read font but doesn’t look like all the standard clear fonts; it has some personality.

My Kaufmann font is smooth, and the smooth cursive is calming and inviting.

To find fonts, you can go to either of the websites below:

• MyFonts:You can browse fonts by category (Sans Serif, Slab Serif, Serif, Display, Handwritten, and Script). Then you can enter your business name or tagline and see what it will look like in a given font.
• DaFont:This site has more categories, so you can narrow down your search. (For example, it has a fancy category with subcategories like Cartoon, Comic, Groovy, Old School, Curly, Western, Eroded, etc.; then a Script category with subcategories like Calligraphy, School, Handwritten, Brush, Graffiti, etc.; and more.)

If you aren’t sure what a specific category of font conveys, you can google it. For example, by googling Sans Serif, I learned that these fonts are considered modern and sleek and embody simplicity and minimalism.

A lot has been written about the meaning of colors, so with your adjectives in mind, you can google which colors will match.

The hardest part in choosing your colors is finding a complementary palette. Luckily, a lot of websites can help you with that. Of course, you can just opt for one color and then change the grayscale on it for variety. But if you want more than one color, select a color that matches your adjectives (or a color you just really like :D), and then go to a website that can help you find colors that will go well with it.

• Coolors:On this website you can create your own palette, explore trending palettes, or use an already-designed palette.
• MyColor:You just enter your starting color and then generate a palette.

Your logo should just have your primary colors. But just because your logo only has one or two colors doesn’t mean those are the only colors you can use in your brand palette.

You want to have some complimentary and/or accent colors as well. I didn’t know this at first and only had my two primary colors.

Consider having two to five colors and one or two neutrals, for a total of up to seven colors (five colors and two neutrals). But remember, you want only one or two primary colors. If you have too many primary colors, your brand will seem less coherent and too chaotic and diluted

When choosing your accent and complimentary colors, consider the shade and tone of your primary ones. If your logo colors are darker or cooler in nature, you want to bring in some lighter and warmer colors to help your visuals pop.

Don’t forget to think about your neutral colors: the color your text will be in. These neutrals don’t have to be just straight black or straight white. They can be varying shades of black and grey and white and beige. Note the use of plural here. That’s because you often need two neutrals: a darker neutral for light or white backgrounds and a lighter neutral for darker backgrounds.

Once you know your colors, note and keep a record of the HEX and RGB codes for your colors. You will need those for designing your website and anytime you want to design a document or image for your brand.

Below is my color palette. My lighter neutral is just straight white, so it isn’t listed.

To create your brand, determine your unique features, customer experience, fonts, and colors.

With a brand in place, you can generate website content and social media posts that showcase your customer experience and unique features all written in your brand voice, and you can create your branding documents: photos, letterheads, logo, email signature, business cards, social media banners, social media post images, blog images, flyers, and brochures.

This will help you be recognizable, stand out from the crowd, and generate loyalty.

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I’d love to hear from you. Comment below using any of these prompts to guide you:

• What questions do you have?
• What distinct services do you offer?
• What are your favorite elements of your brand?
• What part of a brand identity do you struggle with?
• What is one thing you did professional or personally today that you’re proud of?