Basics and Fundamentals of Branding Your Business
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Your Version 9 site contains several features which you can utilize to promote and improve your business. Some of these features, such as abandoned shopping cart promotions, can be used to influence shoppers to complete purchases, while others, such as product reviews, contribute to an overall sense of professionalism and community. While these are fantastic benefits, there is one aspect of your business which is the most important of all -- your branding. Your brand starts with your company name and your logo. These are the things that make a first impression on a potential shopper. It is vitally important to have a professional and appealing brand. This article will discuss some fundamental concepts about branding your business as well as describe some ways in which you can utilize your Site Manager to assist in your branding. When creating your brand, one of the most fundamental aspects to consider is which colors will be used. Take into consideration that the colors that you choose will evoke certain emotions in your potential shoppers. There are some typical connotations associated with certain colors. Psychological studies have demonstrated that certain colors not only bring about certain moods, but they also trigger certain physiological effects. For example, blue is the color of the sky and of an idyllic ocean. It tends to bring about feelings of relaxation. In fact, studies have shown that the body actually produces calming chemicals when blue is viewed. Similarly, with its association to nature, green has been demonstrated to encourage calm and peaceful moods. A study by Lois Wexner in 1954 found that certain emotions associated with one particular shade of a color, such as a deep purple, does not bring about the same emotional response as lighter hues of the color, such as lavender. So what does this mean to you? It simply means that you should be aware of the importance of the colors that you choose and keep in mind that certain colors bring with them certain built in responses that will occur with much of the population. A good way to choose which color you should use is to determine which colors you like. Which colors bring about a positive response in you when you view them? Do you like the deep red of Target or Bank of America’s logos, or do you prefer the blue and yellow of Best Buy? Or perhaps the choice of which colors to use is an obvious one and requires little thought in your case. Either way, it is good to be aware of the facts involved in the importance of color. While it goes without saying that the name of your business is vitally important, also realize that the way in which your business name is written is just as important. With this in mind, consider which font you’d like to use for your business name. One important aspect when choosing a font is to consider the readability of that font. How easy is it to read? Fonts are classified into two main groups, sans serif and serif fonts. A serif is a small stroke at the edges of the letter. Serif fonts contain these serifs, or small strokes on the edges of the letters. A sans serif font is one without serifs. An example of a serif font is Times New Roman. In the image below, notice the small lines on the ends of the serif font (Times New Roman). For example, take a look at the S and notice that there are small vertical lines on each end as the red arrow points out. Alternatively, in the sans serif word below, notice that the letters are straight and blocky. The S in the sans serif does not have the small lines on the ends.
Traditionally, sans serif fonts are used in headlines or short blocks of text. It has been shown that with headlines, sans serif fonts tend to stand out better than serif fonts. In body text such as in large paragraphs, serif fonts are used because the serif helps the letters flow into each other and is considered to improve the ease of readability in large groupings of words. With this in mind, consider which type of font you’d like to use for your business name. Many businesses use sans serif fonts when displaying their names in their logos with the idea that sans serif fonts stand out in short words like headlines. Some businesses prefer a more decorative look and use serif fonts in their name because it seems to bring about a certain feel when viewed. Take a look at the below examples:  In examples one and two, a straight forward approach is used. These sans serif fonts are very readable. They stand out like headlines. Example one is a blockier bolder font, while example two is narrower. These aspects may bring about certain feelings in the viewer. In general, the first example may seem more assertive, more up front. The second example may have a less aggressive feel while still appearing straight forward and to the point. Example three, which is a serif font, conveys a slightly different feel than the first two. Since serif fonts are more often used in body text than in headlines, some may suggest that this font carries connotations associated with reading or with the conveyance of information. Example three is still very readable and straightforward, unlike example four which is an extreme serif font. Some businesses may choose to use something like example four simply because it is decorative and may convey an older-world feel. Keep in mind, though, that example four is very unreadable. Without the examples shown before and after it, you might not recognize at first what the words are. Example five is more readable yet still decorative. The letters flow into each other and look more like handwritten text. Whenever using a decorative font such as examples four and five, it is important that the feelings they convey are in line with the feelings that are associated with your business. For example, the handwritten-like text in example five may be good to be used in a business associated with writing or with education. On the other hand, it would probably be incongruous to use the font in example three for a business like a construction company, an exterminator, a sports-oriented business or anything else where a more straight forward approach would probably work better. These are the many things to consider when choosing how you’d like to display your business name on your website. One great tool which can help you decide which fonts and colors to use is the HTML editor in the Store Name textbox on Appearance > Store Profile > Store Name, Home Page Intro, Store Directory in your Site Manager.  Here, you can experiment with different sizes and colors for your store name. Once you type your store name, highlight the text, and then click on the You can also choose from the following fonts in the font dropdown:
While there are a limited number of fonts to choose from here, you can specify further fonts by clicking on the Source button in the upper-left corner of the HTML editor. After clicking the button, the editor will display something similar to the image below:  Find where it says font-family in the source code. Notice that in the above example, Arial is listed after font-family. Here, you can paste the name of any font you choose. Keep in mind however, that your store name will only display in your selected font if the person who is viewing it has that font installed on their machine. For this reason, it is advisable to specify more than one font. For example, look at the image below. Notice that three fonts are specified: Century Gothic, Bell Gothic STD Light, and Arial.  In this scenario, the preferred font is the first one, Century Gothic. If the user’s machine does not have Century Gothic installed, then it will attempt to display in the second font listed, Bell Gothic STD Light. If this font is not installed on the user’s machine, then the third choice, Arial, will be displayed. Arial is a good backup font because almost all computers have Arial installed. Notice also that the fonts Century Gothic and Bell Gothic STD Light are enclosed in quotes. If the font name contains more than one word, then enclose it in quotes. Notice that Arial is not enclosed in quotes since it is one word. Once you have decided on some the proper font and color for your store name, consider using a layout which will compliment the color and font that you have chosen. Go to Appearance > Style and Color > Store Layouts and choose from the many layouts that you are provided. Layouts 56 and above also have up to eight holiday themes to choose from. Take a look at the holiday themes even if it is not close to any of those particular holidays. The look and feel of one of the holiday themes may compliment your branding. If you have a Version 9.03 website, then another wonderful new tool which can be of assistance to you in designing your brand is the image editor tool. The image editor tool allows you to edit images which are uploaded to your site. Using this tool, you can do a lot of things with existing images, such as modifying the color, changing the perspective of an image, scaling an image and much more. One great thing you can do with this tool is add text to images. This is a great way to add your business name to an image which exists on your site. For example, layout 81 has a large image on the home page as shown below:  The image editor allows you to make changes to this or any other image on the site if you have this layout selected. To modify the main image on this layout, first apply the layout and then go to Appearance > Media Library > Image Editor. Here you will see a list of thumbnail images. Find the image named layout81_img1.jpg and click on it. Notice that the image opens in the image editor window. On the left, you will see several options, such as color, scale, perspective, and text. Click on the text tab in the left menu. Here, you can add your store name to this image. Type your business name in the textbox labeled text. Choose a font, color, and font size. Be aware of the unit that is selected in the unit dropdown. You can choose inch, mm, pixels, or point. For the below example, the size is 30 and the unit is px. Also enter the x and y coordinates. This may take some trial and error. The x coordinate is the horizontal placement and the y coordinate is the vertical placement. For the example below, the coordinates x: 5 and y: 150 are used. The size of this image is 530 px by 300 px. So, in this case, the x coordinate should be no more than 530 and the y coordinate should be no more than 300.
Once the image is finished, click Save Image on the bottom of the left menu. Save the image with its original name. Once the image is saved, close the image editor window and go to your store front. Notice that the image now displays your store name.  Displaying your store name in an image has a benefit over displaying it in the store name field and that is that it doesn’t matter if the user has the font you’ve used installed on their machine. Since the font is part of the image, it will display exactly as is on their screen. Hopefully, this article has informed you about the important aspects to consider when branding your business. Putting thought into the display of your business name will help to convey the right feelings to those who are considering making a purchase from your store and any time and effort you put into making it right is certainly time well spent. Thank you,
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icon. A palette will open on which you can choose a color.
