With endless noise and graphics in the online space, it’s imperative your brand stands out. Now more than ever, brands are not only battling direct competition, but also the mounds of ads and media consumers are faced with daily. So how do we remedy this? What can small businesses do to stand out against the ‘big guys’?

In this post, we’ll be quickly reviewing 3 must-haves when creating an eye-catching brand. We’re strictly talking visuals here (strategy and positioning are for another time), so take out your notepad (or iPhone Notes, let’s be realistic) and get ready to jot down these 3 must-haves for creating your eye-catching brand.

High Contrast

When creating any graphics, high contrast is key in creating hierarchy and allowing specific bits of information stick out amongst the rest. Not only does this help viewers find the most important information in a graphic, but it will also help your graphics stand out from others. Take this photo for example. The left graphic has the same font, the same orientation, and similar color family as the right graphic. But which one stands out as the stronger player? Which one grabs your attention most? Which one is most legible? The graphic on the right of course! Here we used color to create contrast, and boy is it impactful. High contrast = strength, hierarchy, legibility = eye-catching.

Our favorite resources for color inspiration fonts:

Adobe Color (explore Triad, Complementary, and Split Complementary palettes for highest contrast)

Bold Typeface Selection

There is a lot that goes into selecting or creating a typeface, but strictly for eye-catching brands, bold is key. Here we don’t necessarily mean ‘bold’ as in relation to ‘light’ ‘normal’ ‘extra-bold’ weights of fonts, but rather in a graphic sense. A bold typeface can be simple and strong (like Fig. A) or bold can mean graphic and emotive (like Fig. B). In essence bold is memorable, captivating. Bold is unique and strong.

Our favorite resources for bold fonts:

Creative Market, Brandon Nicks, Abby Leighton

Layered Looks

This tip extends beyond logo design and into all branding elements. When considering your entire brand, layers and texture can take your logo from ‘eye-catching’ to ‘total standout’. When developing graphics, consider adding images, textures, gradients, color, shadows, and more. I will say, in some instances simple and clean is the most impactful; however, this should be a clear and intentional choice. More often than not, texture and layers can enrich personality and made a brand less ‘dupe-able’. Consider the example below. While the bold logo on the left checks our high contrast and bold typeface checkboxes, the image on the right adds a level of energy that is only attained through the layers, images, textures, gradients, etc. Which do you think is more scroll stopping?

Our favorite resources for textures and layers:

Creative Market

What do you think? Give these a try and let us know @emma_leigh_studios how these tips elevate your design game!

Disclaimer: All of these graphics were created for educational purposes only.