Brand identity: what it is, elements and examples

Brand identity is the set of elements a brand chooses to present itself and be recognised by: name, logo, colours, typefaces, images, tone of voice, values. It’s what the company decides; brand image, on the other hand, is what people actually think of the brand.

Brand identity vs brand image

	Brand identity	Brand image
Who decides it	The company	People
Where it lives	In the brand guidelines	In customers’ heads
How you know it	By reading the guidelines	Through surveys, reviews, comments, branded searches
How it changes	With a decision	Slowly, through repeated experiences

The brand manager’s job is to bring the two closer: making what people think resemble what the brand wants to be. To measure the gap you use tools like brand awareness and NPS questions.

The elements of brand identity

Verbal elements

• Name: easy to say, spell and remember, and available as a registered trademark.
• Tagline: the short phrase next to the name.
• Tone of voice: how the brand speaks. There’s a dedicated article: tone of voice.
• Vocabulary: words to use and words to avoid.

Visual elements

• Logo: always the same, in the planned versions (full colour, reversed on dark backgrounds, single colour). It has clear space (empty space around it) and a minimum size below which it isn’t used.
• Colours: one main colour and a few supporting ones, with exact codes for each use: HEX and RGB for screens, CMYK and Pantone for print.
• Typefaces: one or two, with rules for headings and body text. Check the licences: not every font can be used on the web or in an app.
• Images: what kind of photos, illustrations and icons to use, with examples.
• Shapes and graphic devices: recurring elements that make a post recognisable even without the logo.

Underlying elements

• Mission: why the brand exists.
• Vision: where it wants to go.
• Values: what it believes in, explained through concrete behaviour (“we reply within 24 hours”, not just “we’re close to our customers”).
• Positioning: who it’s for and why it’s different. See brand positioning.

Kapferer’s brand identity prism

One of the most used models for describing a brand identity is the brand identity prism by Jean-Noël Kapferer, a French marketing professor. It has six facets:

Facet	Question	Example for a tea shop
Physique	How do you recognise it?	Leaves, dark green, metal tins
Personality	If it were a person, what would it be like?	A patient, curious guide
Culture	What values does it believe in?	Clarity, respect for growers
Relationship	What relationship does it have with customers?	Teaches without lecturing
Reflection	How does it picture its typical customer?	Someone who drinks tea every day and wants to know more
Self-image	How does the customer feel when buying?	Like someone who chooses carefully

The first three facets are about the brand, the last three about the customer. If a facet is empty or contradicts the others, the identity is weak.

Brand identity examples

Some famous elements that show how a single detail can become identity:

• Tiffany & Co.: a blue so recognisable it’s tied to the brand name (“Tiffany Blue”) and defined by a dedicated Pantone colour.
• Milka: the lilac of its packaging, registered as a colour trademark.
• Barilla: the blue of its pasta boxes with the red oval logo, recognisable from a distance on the shelf.

In all three cases what matters is consistency: the same element used for years, everywhere, until people recognise the brand without reading the name.

Readability and accessibility

A beautiful but unreadable identity doesn’t work. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1) require a contrast ratio between text and background of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text and for icons and buttons. Since 28 June 2025 the European Accessibility Act has made accessibility mandatory for many digital services sold in the EU, including online shops: choosing readable colours is also an obligation.

How to build a brand identity in 7 steps

1. Study your audience and competitors: what they use, what makes them all look alike.
2. Write your positioning: who for, what, why different.
3. Define personality and values with concrete behaviours.
4. Create the verbal identity: name, tagline, tone of voice.
5. Create the visual identity: logo, colours, fonts, images, checking contrast and licences.
6. Write the brand guidelines with rules and examples.
7. Apply and measure: website, social media, packaging, email; after a few months check with surveys and comments whether brand image is getting closer to identity.

An example

The fictional tea shop Five Leaf has three values: clarity, respect for growers, curiosity. The logo is five leaves in a circle, dark green on a light background. The main colour is a leaf green (#1F5C38), with cream for backgrounds and near-black for text: green on cream has a contrast above 7:1, so it reads well even at small sizes. Everything is in the brand guidelines, so anyone creating new material uses the same rules.

Sources

• WCAG 2.1, success criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) (W3C)
• European Accessibility Act, Directive (EU) 2019/882 (EUR-Lex)
• Jean-Noël Kapferer, The New Strategic Brand Management, Kogan Page