I wrote about brand consistency back in 2018. Eight years later, I seem to notice the problem even more.
A business gets a new website and logo. The colours, fonts, images and general style have all been worked out. Then you look at their newsletter, printed material or Instagram account and it’s completely different.
I’ve seen this several times recently and I find it really odd. Why spend time and money creating an identity for a business and then not use it?
It doesn’t mean the other material is badly designed. That’s actually part of the problem. Canva makes it very easy to find a nice template, and AI makes it even easier to create something that looks good. But something looking good doesn’t mean it looks like your business.
A brand doesn't stop at the website
This is something I see surprisingly often.
A lot of thought goes into a website and logo, but the things produced afterwards gradually drift away from them. Different fonts appear. New colours creep in. Images have a completely different feel. The logo gets used differently. The language changes.
None of those things may look particularly bad on their own.
That’s part of the problem.
A nice-looking Instagram post can still be completely wrong for your business.
Your website, social media, newsletters, menus, brochures, PDFs and other material don’t need to look identical. But they should look as though they belong to the same organisation.
Design tools are now available to everyone
One of the biggest changes since I first wrote this article in 2018 is how easy it has become to produce marketing material.
Canva is free and simple to use, with ready-made templates for social media posts, newsletters, flyers, menus and almost anything else a business might need. AI tools can now generate images, graphics and written content in seconds.
This means businesses no longer need design software or design skills to produce their own material.
It does not, however, make everyone a designer.
Design involves understanding typography, colour, layout, spacing, imagery and how all of those elements work together. When something is being produced for an existing business, there is another consideration: it needs to fit the identity that business already has.
A Canva template may be well designed, but it was not designed for your business. An AI-generated image may look impressive, but that does not mean it belongs alongside the images on your website.
Adding your logo does not automatically make either of them part of your brand.
Instagram is a good place to see it
The same happens away from social media
Newsletters are another one I see regularly. So are menus, brochures, flyers, PDFs and presentations.
A business can have a very clear identity on its website, then send an email using completely different fonts, colours and images. Printed material gets designed separately again.
Seasonal material seems particularly prone to it. Christmas arrives and suddenly the existing identity disappears under red, green, gold, snowflakes and whichever festive font came with the template.
There is nothing wrong with making something look Christmassy. But it still needs to look like it came from the same business.
Consistency doesn't mean everything has to look the same
A website, newsletter, menu and Instagram post all have different jobs, so of course they shouldn’t all look identical.
Brand consistency is about keeping the elements that make the business recognisable.
The fonts you use are part of that. So are your colours, photography, graphics, the way you use your logo and even the way you write.
If those things change every time you produce something new, you lose some of the familiarity you’ve already worked to create.
