How I Branded My Course in One Weekend
When I decided to create an online course, I knew branding would be important. After all, the course needed to have its own identity that would be recognizable and memorable to potential students. I also knew that I wanted to do the branding myself. I'm not a professional graphic designer by any means, but I do have a good eye for aesthetics, and I'm familiar with design principles. Plus, I knew that if I hired someone to do it, it would take much longer than one weekend—which is all the time I gave myself to get it done. Here's how I did it.
Logo Design
The first step I took in branding my course was creating a logo. I wanted something simple and straightforward but still conveyed the essence of what the course was about. The course is called, Get Your Side Business Off The Ground: Earn Your First $100, and the logo is a chevron at an angle that almost looks like an arrow pointing upwards. In the end, I settled on an angled chevron —along with text—using a sans serif font in Codec Pro and Codec Pro Extra Bold. I felt like this conveyed the modernity and simplicity that I was going for.
Logo design for Get Your Side Business Off The Ground: Earn Your First $100
Choosing Colors and Fonts
After coming up with a logo, the next step was choosing colors and fonts. This part was actually fairly straightforward for me because I already had a library of color schemes and fonts that I like saved on my computer and in Apple Notes (I'm always taking note of designs that catch my eye). So, I just went through my library and found a color scheme and font pairing that I thought would work well with my logo and the feeling I want my course to evoke in the viewer.
Since I already branded my jewelry business, Nueva Luxe, I’m pretty familiar with the process I need to go through to choose fonts and colors and their meanings. A book that helped me with this topic was How to Style Your Brand by Fiona Humberstone.
I went with shades of blue because blue evokes a sense of trustworthiness, and I want my branding to represent that. Have you ever noticed how many financial institutions use blue in their branding? There’s a good reason behind it, plus the sea and the sky are blue, and who doesn’t love those?! I have an extra just-in-case color that I don’t know how often I’ll be using just because it’s neon and I like it, and that’s the beauty of creating your own brand identity, you can do things because you want to, and nobody can stop you…maybe somebody should stop you, but they can’t.
For fonts, I wanted to choose fonts that would be legible in various formats, like slideshow presentations, worksheets, and ebooks. Thankfully, I have a few font cheatsheets saved so I can swipe recommendations, and I like the fonts I chose: Oswald for headings, Montserrat for sub-headings (I’m a total sucker for this font, by the way), and Cooper Hewitt for body text. To learn more about the origins of the Cooper Hewitt font, check this out. Also, check out the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum if you visit NYC. It’s one of my favorites!
Pulling It All Together
With my logo, colors, and fonts chosen, the last step was putting everything together. I created a basic brand kit for my online course using Canva (a free online design platform). And voilà! In just one weekend, my course had its unique identity that was ready to be seen by the world. Is it perfect? No, there’s no such thing. Does it work? Yes, absolutely.
If you're thinking about DIY’ing your branding for your new business or latest product, but don't know where to start with branding, take heart—it's not as difficult as you might think. With a bit of creativity, patience with yourself, and elbow grease, you can come up with a professional-looking brand in no time flat. And who knows? You might even enjoy it!