"Can we design a logo for the pitch deck?" is a common question and point of entry for branding and visual identity chats with partners and co-founders we launch startups with.

But a logo is just the very tip of the brand pyramid, and one of many elements of an effective visual identity that helps them stand out in the market to customers and investors.‍

Visual identity involves much more than a fancy emblem atop your website.

It also entails creating an actionable, carefully considered framework that factors in your core business model, products and services, target audience, and industry, among other things.

High Alpha Innovation Director Ryan Larcom recently shared with Print Magazine how some startup co-founders "tend to underestimate the power of visual design."

Our team certainly doesn't underestimate its power.

One of the top priorities for the brand design team is to ensure our partners — corporations, universities, state governments, and non-profits — recognize the impact that a strategic visual identity can have on the startups that we’re building together.

Once our Build team and partner stakeholders collectively agree on a viable business idea during our venture-building process to bring to market, the team:

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• Finds and hires the right entrepreneurs to be co-founders
• Creates a cap table that is attractive to potential investors
• Develops go-to-market strategies for the new business

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As these tasks are tackled, we work with co-founders to build their brand and visual identity foundation — a process that is nuanced, strategic, and critical to the success of startups we co-create with partners.

How brand positioning informs a startup's visual identity — and provides advantage

Your startup's brand foundation focuses on the intangible — the:

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• Feelings and perceptions in the mind of your audience, as they relate to your company
• Distinctive mission, vision, values, positioning, and personality you set before launch
• General experience you want your customers to have when using your product(s)

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Visual Identity focuses on the tangible.

"Magic" happens when a strong brand position is made tangible through a thoughtful visual and verbal identity.

When brand and visual identity are strategically designed and aligned, it enables startups we help bring to market to more effectively connect with their audience.

“In a world flooded with imagery, visual aspects of branding have become more central, even as branding itself has become ever more crucial to marketing success,” researchers from Santa Clara University explained in a study on visual brand identity.‍

As noted, a logo is one important piece of the visual identity puzzle. But there is so much more to it than that, as many other elements dictate startup success.

Visual identity involves the thoughtful consideration of color palette, typography, logo variations, icons, patterns, website UI, and art direction that, at the end of the day, create a cohesive creative foundation for your new startup.

This work makes your brand memorable to potential customers and partners and sets it apart from competitors.

Your new company's journey begins with building a strong foundation. Brand positioning acts as a guiding light when making decisions tied to your visual identity. With this approach, designers won't have to arbitrarily throw visuals at a wall (or, more literally, an Adobe Illustrator Artboard) to see what sticks.

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At High Alpha Innovation, we work with our portfolio companies to establish mission, vision, and position, factoring in Simon Sinek's Golden Circle framework, among other exercises.

Incorporating this thinking in our venture-building process (i.e., starting with the "why") ensures we factor in the beliefs of founding teams, the compelling problem(s) their startup aims to solve, and their company's purpose and aspirations.

The end result of our work? Memorable companies that compel people to want to work with, invest in, or buy from them, and that gain a form of advantage in their industry from day one.

Using core values and personality traits to inform and evolve a startup's visual identity‍

Before we come up with visual identity concepts for startups, we establish core values and personality traits:

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• Core values are guiding principles that build meaning, culture, connection, and authenticity internally (among employees) and externally (with customers, partners, and investors). They’re internal beliefs that you base your decisions and business practices on. They impact personality and influence brand perception, so it's important to determine these early on. Misaligned values means less opportunity for connection and relationship-building with the intended audience.

• Once you nail core values, personality traits should follow pretty clearly, building from your core values. At a strategic level, these traits influence brand behavior, voice, tone, and visual identity. At a tactical level, it influences balance, weight, color, concept, typography, and hierarchy of visual assets.
  

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The goal with factoring values and traits in visual identity development is to produce versatile, yet contextual brand assets that help tell startup stories clearly and persuasively.

The key to ensuring these values and traits are infused into brand assets, pitch decks, and marketing collateral effectively is to work closely with co-founders during the entire startup-launch process.

This ensures their brand foundation is aligned with the visual aesthetic of their website, social media profiles, product design, enablement content, and other public-facing collateral.

Collaboration: Key to creating compelling visual identities for co-founders' companies

Collaboration between us and co-founders is essential to efficient and effective visual identity creation.

Stephen Greyser, Richard P. Chapman Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School, put it well: The outcome of collaborative visual-identity formation is "a sharpened brand, stronger relationships, and a unified organization."

It's this combination that "can provide a clear competitive edge."

As with all other aspects of our venture-building process, working with our partners and co-founders to gather insights and data strategically informs branding and visual identity.

And this provides them with advantage for their startups before they even go to market.

Visuals are one of the four V’s for branding success — along with vision, values, and voice.

Visuals offer the first impression and point of engagement for a startup and its potential customers, partners, and investors.

We invest time and expertise in building appealing and differentiated branding and visual identity assets with co-founders for their startups because the result can greatly influence and impact their brand perception for the better.

This results in advantage for them, and establishes a newfound ability to connect with the right people (customers, investors, and partners) at the right time and drive their business forward.