I think the heart of branding is consistency. You have to make this over here look like that over there, or people won’t realize they are related.

I’m into details, and my wife is REALLY into details. I think they’re important, she actually can notice them. It works well, since she’s the graphic design half of our enterprise here.

Branding consistency is really about a mindset which says, “NO! We are not using that font for this presentation. Our body-text font is X.” You have to understand that one shade of blue is not the same as another shade of blue. My wife and I have moved an apostrophe we thought was too high, and even once shrunk a single letter of a font (U) because it was slightly fatter than it should have been.

Related to consistency is a personal branding strategy I use…

The Social Bootstrap brand is color and texture rich. Our logo has seven different colors (plus black), all of which have a gradient, and are then placed over a concrete background. I do my best to reflect this color-rich idea in my clothing.

I don’t want to go overboard and wear the seven colors of my logo (that would not be subtle), I do try to (tastefully) wear as many different colors and textures as I can. This is easiest in the fall and winter (more articles of clothing to wear).
For example, I recently wore:

• navy blue pants
• orange dress shirt shirt
• olive green sweater vest
• light khaki suit jacket
• dark khaki socks
• reddish-brown leather shoes and belt
• scarf in several shades of brown and khaki

This is pretty typical of my clothing. While none of those colors is exactly a Social Bootstrap color, the richness of having more colors than most people wear contributes to the personal brand identity I am building. The colors come together in a way that doesn’t stick out or look outrageous, but is different enough to give people a sense of what kind of person I am, and what kind of company I run.

What do you think?
What branding strategies do you use? How do you feel about consistency?
Do you consider your clothing a part of your personal brand?

This post is part of the Brogan 100.
Learn more here and here.