Music Branding “Tips” Are Wasting Your Time
Today, we’re going to break to give you music branding tips that you can ACTUALLY do right NOW…
…As opposed most of the music branding tips on the Internet which are just “find yourself” or “communicate with your audience”…
Which is all TRUE but unless you are a Zen monk or a Jedi Knight from Star Wars…
Finding yourself isn’t going to ACTUALLY produce tangible results when it comes to gaining fans this week, this month, or even this YEAR.
“Finding yourself”, much like “finding your purpose” is a lifelong journey that goes through periods.
Building a BRAND… Shouldn’t take THAT long. What’s more important is the actual MUSIC.
Let’s give you some tangible music branding ideas that you can use TODAY.
Overview
Easy Definition of A Music Brand
The easiest way to define a music brand is simply how your marketing makes people feel.
And just like the fact certain words, images, and colors, change the way people “feel” when watching a movie…
…The same goes for music marketing. We’ll get into this more in this article.
Music Branding: Logos, Fonts, Cover Art
Logos… we’ll explain where to find the best logos on the cheap (fiverr.com, freelancer.com, and upwork.com)
Which type of font you need to please your audience (“sans serif” font)
…And how to hire somebody to do cover art!
Music Branding: Color Schemes
Color schemes are actually easier than you expect… at least in finding one that will DO for now, and how to replicate it across websites and other marketing materials…
The key here is to be familiar with hex codes, which we’ll explain in full here.
Music Branding: Grammar, How You Write, etc.
The last somewhat unexpected but NEEDED branding trick is being aware of how you write, how you spell online, etc. to help you be consistent in your work. We’ll give you tricks like temi.com and the app “Otter” to help along with this.
Easy Definition of A Music Brand
A lot of the definitions of a music brand are so steeped in vague music marketing “jargon” that you will never be able to figure out exactly how actually MAKE… a music brand.
The lazy man’s way of defining a music brand… so that you can focus on actual MUSIC is this:
“The way your marketing makes people feel”.
And just like a movie, the easiest way to affect the way people feel about your marketing is to change your:
Logos, images fonts, colors, etc.
In other words, if there is a movie poster with weird, eerie writing… dark color schemes, and low-lit pictures of the actor…
You assume it’s a horror movie.
If there’s bright colors, wide lettering, trees, etc. you assume it’s a romantic comedy.
With this is mind, let’s teach you how to quickly get your logos, images, colors, etc. and market your career like your own personal movie trailer!
Music Branding: Logos, Fonts, Cover Art
Logo
First thing you have to do is get a logo.
Now a logo isn’t 100% necessary, and as we’ll show you in a second, many “logos” from rappers are just their name in a cool font…
BUT if you want a logo, the easiest and cheapest way to do it is go to a freelancer site like fiverr.com, freelancer.com, or upwork.com and hire somebody to do it for as cheaply as $5.
fiverr.com‘s advantage is that it’s super affordable and has a lot of options as far as active freelancers.
If you pick someone on fiverr.com, they’ll usually have your work done within a day or two because many people feed themselves from this site.
The other advantage to this site is many people include REVISIONS in their deal, so you can ask them to change somethings you don’t like.
Another dope option is freelancer.com. The advantage to this site you can set up a CONTEST where you can have different artists PIT themselves against each other for your logo…
…And then pick the best one. The trick here is to make your price a LITTLE higher than excepted…
…So if you want a logo for $10… say you’ll pay $20 so that the BEST possible freelancers at that price point will want to compete.
You can also set a time limit on the contest to give people a week to find the ad and do their best work.
Fonts
If you can’t even afford the extra five bucks for a logo, you can also simply make one yourself with a unique font.
Many of the best “rap” logos from Jay-Z to Eminem are simply their name in a unique font.
To make a “font” logo… first find the font you like.
The crucial thing is to make sure that your font is “Sans Serif” as opposed to “Serif” as far as font type.
We’re not typography experts here so we’ll just link you to articles like THIS for more info, but in short…
- “Serif” is the old-time “book” type of writing with the curved edges, and “sans serif” is the straight forward, no curves type of font you see on computers and most marketing materials.
- “Sans Serif” has been proven to be easier on the eyes when it comes to screens, so we’ll suggest you use sans serif because most of your fans will consume your content on screens.
Now how to get the font?
Many of the best fonts in the world are totally up for free on sites like 1001Fonts.com. Just look up your font name and then enter in “free” on Google.
Download the font and save the font.
Simply go on to canva.com, a free graphics website, and upload the font as your “brand font” in the options tab.
Once you’ve done that, you have the font forever and can use it to make graphics on Canva for free, which we’ll talk more about in a second.
Now, make a new piece of “art” on canva with an all white background, and then write your name in your font.
After that, export the picture for download and then choose “transparent background” so you can place the lettering on any marketing material you want.
Last point – be sure to make a WHITE version of the font and a BLACK version of the font so you can drop it on different colors of marketing materials.
As far as cover art goes, the best way to go about it is just search #coverart on Instagram.
While most hashtag searches on Instagram these days are useless, many of the most talented graphic artists in the world on promoting their work on there.
Many of them even include their prices right on their page so when you see somebody you like, you can know their price before you waste time contacting them (assuming they’re too expensive).
Again, if you’re too broke to HIRE someone…
Then simply use canva.com. They have tons of already done templates for artwork and cover ideas.
You can also even add your own photos THEN add art on there totally for free.
Music Branding Tips: Color Schemes
Color schemes are another music branding advice people don’t seem to just explain quickly.
The easiest way to “find” a color scheme that fits you is look up your two favorite colors on google (or two colors you think go together well) and then add the word “color scheme”.
Google will provide you with a TON of sites like Pinterest and ColorPalettes.net that will match different VERSIONS of your color with its complimentary and opposing colors…
…So that all of your branding looks cleaning and organized and makes people “feel” what you want them to feel…
(Remember our definition of music branding earlier?)
Once you have the VERSION of your color that you like, look for the “hex code”.
Hex code are a technological term that basically organizes exactly versions of each colors into a numbering system that computers can recognize.
(Read THIS article for a more in-depth explanation… I ain’t a graphic design expert, haha)
So, with the exact HEX CODE of your personal type of red…
…You can ALWAYS have THAT red (as opposed to firetruck red or Manchester United red) on your site.
This goes for all colors on your color scheme. Save all of the HEX CODES for your colors in a notes app and then…
On CANVA.COM because they have a section called “brand colors” so that you can always use your exact colors when doing your marketing.
Music Branding Strategies: Grammar, How You Write, etc.
Okay, you have all of your images down, logos, etc.
The last piece is making sure that all of your written material for your music brand SOUNDS like you when you speak.
When you hear people say your brand is about “who you are” this is what they’re talking about a lot of the time.
The easiest way to maintain consistency across the board when having written materials similar to the way you speak is this…
…Find apps that will AUTOMATICALLY transcribe into what you SAY into a format you can copy and paste in a computer.
In other words, there are apps that will literally enter into a word document every word you say as you speak it.
My favorite one right now is “Otter”. You can download it for your phone and just start speaking into like a voice memo and the words will come out written down.
Also, for longer or pre-recorded videos and audio you have… use temi.com. It’s an automatic transcription service that will take the audio you have and make it into a written format.
You can then take all of that now “written” content and populate in your social media, like your tweets, your IG captions and so on.
Conclusion
Let’s review what we’ve learned today:
Easy Definition of a Music Brand
- How you make people “feel”
- Think of how horror movies have dark colors and eerie fonts and romantic comedies have bright colors and wide fonts
- Focus on your logos, images, colors, etc. to have a “consistent” music brand
Music Branding: Logos, Fonts, Cover Art
Logos: Hire someone on fiverr.com, freelancer.com, or upwork.com OR make a font-based logo using canva.com
Fonts: Make sure it’s “sans serif” and you can download it for free using sites like 1001Fonts.com
Cover Art: Check out Instagram using #coverart OR make your own for free on Canva.com
Music Branding: Color Schemes
Use Google search for “(insert desired color scheme) color scheme”, find the hex codes, save them, and then use them across the board
Music Branding: Grammar, How You Write, etc.
Use apps like “Otter” or sites like temi.com to describe how you speak to sound natural on Twitter or Instagram captions
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