Your visual branding is ultimately a communication tool to tell and show people who you are. Thus, it should be crafted with care and intention as part of your larger brand strategy. (Don’t have a brand strategy? Follow our step-by-step guide to create one.) Building a strong identity is a creative challenge, but it can be a lot easier with a few useful tools, tips, and resources to help at every stage of the process. Luckily, we have them for you.
101 Tools to Create Better Branding
Whether you need help finding your brand personality or want to look at awesome logos for inspiration, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite tools and resources to help you build a powerful brand identity possible. We also organized everything by category to help you find what you need.
(One caveat: There are a lot of tools and generators that are helpful to stimulate your creativity, especially if you’re feeling stuck. But we don’t recommend letting the robots do all the work for you. Remember that your goal is to build an original, authentic brand identity that helps you communicate with real humans.)
That said, we hope these make your life easier.
Brand Identity Inspiration & Publications
- 15 Examples of Brands with Great Identities: Great examples of A+ execution.
- 12 Mistakes to Avoid in your Visual Identity: Useful roundup of tips.
- 5 Secrets to a Visual Identity: The keys to successful branding.
- B Magazine: Every issue explores a different brand identity.
- Brand Impact Awards: A celebration of creative branding design.
- Brand New: A roundup of all things branding.
- Branding Magazine: News, inspiration, and more in the branding world.
- Designing Brand Identity: Expert advice from designer Alina Wheeler.
- Gillde Branding Inspiration: A collection of branding inspiration.
- Everything to Include in Your Visual Identity: A handy checklist.
- How to Create a Brand Identity: Our step-by-step guide to create a visual identity.
- Inspiration Grid: Great brand identity inspiration.
- Identity Designed: Unique brand identity showcase.
- Packaging Strategies: Publication devoted to branding and product packaging.
- Rebrand: Rebrand info, awards, and galleries.
- Standards Manual: Vintage brand manuals for inspiration.
- The Brand Gap: Great book by Marty Neuemeier.
- The Best Science-Based Tips to Build an Identity: A roundup of tips for every aspect of an identity.
- Transform Magazine: Publication dedicated to the art of the rebrand.
Brand Name
- Visual Identity Awards: Award-winning brand design.
- Anadea: Brand name generator.
- Brand Bucket: Database of names with available URLs.
- Bust a Name: Domain maker tool.
- Brand Root: Helps you find names and URLs.
- Database of Registered Trademarks: United States Patent and Trademark Office database to see if a name is trademarked.
- How to Find a Brand Name in 4 Steps: A simple step-by-step exercise to find the right name.
- Name Check: Tool to find out if a name is taken.
- Onym: Helpful naming exercises, word etymologies, vetting tips, and other stuff to help you find the best brand name.
- Panabee: Tool to search domain names, app names, and company names, get alternate suggestions, and see related terms.
- Shopify’s Business Name Generator: Ideas for brand names.
- USPTO Guide to Trademark Basics: Details on how to trademark a name.
- Wordoid: Tool to make up words.
Brand Personality & Voice
- 7 Questions to Find Your Brand Voice: Helpful tips with free template.
- 5 Ways to Find Your Brand Voice: Useful exercises and ideas.
- Brand Adjectives: Helps you describe your brand.
- Brand Personality Quiz: Helps you find your brand archetype.
- Brand Voice Quiz: Quiz to help uncover your brand voice.
- How to Define Your Brand Voice: A useful guide.
- Guess the Brand Voice: Great example of brands with a strong voice.
- Tips to Define Your Brand’s Voice & Tone: A helpful framework.
Color Palettes
- 7 Rules for Website Color Schemes: Color tips for web design.
- Adobe Capture CC: Helps you turn photos into color palettes.
- Branding Color Quiz: Quiz to find out what colors are good for your company.
- Color Theory For Designers: Smashing Magazine series on color, cultural symbolism, etc.
- Colorhexa: Provides information about any color.
- Colorhunt.co: Hand-picked color palettes.
- ColourLovers.com: A great site for color geeks.
- Colr.org: Tool to play around with color palettes.
- Coolors.co: Color scheme generator.
- Color Palettes of the Fortune 500: Explore the primary and secondary color palettes of major companies for inspiration.
- How Color Boosts Branded Content: Interesting science-based insights about color.
- LOLColors: Curated color palette inspiration.
- Paletton.com: Tool to create color palettes based on color theory.
- Palettable: Helps non-designers generate color palettes.
- Pantone Color Finder: Helps you locate specific Pantone colors.
Logo Design
- 7 Logo Design Mistakes to Avoid: Useful tips to create a better logo.
- 27 Best Logo Design Software: A helpful review of the top software.
- Awwwards Logo Designs: Award-winning logo design inspiration.
- Everything There Is To Know About Logo Design: Useful guide to logo design.
- How to Design a Logo with Less Stress: A step-by-step guide.
- Logo Design Love: Logos and brand identities.
- LogoLounge: Fresh logo designs, updated daily.
- LogoMoose: Logo design contests and galleries.
- Logo of the day: Inspiration gallery, updated daily.
- Logoed: Branding inspiration for graphic designers.
- Logopond: Millions of logo designs.
- Los Logos 8: Classic compilation of innovative logo designs.
- Minimal logo design inspiration: Simple, clean logo design.
- The Noun Project: A huge icon library.
- The Ultimate Guide to Logo Design: Helpful tips and tricks.
Typography
- BitFontMaker: Edit existing fonts or build from scratch.
- Flipping Typical: Review multiple fonts at a time.
- Fontface Ninja: Tool to identify fonts you come across on the web.
- Font Pair: Easily mix and match fonts to see what goes well together.
- Font Shop: Evaluate typography options.
- Font Squirrel: Collection of fonts that are free for commercial use.
- Fontstruct: Build, share, and download fonts.
- How to Find the Best Typography for Your Brand: A great step-by-step guide.
- IDEO Font Map: Generate new and unusual font pairings.
- Type Navigator: Helps you source fonts and their designers.
- Typetester: Compare different fonts on a page.
- Typeplate: Font starter kit for web designers.
- TypeWonder: Test type styles on website.
- Typewolf: Curated typography inspiration.
- Typogui: Resource for all things typography.
- Wordle: Create word clouds.
Rebranding
- 15 Examples of How to Do a Rebrand the Right Way: Great inspiration.
- Every Question You Need to Ask Before Starting Your Rebrand: Questions to get you started the right way.
- How to Know if You Need to Rebrand: Checklist to make sure you’re not doing unnecessary work.
- How to Rebrand Without Losing Your Mind: A step-by-step guide.
- How to Rollout Your Rebrand: Tips to get everyone on board.
- Rebrand Mistakes to Avoid: Helpful tips to keep you on track.
- The Ultimate Rebrand Checklist: What to know before you start.
Style Guides
- Emulsify: An open-source tool for creating design systems with reusable components and clear guidelines for teams.
- Brand Guidelines Template: Simple template to build style guide.
- Brand Style Guide examples: Useful gallery for inspiration.
- Column Five’s Brand Style Guide: Sample guidelines for inspiration.
- Creativity Awards: Award-winning style guide designs.
- Frontify: Tool to create web-based brand manuals.
- How to Create a Style Guide That’s Easy to Use: A step-by-step guide.
- StyleGuides: Tools to help you make your own style guide.
More Tools for You
We’re always eager to help people work smarter, not harder, so we hope you found these tools helpful. (BTW, if you think we missed any, let us know in the comments below.) If you’re looking for more shortcuts to do other marketing-related things, check out:
- 101+ resources to make content creation easier
- 50+ tools to build your content strategy
- 101 resources for writing great copy
- 100 content marketing resources
- 70+ resources to run a blog
And if you need any extra help designing your own strong brand identity, find out what it’s like to work with us on your brand identity or reach out.
