There are two dead giveaways that your visual identity is not right for you. One is internal and the other external.

1. The Internal Indication

You are constantly second-guessing your brand colors and itching to rebrand your entire business every other month.

If you don’t feel 100% confident in your branding or have a nagging feeling that your branding misrepresents you and your vibe, trust your instincts.

This sounds cheesy but I can tell you from experience: when you have a fully aligned brand, you feel it in your heart. More importantly, your audience feels it in the way you show up.

2. The External Indication

You aren’t attracting the clients of your dreams, people aren’t falling over themselves to work with you, and you aren’t exceeding your revenue goals every month.

You should be drowning in so much business that a rebrand would be the last thing on your mind.

So if you are attracting a boatload of lookie-loos, freeloaders, confused people, and prospects who think “you’re too expensive” or “what is it exactly that you do?”, it means something about your brand positioning and your visual identity is misaligned. You need to reassess, realign, and rebrand accordingly.

(Recommended Reading: The Right Way to Choose Colors for Your Personal Brand)

And if you answer “no” to any of the following questions, it means you likely don’t have the level of brand clarity required to build an aligned brand identity in the first place.

→ Do you have a clear brand vision and mission statement?

→ Have you defined the transformation you help your audience with?

→ Have you identified your unique approach to solving your audience’s problem?

→ Are you clear on what makes you different from your competitors?

→ Do you have a detailed description of your ideal client avatar?

→ Do you have a list of brand words that embody the energy you want your brand to exude?

→ Have you defined the exact emotions you want to trigger in the people who come across your brand?

If you’re thinking “Nadine, what does any of this have to do with my visual identity?” My answer is: EVERYTHING.

Because your answers to these questions are meant to inform the aesthetic choices (such as your color palette) that you make for your brand.
And when you stop doing random acts of style for your visual identity and start making informed strategic decisions based on your brand’s truths…

…that’s when you build a brand that is 1000% right for you, one that is engineered to support and grow your business.