Want to start a fashion business? Read on to find out how to build a fashion brand from scratch, from establishing your branding to finding the best fashion design tools.

 

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a fashion blogger working from their kitchen table, or the CEO of a fashion retail empire, you need a strong brand! But what does it really take to build a successful fashion brand? Today I’m going to talk you through 3 key things to consider when working on the visual aspects of your branding. 

Building a Fashion Brand

The face of Minnirella has changed several times in the years that have passed since its launch. This is due to many reasons. Building a brand takes time, passion, and challenges you to delve into parts of your business that you wouldn’t have otherwise explored. Working on your business’s brand can be great fun and helps you to gain a thorough understanding of what you want to achieve with your business. There are a fair amount of things to take into consideration when building a fashion brand. What words best describe your business values? Will your fashion brand be luxurious, ethical, youthful, budget-friendly, eccentric?

Curating your Brand’s Colour Palette

This is where the really fun part begins. Creating the visual aspects of your fashion brand. The colour palette I created for Minnirella represents my vision of a classic, timeless fashion brand. When creating a colour palette for your brand, you can pull together any selection of colours that appeal to you. As long as you feel that the colours adequately represent your brand, there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to putting together your colour palette.
When I first set up Minnirella, I curated a very feminine colour palette. The original colour scheme consisted mainly of different shades of pinks, as well as white and gold. The palette was gorgeous and made my website look so pretty! I chose pink as the dominant colour because my favourite colour has always been pink. I thought that at the first opportunity of being able to create a platform that could be considered ‘an extension of my personality,’ pink would be an obvious colour choice. I think that when your business of very personal to you, it seems like a good idea to use your own personal favourite colours in your branding. This works really well for a lot of people, but surprisingly it didn’t work for me. There wasn’t anything wrong with the colours I chose originally. It’s just that I later realised that pink just wasn’t a colour I wanted to use heavily in my visual branding because it didn’t resonate with my ideas of how I wanted Minnirella to look. Minnirella underwent a rebrand and thereby established my current colour palette, which I’m more than happy with! It all depends on what’s right for you and your business!

Use the Right Fashion Design Tools

The internet is full of useful online resources that will help you to start and grow your fashion brand. There are some great free and inexpensive tools to get you started. Of course, if you're going to start a fashion brand then having a decent background knowledge of the industry is important. If you're starting with a big budget then you can always outsource specialist jobs however, it it always a good idea to understand the basics of each sector of the process, from design to manufacturing, in order to recognise any potential issues if such arise. The Fashionary offers a range of excellent tools that will enable you to gain knowledge on the history of fashion, legendary designers, a complete guide to textiles, as well as how to launch a fashion brand from scratch. They also offer additional tools for fashion designers, from sketch pads to fashion design templates to make fashion sketching super fun and convenient! You might also want to pick up a pack of professional fashion design marker pens too. These are a special alcohol-based type of marker, which allows you to spend colours seamlessly and help to create realistic looking garment designs. You can also make your fashion designs look even more authentic by using skin toned markers too.

 

Words are Important, So is the Font!

A font can say a lot about your brand. Choosing the wrong font can be a disastrous move in your business branding journey. You’ll notice that the fonts on my blog are similar to many other fashion blogs and magazines you see. This is because the kind of fonts you will see on my site and similar, are the most appropriate choice for fashion editorials.
I mentioned previously that you can choose whichever combination of tones for your brand that take your fancy. My only advice would be to pick something that you like and that will appeal to the kind of clients you wish to attract.
With fonts, it’s really important that you choose a type that fits well with your brand, the products you offer and of course, your niche. Although there aren’t any set rules when it comes to choosing brand colours or font types, we automatically associate certain fonts and colours with certain businesses, values and industries. If you run a bespoke shoe brand then your font should represent your sophistication and luxury. Choosing a font like Jokerman could potentially devalue your brand and many clients might struggle to take your brand seriously. It’s the same on the other end of the scale. If you run a fashion brand for young children, you’ll want to choose a font that doesn’t intimidate.
As you start to pay attention to type fonts used by brands that we see in our daily lives, you will begin to notice that some fonts are typically associated with particular industries. The food industry often uses italic, element lettering. Fonts of brands that market to kids are often goofy, easy to read, and light-hearted. Fashion editorials are straight, classic and sophisticated without being overly fancy.


 

Define Your Niche

Defining your niche and identifying your ideal client is something you should do in the beginning stages of the branding process. However, I feel that as you delve into branding your business, your vision can change. This is why I’m reminding you now to constantly think about your market and whether or not you’re happy with your chosen niche or want to change.
 

 

Plan Your Content to Stay On-Brand

Finally, in order to stay on-brand and relevant within your niche, you should plan out content that conveys your brand’s message and values. Once you’ve established the values and visual aspects of your brand, you need to ensure that you have a consistent supply of content to share with potential and existing clients. This will help to market your brand and will serve as a reminder to existing or interested customers. If you sporadically post on social media, publish blog posts and send out newsletters, staying on-brand will be more difficult. Branding is all about respecting your company’s ethos and attracting your ideal client. If you’d like more information on planning content in advance and maintain a fashion brand, checkout my blogging for business course here.