That Logo Destroyed Your Medical Brand Identity.

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This article is a practical guide to medical brand identity design: how to convert strategy into visuals that signal trust and quality.

We are visual beings and we’re biased towards what is visually appealing and aesthetically meaningful. Our brains are wired to react to things that have meaning before they construct the perceptions of objects.

This means, you perceive the meaning of things then, and only then, you see the visual elements of it.

For example, when you approach a cliff, you don’t see a cliff. What you see is a falling-off place. It’s the “falling-off” perception that comes first to mind, then you’ll see the imagery aspect of the object (its shape, color, etc).

Another example might be when you see a muscular, in-shape person. You don’t see a “hot and well-built person" your brain perceives that as a “healthy body” or “Strong potential partner”.

And since our brain perceives the “meaning” before the actual visuals, we can leverage that to create visuals that convey superior qualities and first-rate feel and look to your design identity.

Visual identity is the look and aesthetics of your branding assets. It’s what we call external branding. It consists of office design, logotypes, typography, website, referral pads, color schemes, signage, etc.

It’s also one piece of your overall brand system .

Your external branding should reflect and give meaning to your medical brand. It’s the first interaction the patient has with your brand. Think of your visual identity as an “optical communication” with your audience.

What we want to do here is break the outdated and predictable healthcare designs and give your medical brand fresh, custom visuals that are based on your positioning, brand DNA, and core messages.

Let’s start the workshop.

Brand Art Direction Workshop

Note: You can access the workshop by clicking here

The goal of this workshop is to create visual guidelines for your medical brand. These guidelines will be then used to design the new visuals. The most critical part here is to find aesthetics that reflect your brand and makes it unique.

But if you’re not planning on giving your medical business a facelift, that’s okay. You can skip this workshop. But if you’re interested in seeing how you can portray your brand’s attributes visually to potential patients, this guide is for you.

1) Brand Keyword Essence Exercise ⏰ [15-25 minute]

The goal of this exercise is to distill your brand’s core attributes to categorized keywords so we can easily choose a relevant style based on said keywords. Let’s see how that works.

🔴 Action Step: Fill in the brand keyword map:

The brand keyword map will allow you to brainstorm a bunch of keywords related to different aspects of your brand. Each branch represents a different element of the brand and the keywords that are related to that element.

1. Use sticky notes to write down a list of keywords on each branch. Make sure to check back on your brand’s attributes from the previous workshop. It’ll help give you an idea of what keywords are relevant.
2. Use websites like Powerthesaurus or Words To Use to get synonyms for these keywords.
3. After you have filled the branches with the needed keywords, use the voting dots to vote for 3-4 keywords that are the most representative of your brand.
4. Save the highest rated keywords and move on to the next exercise

After you’re done, you’ll be left with something like this:

2) Brand Visualization Exercise ⏰ [15-25 minute]

Next, you’ll take the 3 keywords from the last step and give them a visual aspect. Think of this step as putting a “dress” on these keywords.

You see, here is where meaning intersects with design.

For example, the visual aspect of the word “Class” will be as follows:

• Physical: “class” indicates that something is ⇒ Thin/Elegant.
• Emotional: “class” gives the sense of ⇒ Charm or Politeness.
• Descriptive: “Class” describes a ⇒ Traditional feel.

You’ll apply the same technique for each keyword you chose.

🔴 Action Step: Fill in the Visualization table:

Take the keywords you chose in the last step and apply the same visualization technique to each one of them.

1. Put the keywords on the Keyword column. And for For each one, identify its visual aspect
2. For physical: If this keyword was an object, how would it look? Is it big, small, or tall? Is it sturdy or soft? Etc…
3. For Emotional: What feeling does this keyword give? If you hear it out loud hundreds of times, would you feel courageous? Reassured? Or energetic?
4. For Descriptive: Try to describe the feeling you get out of hearing this keyword. Does it feel trustworthy? Or vigor? Does it feel hopeful or negative?

After you’re done, your result should look like this:

3) Brand Creative Process ⏰ [15-25 minute]

Now that we have generated keywords that represent your medical brand and gathered a general sense of their visual elements, it’s time to create art guidelines for bringing them to life.

In this exercise, we’re going to create an outlook theme that dictates how your external branding (website, colors, logo, business collateral, office interior, etc) will look like.

Let us start.

🔴 Action Step: Fill in the Creative Process table:

To create the external branding guidelines, we’ll need to finish establishing the characteristics of each branding aspect of your business. For the sake of brevity, I’ll cover how to write guidelines for the logo, Color Schemes, Typography, and Imagery Style.

1. The Creative Process Table consists of 4 columns
   • The identity: the identity item
   • The primary traits: these are the dominant visual element in the design.
   • The Trait Combination: these are traits that provide a mix of design elements
   • Theme Description: these are the elaborate description of how the item design should look like
2. For Primary Traits: use sticky notes to write down how the identity item should look **based **on the visual element of your brand keyword.
3. For Trait Combination: in this column, write down a mix of design elements to break the mold of the primary traits.
4. For Theme description: use sticky notes to write down an elaborate overall description of how the identity item should look like. For example, Let’s say that your brand stands for safety and security. You might describe how the logo will look by writing something like “Logo should have a rectangular look to indicate stability and reliance”.

Apply the same method for the four identity items. Once you’re done, you’ll end up with something like this:

Now that the art direction is done, you can hand the guidelines to your designer and he’ll take care of the execution.

What’s Next

It’s done. we’ve finally covered the 5 pillars of charismatic medical brands: 1) Strong Brand DNA, 2) uncontested Brand Positioning, 3) unique Brand Persona, 4) potent communication framework and 5) meaningful aesthetics.

But that’s not all. How do you measure your ROI on branding? What are the metrics and tracking methods you need to keep tabs on so you know that you’re in the right direction? Start here: Healthcare brand equity

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Part 5 of 6: Healthcare Branding Series

You’re reading Part 5 of a 6‑part series on building a medical brand people trust (and choose).

If you want to keep the thread:

• Previous: Healthcare brand storytelling
• Next: Healthcare brand equity
• Or start a project: Contact