There’s a line between helping your brand stand out from the crowd and keeping it consistent enough to feel like you.
Being provocative has little value if your appeal is the assurance you provide. Equally, a business built on creative thinking has an opportunity to show that through a website with some personality. Finding that balance takes more than following a brand book. It means understanding what your business offers, what people expect from it and which expectations you can usefully challenge.
Someone enjoying your website is a good start. But that impression needs to lead somewhere, whether it’s confidence in your expertise or a reason to get in touch.
So, how do you find that sweet spot?
Which brand elements should your website preserve?
Beyond the logo, your colours, typography, photography and language all contribute to the impression people form. But which of these details identify you, and which can you play around with?
Does colour represent you, like Cadbury’s purple? If quality of service is your business, does lifestyle photography do the talking? And if your reputation rests on reliable information, is straightforward language essential to maintaining that trust and clarity?
Those are useful foundations for creative exploration. The boxes to then think outside of. Once you know what needs to stay, you know where you can be adventurous. With, say, composition, imagery or, in what we’re about to talk about, page movement.
Understanding what’s essential can also help you work out what to replace. A large image at the top of every page may simply be a layout choice made five years ago. Forget loyalty to assets that have no brand purpose. Move on while preserving the core of your guidelines.
UI means more to play with
The interactivity of a website gives your brand a bespoke visual space to play in, with possibilities a print ad, billboard or TV spot can’t offer. Elements can tumble, dance and reveal their characteristics as someone explores. That opens up creative possibilities beyond the colours, fonts and imagery in your guidelines.
A button can come alive in response to a cursor. A menu can open with a movement that reflects the brand’s character. Is it playfully chaotic or calm? Even as someone scrolls, responsiveness becomes another layer for a brand. Think of an object that follows you through the page, a 2D shape with no expression or voice that feels like good company throughout a customer’s discovery.
New details give an established identity another dimension. The shapes in your guidelines evolve into movement, however subtle or expressive you want it to be. Colours can pulse and shift as someone explores the page. It all contributes to the feeling that the website is alive. The established visual connection remains, while its behaviour adds something distinctive to the experience.
Interactions still need to be clear. A visitor should know a button is a button, while feeling like the brand asked them to press it. They should understand what the menu does as much as who it belongs to. Little touches of extra character help distinguish the website, and the brand behind it, from anyone else’s.
Examples of digital distinction
For The Killarney Park, we paired bespoke photography with a horizontal scrolling experience on the homepage. The imagery introduces the hotel and its surroundings, while the movement gives visitors a distinctive way to explore them. It’s a creative choice grounded in the experience the hotel offers, with the route to booking kept in view.
Our Irish Film Institute website takes its cues from a different setting. Ticket-tear hover effects and projected menus draw on the experience of going to the cinema. Those details belong to the IFI’s world, giving familiar actions a little of the anticipation of a night at the pictures.
There’s also something useful in Duolingo’s account of refreshing its app’s core tabs. They explored bold colours, softer gradients and different layouts, then questioned whether using artwork in every header actually helped learners. Their solution allowed headers to vary according to their purpose while keeping titles consistently positioned. A recognisable brand can give different parts of an interface room to behave differently.
In each case, distinction comes from something specific to the business and the people using its platform. That gives the design a reason to be remembered.
How to push YOUR brand creatively
Start with the impression you want to make. “Make it more exciting” can mean anything. An unsuitable idea can technically be exciting. Loud colours and restless movement might do very little for a hotel promising a peaceful escape.
“Help visitors experience the emotion behind our work” gives the creative team something to sink their teeth into. What should people feel, and which details could bring that feeling into the website?
Choose one important page or journey and develop a few approaches. Keep the strongest brand features visible while experimenting with layout, scale or interaction. Use realistic content, including long headings and everyday photography, so the idea can stand up to life after launch.
Then involve people who resemble your audience. Ask what sort of business they think they’re looking at, what it offers and what they would do next. Give them a task to complete. Their ability to find a service or make an enquiry will tell you more than whether they like the design.
Keep accessibility in those early decisions. Test interactions on mobile and with a keyboard, and accommodate people who prefer less movement. W3C’s guidance on animation explains how movement can cause dizziness or nausea for some users, and how reduced-motion preferences can help. Your website should still feel like your brand when decorative animation is switched off.
Kooba
At Kooba, we look at the brand and the website’s purpose with you. What do customers already recognise? What does the business need to communicate? Where could the experience show more of its character?
That gives us a basis for deciding what to preserve and what to push. Sometimes a distinctive interaction brings an established identity to life. Sometimes stronger typography, better content and a more confident layout do the work.
We’ll come to understand why a creative direction fits your business and how it helps the people using the website. That makes it easier to carry the idea through new pages, campaigns and everyday updates.
If you’re planning a redesign and wondering how far your brand can stretch, talk to us about what you want the website to achieve. Let’s make something incredible (and on brand).
