Today we present to you the second design tip for non-designers in an ongoing series: Consistency.
This week I wanted to discuss Consistency and how it can help you, as a marketer, push your message and brand forward. Everyday I work on a variety of materials for TrackMaven — from our product, to our website, emails, promotional materials, slide decks, banners, and business cards… Everything! It’s one of my favorite parts of the job, that I don’t get stuck doing just one thing, I get to change it up from day to day. But the biggest challenge I’ve been faced with is that we have a brand to maintain and within that brand a ridiculous amount of fonts, colors, weights, sizes, exceptions to the rules and more that need to be considered. Maintaining consistency is super important!
The more users’ expectations prove right, the more they will feel in control of the system and the more they will like it. —Jakob Nielson
What is Consistency?
Nielson puts it perfectly. Consistency helps to create a sense of comfort, control, and familiarity in a visual system. It gives a sense of recognition and understanding. Examples of elements that can benefit from the use of consistency are:
- Type
- Lines
- Color
- Terminology
- Photographic Styles
- Spatial Relationships
- Graphic Styles
By using the same or similar elements we can create a good visual flow. Flow is created by the movement and rhythm of elements as they occur throughout. Repeated use of elements creates a pleasing visual pattern which, with slight variations, increases the users’ attention and curiosity. When you reduce the number of repeated elements, it takes visitors longer to comprehend your message because they haven’t formed an understanding of the content structure.
This doesn’t mean that all of your communications need to look exactly the same. Learn to know when you should break the mold as this will keep your materials from being too dull and tiresome. Take the examples below — Urban Outfitters and ModCloth are both independently eccentric brands that pride themselves on their unique clothing and accessories. Each week they send out uniquely designed email campaigns to promote their latest wares, often separate in design from the brand as a whole. Their unique design is what can capture your curiosity.
However, as is plainly seen, Urban Outfitters executes this mission poorly as there is no consistency to their design. The calls to action are all different visual styles, there are several conflicting styles of typographic treatment and overall a lack of hierarchy throughout this hard-to-scan design.
ModCloth also has unique emails each week. However, they maintain a visual consistency in each email. Calls to action are styled similarly, color palettes are consistent, and photographic styles are complementary to beautiful type. In this email, it is easy to guess what areas of this very visual email are clickable to the content you are interested in.
Why should you care?
Consistency helps your brand!
By insuring that you have a consistent brand you create trust in your users. Whatever your message is, you insure that it is understood no matter the instance.
Consider new marketing initiatives that might require a new logo. By maintaining either color or style from the parent brand, you help individuals connect the two. Virgin is a great example of this, as you can see. Throughout their different initiatives, they use either their standard red, or include the logo of their parent brand. This helps maintain a consistent family of sub-brands.
Another good example, as mentioned by Sabel in her Instagram webinar (slides found here) is Everlane. Marketing initiatives can also benefit from consistency, as seen in Everlane’s #EverlaneExploresSpain posts. Through the use of black and white photography that these photos all share (and the same hashtag), we recognize that these photos are part of a series.

Consider Adobe Creative Suite compared to Apple iWorks. The consistency and simplicity of Adobe’s product logos make it easy to scan and find what you are looking for. Whereas Apple’s iWork logos, which are not very similar or visually consistent, make it harder to associate together.
By maintaining consistency, you cater to people’s expectations of your brand. Using terminology, color, typography, visual style and more, you can help users learn your brand quicker and in turn, trust it quicker.