What's the best ways to brand my website they ask and the answer is to start with a great logo.
Logos graphicaly represent companies or products and should contain certain characteristics.
Number one would be the shape of a logo.
You will want to create a strong outline shape that is recognisable regardless of color most of the time as with the Apple company which of course has their famous apple with a bite taken out.
And who can mistake a swoosh for anything but Nike.
There are logos which use generic shapes though in which case the colors should contrast as much as possible as with a circle or a square with a companys name or tagline inside.
It is important to use white space where needed and to not mix very light weight or thin lines with heavy weight or bold shapes.
Shapes with mixed wieghts or that are very busy tend to lose their effectiveness.
You will want to make sure that your logos have a good presence.
In the case of using generic shapes such as an elipse, circle or squares and rectangles the white space inside the shape needs to be filled as much as possible with clear and recognisable words or symbles without being to busy.
A good example would be IBMs logo which is simply a rectangle with the Letters IBM taking up most of the white space.
Always be careful when using bold font inside of a generic shape to not make it so bold as to become blurry.
A third characteristic of a good logo design is weight.
The better more recognisable logos have a clear bold weight and do not rely on slim or light features and lines so it is recommended to use as few colors as possible and avoid using all the fancy 3D effects.
Another elemnt of good logo design is contrast.
Good examples would be red and yellow as with the McDonalds golden arch on a red background.
Black and white and white and red are also great contrasting colors.
Lastly make sure that text inside a generic shape has very defined edges and if there is little contrast be careful that you dont use text that is to thin to be seen clearly.