Why Your Wellness Brand Looks Like Every Other Wellness Brand
If you work in wellness or healthcare, you've seen this kind of brand, or you have it yourself: A neutral color palette that focuses on a sage green, serif fonts, a botanical illustration, a tagline about healing or wholeness, and warm cream backgrounds and photography of people in natural light.
The visual language of the wellness industry defaults to a similar look and feel. This prevents any one brand from standing out, including yours.
When the different visual designs start becoming one
The visual language of the wellness industry has converged to a degree that is what we call a recognition problem. This is when a too many similar brand visuals are used in the same category that they lose their ability to differentiate. Similar fonts, colors, and overall branding assimilate instead of stand out.
At one point, the sage green and serif font combination was, at some point, stood out and communicated “calm, considered, trustworthy, different from clinical”. But, now it's the default, which has had the opposite effect from standing out; brands now assimilate.
If you own a health practice or wellness organization and are trying to reach the right patients or clients, designing your brand to look similar to others will cost you.
In UX research on healthcare decision-making, patients and clients consistently report difficulty differentiating between providers in a crowded market when their brands look and sound interchangeable. When the visual language is the same, potential clients will default to making a decision based on proximity or price, not who's meets their need the best.
What differentiation actually means
Differentiation in brand design isn't necessarily about standing out for its own sake, but about communicating specific ways you meet the needs of potential clients, such as:
Who you are, including your values and approach.
Who you serve, including what services you offer, and what kind of care you provide.
What makes you different, and how you are distinct from any other wellness brand out there.
What this looks like in practice
A brand rooted in your specific differentiators is what makes your brand personalized.
This shows up in how the you chose your color palette — because it communicates something true about your practice. Maybe you selected a specific font for your logo because it reflects how the organization actually talks to people. The selected imagery shows the real context and people that you work with and/or serve.
The result is then a brand that a specific person encounters and immediately recognizes as being for them. But, just as importantly, a brand that a person who isn't the right fit for will understand isn’t for them, which is not a failure, but a clear differentiator about if you can or can’t meet their needs.
The sage green question
If you were to analyze your current visual identity and decide that it looks like similar brands in your space, it doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be entirely replaced, but reassessed from a strategy point.
Does the look and feel of your brand communicate the specific message of your practice, or did you choose it because it looked like what a health and wellness brand is supposed to look like? If it's the latter, that's a something to make note of.
Take the next step
Wondering whether your health practice's brand looks like the category or like your organization? Download the free Website Checklist, a 10-point self-assessment that helps you see your brand the way a first-time patient does.
→ Get it free at wellfolkdesign.com/resources