UX Glossary · B
Brand identity
Also: Visual identity
The visible and verbal system that makes an organisation recognisable and consistent.
Brand identity is the set of expressible things that make an organisation recognisable: name, logo, colour, typography, imagery, tone of voice. It is distinct from brand, which is what people actually think of you, and which you influence but do not own.
Where it meets interface design
The overlap is bigger than colours. Tone of voice decides what an error message sounds like. Colour decides whether your primary action passes contrast requirements. Typography decides how much text fits before a card breaks.
Conflicts surface quickly. A brand colour that fails 4.5:1 against white cannot be used for body text, and the honest resolution is a darker variant reserved for text rather than pretending the contrast requirement is negotiable. A design system is usually where that reconciliation gets written down.
In practice
The strongest identities are consistent in a small number of things rather than controlling in everything. One accent colour used only for actions carries more recognition than five colours used decoratively, because a rule the reader can unconsciously learn is worth more than a palette they cannot.