Hi Larry;
I think I can beof assistance here. Believe it or not, the difficulty is not coming up with the brand. That will appear in due time. The difficulty is in defining the brand, and this is something that takes a LOT of forward thinking - thinking that will conceptually take your product places you haven't even though of yet, and many years into the future.
There are many questions that need to be answered before the "brand" as you call it reveals itself to you - questions such as:
1. What are all the products you are going to offer?
2. Are you going to remain artisinal, or are you going to grow into many locations?
3. If you grow, are you planning on franchising, or owning all of the stores?
4. What message do you want to convey to your customers most, and how can that message be conveyed in less than 5 seconds?
5. What are your competitors doing?
6. How are you different than your competitors?
7. Where in the market are you positioning your products? High end? Mid-priced? Value priced?
8. What kind of budget do you have for art work and branding?
9. Has one of your competitors already done something similar?
10. What fonts and color schemas are you settling on?
11. Do any of your competitors use the same, or similar fonts and colors?
12. Once you settle on a few, you may need to do trademark research too.
13. Then... after doing all of that homework, do some initial creative, and run it by a group of 10-20 people you know who will give you HONEST feedback. It's easy getting flattering feedback from friends, as nobody wants to hurt your feelings. Ask them what they don't like, as it's more important than what they DO like.
I cannot stress enough, the importance of THOROUGHLY answering these questions, when planning and researching your brand. I did 3 years of research on my brand "Choklat" and corporate image before sending a single piece of artwork off to a printer.
There isn't a single person out there in ChocolateLife Land who can give you the answer to your question here, because they don't know the answers to these questions. Any answer you get that you like will be as likely as winning a lottery.
I hope this helps.
Brad
Choklat