Does your business have a brand identity or does it just have branding?
I work with a lot of clients who have been branded and stranded. They have brand colors, fonts, and a logo but really no color hierarchy, typography system, custom brand elements or examples of the aesthetic and visual direction.
That’s okay. This isn’t always within the scope of working with a brand designer.
Whether your branding is tired and in need of a refresh or if you have branding you love but you just don’t know how to use it, I can help.
Here’s an example of how I did this for my client, Jessica.
Jessica came to me feeling like her current branding didn’t quite fit the kind of thought leader that she was becoming.
She wanted her brand to be angrier, more edgy, and she wanted to show her passion and beliefs and not just look like every other business consultant out there. Because she’s not like every other business consultant out there.
One of the first questions I ask is: how do you want your audience to feel when working with you?
What’s most important for them to know about you and what it is about your personality, expertise, and background that you want them to experience and understand through your branding.
This is the brand alignment or exploration phase. This helps me get clear on how you want your audience to see you.
We dove deep into her distinct message and brand personality, and spent some time envisioning what the next level of her branding would be.
After I got clear on how Jessica wanted to be seen, and what was important for her audience to know about her, we proceeded to the brand expansion or ideation phase.
I showed her a mood board of how her graphics might look after our work together, because I have lots of checkpoints throughout my process. I want you to be well-informed and able give consent along the way.
With this in place, I then sourced, edited, and created custom design elements and planned how we would use them.
I then created examples for Jessica to show her how everything would look when it came together.
I’ve actually gone through this process twice with Jessica over the years. So the second time, when we did this, most recently, we actually dug even deeper into the visual direction that we established the first time. And again, I showed her a mood board to explain the visual direction that I had in mind. And I always give examples of what the graphics might look like so you can see how everything will work together in the end.
And then I created her Brand Guide 2. 0 to communicate the overall look to Jessica and anyone else she collaborates with in the future.
Now we’re ready for the brand consistency or implementation phase.
This is where I design everything across the board so that it all matches. I usually cover social media templates, audience experience, client experience, and sometimes print graphics.
So for Jessica, this was social media templates, newsletter banners, a LinkedIn banner, slide decks, PDF workbooks, a speaker one-sheet, and video covers.
After this whole branding refresh, Jessica said:
You didn’t just design something pretty, you captured the essence of me in my designs, and really informed my brand and how I show up online. You see the potential in me and the potential in my messages, and you help amplify that through design in a way that makes me feel way more polished and way more confident and way more able to speak my truth because I feel like they’re backed up by great visuals.”
Jessica Lackey
Her visual identity expands across all channels and all the ways she shows up in her business.
Jessica’s visual identity is now impactful, meaning that it’s actually memorable and distinct. When people see it, they know it’s her. And it helps people to understand what kind of business consultant she really is.
If you’ve been branded and stranded and you’re ready for a visual identity that fully expresses you and your values, I can help.
We can work on your alignment with a Brand Alignment Audit. In this one-on-one call, we’ll dive deep into your vision, values, and unique brand identity and craft a brand alignment roadmap so that you know exactly how to bring consistency to your marketing visuals and more of you to your branding.
We can do a Brand Expansion Pack, if your branding is solid, but in need of a refresh. This package will breathe new life into it and give you an aligned direction, building upon the deep dive and brand alignment process. This package includes design element curation and your brand guide 2. 0.
Or we can do the Brand Consistency Package. In this package, we do all three phases, and I design all of the marketing visuals you need to give your audience an immersive, consistent experience of your brand across all touch points.
Ready to go? Book a Discovery Call with me to see if we’re a good fit.
