A proven branding process to take your business to the next level

I work with successful businesses that are often keen to grow, but to make this a reality they typically need to change their brand identity.

Reasons for change will wildly differ depending on each business, but this is why an adaptable approach to branding is the best route to take, a “one size fits all” process fits nobody!

A long established business may need small changes made to their identity, but conversely, you might be thinking about radically changing everything, the whole way your business expresses itself, your big idea, your message, personality and your visual appearance.

Process

My process starts with discovery and workshop sessions.

In depth discovery is a valuable way to gain a solid overview of a business, it’s values, the struggles it faces, it’s audiences, it’s competitors and the current branding.

We might closely look at how to refine and sharpen the following:

• Brand strategy
• Purpose
• Vision
• Mission
• Positioning

Creative exercises

We’ll dive into strategy and look at how you can own a creative competitive advatage with a simple big idea. Ideas get rigorously tested and studied for weaknesses from all angles using various methods and frameworks. We can dive into archetypes and personality and explore how these universal human truths can align with your idea to help it gain more meaning for more people.

When you live the values you’re selling, it makes it easier to form a connection with the people you’re selling to!

We gain a deeper understanding of the audience; who they are, what they want, don’t want, their problems, their available buying options and how they feel about these options. We can even look at designing your ideal customer, radical I know!

Whatever product or service your business offers, it’s precisely what a certain group of people want or need, and so the overriding goal is to formulate a plan for how best to bring your business and that group of people together, i.e. a creative way to navigate the landscape and to position your business in the minds of that group of people. The win lies in being able to make your business matter to them.

These sessions help to uncover information that will form the underlying ingredients for developing a brand strategy. We figure out what it is about the business that’s authentic and how to use this information to guide creative concepts – a successful brand strategy hinges on big strong creative ideas.

Competitive analysis

Analysing the competition is critical for developing a brand that stands out, identifying both the strengths and weaknesses of the competition along with gaps and opportunities to differentiate. We use various frameworks to do this, but ultimatley the competition will not dictate the strategy, mearly influence.

Visual branding

All of the work and research carried out above is used to create a brief that directs brand identity – the visual appearance of your business. Just like your strategy, it will be unique and an integral part of your future success.

A lot of visual research, ideation magic and sketching goes into this part of the process, to discover original visual concepts for each business I work with.

Typical deliverables for visual branding include:

• Logo
• Typography
• Colour palette
• Photography styles

I deliver professional visual design that lasts, not work that requires changing once the market or product changes.

Presentation

I present one or two identity options and usually recommend one direction over another. Presentation is very much a two way process, feedback is essential and there’s always scope for revision.

I supply all artwork and final files along with style guides if required.

More good things

Other brand assets I often supply:

• Websites
• Icons
• Business cards
• Brochures
• Stationary
• Promotional material

I can manage the printing and delivery of any non digital assets.

If you’d like to chat about your branding, or if you have any questions regarding my process or services, just drop me an email.