My 4-step Process for Developing Brand Identities

Four steps to success. With more than eight years under my belt, I understand the power of process. I lean into it and I love it. I also love introducing clients to this process because they love it too! Over the years I’ve refined, modified and tweaked my creative process into one that I believe works. 

How do I do it? And as a client, what can you expect?

1. Client Discovery

🤯The brain dump aka knowledge transfer

This is the number one most important part of the entire process. The discovery! Or as I like to say, the brain dump. I come alongside you to understand your needs, goals and stylistic preferences.

Branding Questions (The marathon of never ending questions.)

I break down questions into three distinct categories. These questions help me gain a big picture of your business and identify what sets you apart from your competitors.

• #1 Business Overview (Who you are and how your serve your customers)

• #2 Client Target Market (Who your customers are and what motivates them)

• #3 Brand Voice & Aesthetic (How do you want to sound, look and feel)

Interactive Moodboard (The fun part!)

Or at least I think it’s the fun part. Being a visual person myself, I find this portion of the discovery session to be extremely valuable because it helps us identify certain stylistic preferences such as color, type, iconography and more. I will present you with a large number of logos and brands with varying styles. Through this process you will narrow down your favorites. By walking me through your choices, I’ll generally see some patterns and we can start to visualize your brand!

2. Concepting Presentation

🖤Let’s set the mood.

After taking in all of the information from our last session, I’ll take some time to develop branding concepts (1-3 concepts depending on our agreed upon terms). These concepts give us a complete picture of the design direction and overall look and feel of your brand. I always have this meeting in person or over zoom so I can see your genuine reaction.

Concepts include the following:

• Fully designed logo

• Language and messaging
  Typography and Fonts

• Colors Palette

• Patterns and Brand Elements 

• Photography and videography style

• Mockups on branding elements

3. Feedback and Revisions

💭 Gimme all your thoughts!

Now that you’ve seen the concepts, it’s time for your feedback! I’ll give you the concept presentation so that you can take time to review and gather your thoughts. After you’ve shared the concepts with other stakeholders and you’ve had time to review, we’ll come together to chat about your preferences. Sometimes you’ll love one concept completely, and we’ll develop that concept even further. Other times, you’ll like different elements from each concept and I’ll mesh those ideas together. Every client is different!

4. Branding Presentation

⚾ Can we hear a home run?!

We take your feedback and thoughts from our stylescape conversation and really hone in on what is working, roll with that and make it even better. We refine our concept and add our finishing touches - ones you didn’t even realize you needed! It’s so exciting to see the result of this thoughtfully crafted process. We have a lot of fun doing it and so we try to make it as enjoyable as possible for you. That’s our We did it - together!! We launched your new brand. 

Yay! And that is how I build brand identities. 😌