Good + smart design matters– it’s the first impression of any brand and having the right strategy makes all the difference. The right process helps determine the intended audience and how best to connect with them– creating a stable foundation for any company to flourish.

Design directions are endless, it’s about finding the right path for the project and leading the team and client to the right destination.

While having the right strategy and process is essential, cultivating creativity and inquiry make meaningful work– it’s about knowing when to push the limits and when to be practical around budget, deadlines, production and beyond, while keeping the appropriate audience at the center.

Goals and Challenges
Outline company objectives and ethos– noting current challenges.

Research market, trends, and competitors
This helps the team understand customer needs in the market, what other brands lack, and how distinguish the brand in the market.

Brand Discovery
Review value proposition, positioning, brand promises, and targeted customers to develop personas.

Company Personality Exercise
It is fruitful to imagine the brand as personality. This helps the client and the design team be on the same page and begin developing creative.

Develop 2-3 moodboards
By exploring different directions, the team can begin defining the visual expression of the brand (personality), and helps the client collaborate in the process, ensuring their vision is represented in the visual identity.

This is done by exploring typography, marks and monograms, patterns, color, materials– further working through brand personality and any evoked feelings

Logo and creative exploration Defining typography, logo variations (mark, word marks, abbreviated logos, monograms

Testing

Develop additional brand elements
This includes any photography, iconogaphy, social assets, or illustration system

Build out brand guidelines.
Final files on all logo variations and guidelines to outline typography

Creating a logo is just one piece of a brand, here are some other important questions:

How does it live in the world and within what spaces?

How do customers/users interact, touch, see, smell the brand?

Is the branding scalable as companies grow?

Do the brand values translate in everything the company does– from hiring practices to the supply chain? This is important to note so promises that are made are kept.

Keeping the audience in laser focus is important and caring about the audience matters more. That is when breakthroughs come in and the work truly matters.