Things to know before working with a branding designer
business tips
It’s no secret that having a brilliant designer as part of your team can lead your brand to thrive. Having a professional and meaningful brand identity that resonates with the audience is vital for any brand. Finding a branding designer that you feel aligned with is even more important.
So what entails when you work with a branding studio? How does it look like, and where can you find a designer? How does the process start, and what do you need to do before hiring a design studio? All these questions can pile up in your mind and stop you from leaping, so let me help you find clarity along the way.
Boutique studio VS agency
First, let’s start with the difference between a boutique studio, or freelancer, and an agency.
A boutique studio, or freelancer, is an individual, a single designer or a small team which you’ll be working on a one on one basis. If you’re a brand looking for a tailored experience, something that feels personal and thoughtful, and you are looking to design your brand identity from scratch, create your packaging, build a website, or even rebrand, then this is probably your best bet.
A design agency is a company that has many people working for them - including a few different designers, developers, copywriters, etc. If you’re a company looking to ensure that a team of professionals backs your work, then you’re probably going to hire an agency.
What does a branding designer do?
Branding is so important for any business. Branding is the way you interact with your customers, is your audience and how they perceive you, is how you promote yourself, how you look, how you sound like, is the paper you choose, is the scent you use, the music you play… Branding is your brand essence merged with your positioning to offer your audience a reason to feel part of the journey.
A branding designer helps you bring to life a visual identity that is rooted in strategy, creating elements like your logo design, typography, colours, imagery style, and much more.
When you collaborate with a designer to bring to life your brand identity, this starts with laying the foundations: defining your vision, mission, purpose, values, and target audience. Follows with how you want to be perceived and what feelings or actions you want to inspire.
Once these elements are put together, the process evolves with designing your logos, defining your colour palette and your brand typography, photography style, choosing the paper for your packaging, etc. All this while keeping in mind your ideal audience and the feelings and emotions you want to evoke.
There’s a lot of psychology behind every design choice, so it is never just a logo, or a colour palette, or just a packaging. Design should solve problems, is a powerful form of communication and makes the world a better place. A brand identity without meaning is not going to bring those significant results for your business.
Find a branding designer
You are getting ready to launch your business, and you want to invest in collaborating with a branding designer. But how do you find one?
We, as branding designers, mainly hang out where we can share visuals. Most of us have our portfolio online, and you can also find us on Pinterest, Instagram, and platforms like Behance. These are great places to start looking for a design studio. Then, of course, there’s Linkedin, Facebook, or even Tik Tok.
It’s important that the designer aligns with your vision and you both share the same values. The communication between your designer and you should be smooth and pleasant.
Ensure you are on the same page about the project scope, so explain your goals, also financial ones. Make sure you are both clear on deliverables, deadlines, and ask questions if you have doubts.
And most importantly: trust your designer and their expertise. They are the expert, and you hired them for a reason.
Share your big vision
It’s finally time to put together your ideas and share your vision. So how can you help your designer better visualise your big picture?
I often see brand owners approaching designers with mood boards and a clear idea of what they think they want design-wise. And often, that is not what their audience wants. So instead of focusing on the colours, collecting logos, and creating endless Pinterest boards based on personal taste, I invite a different approach:
Start by uncovering your brand essence and understanding your true brand purpose, personality, and get to know your audience.
These elements are way more important to create a brand identity that truly reflects your brand and resonates with your people.
The start of the process
Every project is an opportunity fueled by that feeling of potential that a new brand offers. Of course, how their vision comes to life looks different every time, but it's always going to spark a positive connection.
Here at Giada Tamborrino Studio, this is how we’d do it. We start by ensuring we are a good fit for each other and aligned and on the same page. Then, we move on to dig deeper into your whys. So why you started your business, who are you doing it for, what is your great purpose. And, of course, we get to talk about how you want to be perceived and your brand story, which is an essential part of your business and can be incorporated into your visual identity through specific design elements. Lastly, we define your ideal target audience as the final goal is to create something that resonates with them. Once all these elements of your brand roadmap are in place, we can proceed with the design phase.
Good things take time.
And branding is definitely one of them. Of course, every project and designer is different; however, branding projects usually take 2-3 months. Additionally, designers are often booked weeks in advance, so make sure that you take your time to do your research and book a design studio so nobody has to take rushed decisions.
Why is it important to invest in branding?
The initial investments can be scary ones, and branding is one of them. So why should you invest in a professionally designed brand identity?
A professionally designed brand identity gives you confidence. It makes your brand stand apart from the competition and helps you reach your goals.
Branding is a long-term investment, and adds value to your brand and directly impact your products’ perception.
With a cohesive, aligned brand identity, you’re setting up your business for the growth that it’s meant for. Additionally, connecting with your ideal audience comes easy as a breeze, when your visual identity has been created with them in mind, selecting colours, fonts and shapes that evoke the feelings you want to communicate. Your brand identity influences how your product and overall business looks and feels, so it can directly impact your sales.
When you collaborate with a branding designer, your brand is taken care of by a professional with expertise, talent, and knowledge, and every design choice being made is rooted in strategy. And while from a client’s perspective, it may seem like a simple pixel-perfect logo design happens overnight, dozens of explorations occur behind the scenes. Branding experts research, refine, and explore multiple concepts until they find the one.
Alternatives on a budget
If a start-up is not quite ready to invest thousands on branding just yet, there are still plenty of tools to create high-end looking brand identities but on a budget. For example, you can DIY your design with Canva or hire a designer for a day.
Alternatively, you can look for semi-custom brand suites.
Semi-custom brand suites are premade, customisable brand identity kits, ideal for the beginning of your business journey to give your brand a professional and cohesive look. Take a look at the brand suites I created for ethical, conscious brands here. They include logos, colour palette, fonts selection, and a set of cohesive social media templates. Plus, a handy brand style guide with instructions on how to use your beautiful brand identity.
The semi-custom brand suites:
Having a professional brand identity for your business is essential as trees as to the forest. And a branding expert can help your brand thrive and reach those big goals of yours.
So go on, find a designer that aligns with your vision, and get ready to witness your brand’s elevation.
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