Check out my Brand Design Process including the principle brand building components — the elemental aspects of brand evolution we must progress through in order to create an expressive resonant whole brand.
First we uncover your brand truths, understand your goals and intentions for your business, and articulate your brand story in the most simplest of terms — what is the problem you solve, who are you serving, and how is your offering different and better than the competition.Based on these findings, we create your brand roadmap, the unique expression of your meaning and value, with your core messages, to be used as a compass to guide and inform all brand communication moving forward.
With your clear and agreed-upon path, we can work to translate the verbal brand foundation into brand & visual language, and begin to design your positioning. With a distinct and valuable positioning, we can extrapolate and develop the concept into a direction towards an expressive identity that embodies your purpose, personality and culture across your product/service offerings. With a clearly differentiated brand and offering, we can work to craft the intentional touchstones and experiences within your customer journey.
These timeline estimates will be dependant on the complexity of the communication challenge — for instance, how truly new or innovative your offering is, or how loosely formed or untested the concept.— Brand Strategy Roadmap: 1 – 2 months— Brand Story: 1 – 2 months— Brand Positioning: 2 – 3 months— Brand Identity: 1 – 2 months— Brand Experience: 2 – 3+ months
Because both the strategy and design is an iterative process, this type of work should be seen as an ongoing and evolutionary process, which develops over time. Many of the select brand direction and design case studies you see on my site, were crafted and evolved over a period of years.
The design and expression of irresistible offerings, packaged & paired with thoughtful touchstones within a customer journey will vary depending on the experiences, assets, collateral required, and the nature of the offering or category.For instance working with a proven service leader with 20 yrs understanding of their audience and process, will be able to provide insights valuable in advancing the work quickly, while compared to a brand new technology start-up will have a harder time understanding, defining and expressing their USP.
In the case where the company does not understand their audience, has no experience working with a specific segment, or they simply have a hard time identifying or connecting with their bulls-eye or minimum viable audience, we need to go back to the internal drivers and truths of the brand itself — their vision, values and purpose, to understand the cause larger than self, the differentiating factors and guiding principles; we need to go back to understanding the offering (service / product) and how it stacks-up to the market & competition; from there we can triangulate to find the portion of the market for which these benefits offered will complement, and to whom the offering will provide true value in solving their unmet needs.
Please see the Nuez Nutmilk case-study Brand Refresh — where I helps the business owner to clarify her strategic core messaging including “Nuez is Real Nutmilk” essence, I art directed & designed the identity, packaging and website, to express highly aspirational identity, an emotional connection to real food, and the perception of being the ultimate healthy and high-value choice.Please see the Pure Earth Superfoods Brand Direction & Design case-study — where working closely with client, I developed the brand strategy, direction and identity creation — from brand story, product naming, core messages and copy writing, to designing a visual language and conceptual approach around the biz-strategy, including the strategic positioning; “Nourishing real food made with the best of the local seasonal harvest. We source straight from the highest vibe local farmers using organic sustainable regenerative techniques, because we believe in growing an Earth friendly food system for the next generation.” Please see the J Kenney Consulting Brand Strategy & Identity Refresh case-study — were I we refreshed their firms strategy and identity, with a Brand Strategy Roadmap, internal and external analysis, and creation of new brand mark, identity and multi-lingual website, with the meaning and details that embodies the care they invest in each of their clients immigration cases.
One-Day Brand Strategy Intensive: $2.5KI will spend one full-day with you and your team; to exercise your intuition, find your spirit, and guide you to a confident place of understanding what makes your brand so unique and irresistible in your category. We will ensure that all of your leaders voices are heard and acknowledged, in order to bring forward those truths, shine a light on your greatest challenge, and guide you through your brand discovery. Through collaborative and iterative exercise together we will uncover, articulate and distill your value & meaning into your own brand strategy roadmap — which will be your strategic framework to focus your brand communication. We will work to express your vision, concept, purpose & values, promise and mission.Pre-launch or Early-Stage Brand Strategy + Identity Sprint: $7.5K–$15KOver the past 10 years of my brand design practice, I have developed a highly efficient process for fleshing-out the heart and soul of the brand, developing the brand strategy, messaging, creating the brand art direction to translate the meaning and value in your concept, into a simple and clear brand language, tone, voice and identity for businesses that are pre-launch and early-stage development. It’s a very fast-paced engagement that takes two weeks from start to finish, and at the end you get everything you need to launch your brand. The investment is $7.5K for the brand strategy + identity sprint, and $15K if you require me to design and build your marketing website.Refresh Established Brand: $25K–$50KWhen it comes to rebranding established businesses, it’s harder to set a fixed price. Every business has unique challenges and opportunities, but in general I typically charge between $25K up to $50K for the strategic creative direction and design works: in-depth brand strategy, naming, brand messaging, verbal & visual identity, social media templates, print and digital collateral suites, and an extensive brand story website.Web Refresh Established Brand: $20K–$35K+When it comes to building online experiences for established businesses, there is not a one-sized solution that fits all, because your business has unique challenges in telling your story online, with a unique mix of offerings and segments to be considered in order to create an online presence to capture the attention of audience, to communicate messages, positioning, and identity, as well as deliver value. My minimum level of engagement for web design & development is $20K for established businesses. Dependant on the communication challenge at hand, the brand strategy and identity to be expressed, the application and technologies to be deployed, the volume of unique pages, content and data designed.
I work closely with my clients from strategy, through direction, to design and activation — helping them to articulate their goals and objectives, creating a safe space to be heard and ask questions, and enrolling them to participate actively in the entire process.With each sequential phase of the brand design process, the previous phase, informs the next. I engage my clients early-on in the process, ensuring I understand their unique obstacles, and challenges they face in solving their greatest business and communications problems. I request specific client input and feedback, to gain consensus, building towards agreement, prior to moving forward to the next phase.By keeping clients active in the process, we can be sure that everyone is on the same page. We are working logically from an informed & agreed foundation of understanding, where we can address any uncertainty, obstacles or questions within each phase, ensuring there are never any surprises.
—Please Let Me Know If You Have Any Questions About My Approach to Brand Strategy & Design.
