A Brand Refresh
Recently it hit me that I have been running Rose Color Creative for FOUR years, and I realized “wow, a lot has changed since 2018”
Not only has my business grown and changed, but I personally have grown and changed too! A lot of my work is a little different and I am focusing on fairly specific content and projects. While I still have the same core values, I started to realize that my brand wasn’t really reflecting my business’s full personality any longer.
I decided I need a refresh.
What is a brand?
A brand, at its core, is an external representation of a business, person or set of ideas. “Brand” originated as a literal mark that was burned into a cow’s hide so people knew which ranch it belonged to. It obviously means a bit more nowadays, but I think we still think of it as a mark or a logo that, well, still kind of represents what bits and pieces belong to the same herd.
A logo is certainly a basic part of what a brand is, but beyond that a brand can mean everything from the personalities that exist on social media to the colors used on a website. All brands differ in what visual or linguistic elements they include, but you can always think of a brand in terms of a personality.
Think about it: your personality is represented in a lot of different ways. The clothes you wear, your inflection when you talk, how you style your home or how you do your hair. What color your nails are. What tattoos or piercings you have. The activities you’re involved in or even the types of food you like! This is a great analogy for business or personal brands! They can be represented in so many different ways, including language, logos, illustrations, tone of voice, the design of a physical space, and the way values are presented to clients or customers.
Why did I decide to refresh mine?
When I realized my brand no longer truly represented my personality as a designer I thought it was time to give it an update! I still felt my logo was a great representation of Rose Color Creative, but it felt like the website, colors and content didn’t totally represent the work I want to be doing more of or the types of clients I want to work with.
This meant I wouldn’t need a full rebrand, just an update of some brand elements! The logo and name are still a great fit, they just needed to be complimented with updated values, colors and a website that would facilitate the types of work I would want to focus on moving forward. Something a little softer, simplified and representing the expertise I have acquired in the past 4 years of freelancing.
What does the brand process look like?
CREATIVE BRIEF
The brand process always starts with a Creative Brief (and my own brand is no exception!). This is a questionnaire that asks questions about your values, goals, ideal customer or client, background etc. and helps start to put together the pieces of your business’s personality. This process is really helpful on it’s own, because it creates a document that you can revisit when making decisions for your business or brand. It helps you clarify and document your values and goals so you can create assets and plans to reach those goals.
MOODBOARDS
Moodboards are where you start to translate those personality traits into visuals. Pulling images onto one page that represent your brand values helps you start to see visual trends from those written explanations of your ideals. Usually you will start to see patterns - certain colors or styles will pop out at you. You can take inspiration from so many existing places and quickly represent the look and feel - what designers like to call the visual language - of your brand!
My brand values are:
Good Vibes • Aesthetic • Play • Travel • Spacemaking • Simplicity
Craft • Community • Humor • Optimism • Nature • Nostalgia
So, I made a moodboard representing each one!
I always use Pinterest to begin with, and then pull images into large files. It’s always a plus when you can print them as well and reflect on them over the course of a few days.
LOGO WORK
After the moodboards are put together, reviewed & marked up as needed, it’s time to begin on the logos. For my brand I knew I wanted to keep my current logo but simplify it, so I nixed the word mark and just added my business name to my brand mark. This process can really vary depending on the state (or existence) of a current logo. Sometimes businesses need a whole new logo, or they just need their logo updated, OR they keep the same logo and just need some new elements added to their visual brand arsenal! Usually this need becomes clear based on the creative brief answers where you can decide whether your current logo does a good job of representing your brand or not.
ADDITIONAL BRAND ELEMENTS
Once a logo has been decided on, all the rest of the elements start to come together. Using the creative brief and moodboards as a guide, it’s time to piece together other visual elements including photography style and presets, illustrations, colors, typefaces, social media language and visual guides, web images, iconography and copy decks or guides. This is a time when pulling in other professionals like photographers, illustrators, web designers or copy writers can be an amazing way to collaborate and build a brand!
You can of course always do these things over time as well. If you think of a brand as a personality, you can also think of it as being sort of ever-changing. Of course having a logo that can stand the test of time is just good practice and will build brand equity with your ideal customers, but if your colors or writing style or photography presets change and grow over time that is totally normal! People, businesses and content evolve over time and it’s pretty typical for visual brands to reflect that.
So, what’s next?!
For me what came next was implementing my updated brand on social media, my website and print materials (like business cards & thank you notes). It also was the beginning of me creating more content that felt like it fit my brand personality and tells the story of the work I do and what I care about.
This process looks different for everyone, but developing a true, well-rounded brand that tells your story well can help you find your ideal audience and serve them well, whatever your expertise may be!
Are you wondering if you need a new brand, or maybe a brand refresh or maybe even brand to begin with?? If you are a content creator, small business owner or even just someone who wants to share their ideas more effectively with your audience (of any size), you can use my handy dandy flow chart below to see if you might need a brand!
