Branding a Business: Emily Eide Health & Wellness
The brand process always starts the same: A meeting, a questionnaire, moodboards… but as it goes on it always yields WILDLY different results! I recently worked with a good friend to brand her health coaching business, and we ended up with a look a feel that reflects her personality and will capture the attention of her target audience. Let’s take a look at what we did…
Step 1: Creative Brief
DEFINING THE VISION
The process begins with a Creative Brief Questionnaire. This step is crucial for understanding the vision, goals, and functional aspects of the brand. It's a practical exploration, asking key questions to provide a clear foundation for the design process. The Brief tells a story of a brand, from the background all the way through the audience, tone and competition.
Emily and I started by discussing her audience, as well as the tone of communication she wanted to use. With a personal business brand striking the balance between personal and business can be tricky, but we wanted her brand to be personable and communicative, while remaining extremely trustworthy and knowledgable.
Earthy
Whimsical
Color Block
Step 2: Moodboards
ESTABLISHING A LOOK AND FEEL
With the insights from the questionnaire, we move on to moodboards. These visuals set the tone for the brand, grounded in the aspects identified in the creative brief. It's about translating the goals of the brand into a visual language using existing imagery and taking inspiration from past work.
For Emily, we ended up with 3 style directions we could go with: Clean & Earthy, Organic Whimsy, & a Color Block Brand. Often, the end brand will involve some combination of these styles, but they get a really good conversation going! Emily liked the Clean & Earthy feel and the badge style logos from the Organic Whimsy board. She felt the third direction, Color Block Brand, felt least like her, but did prefer some of the typefaces there as well.
Step 3: Logo Iterations
FINDING THE PERFECT MARK
Building on the established feel, the logo design can be quite the exploration. I typically present 3-5 logo options, each strategically reflecting different preferred aspects of the moodboards. Through collaborative feedback, we refine the logo until it becomes a clear representation of the brand's essence – a symbol that is not just aesthetic but functional in communicating the brand’s values, vision and purpose.
Emily ended up with 3 different logo options, each with a primary and secondary mark. Each logo had a different personality, one more whimsical and feminine, the next more corporate and official, and the third, organic and clean. In the end we worked together to determine that the first logo, with some revision, was a winner.
Step 4: Brand Additions
THE VISUAL LANGUAGE
After establishing the logo, the focus shifts to broader brand elements – imagery, typography, and color palette. Imagery narrates the brand and can truly be anything from iconography and illustration to photography, textures or patterns. Typography establishes a consistency in content presentation, and colors are chosen with the intention of setting mood and feel. These elements function cohesively to encapsulate the entire wellness experience.
With Emily’s brand we landed on a bright, earthy color palette, some custom icons, and an organic serif typeface paired with a clean, readable sans serif. We also used pieces of her logo as icons to embellish blocks of type, and some texture to add interest to her photos.
Step 5: Final Handoff
EMPOWERING THE BUSINESS OWNER
As we reach the end, there's always a transition of final assets. This includes design elements, style guides, and every variation of logo under the sun. All of these pieces come together to create the visual personality of a brand, and when used together and consistently, make a recognizable presence for easy promotion and communication.
Emily is now equipped with a toolkit for practical application, ready to engage and guide individuals on their wellness journey! Her brand will communicate to her audience well, and draw them in to learn more about her coaching services and how she can contribute to their lives.
Branding a Wellness Business
The branding process is about functionality and authenticity. It's not just to create a logo and some visuals, but a collaboration between the designer and business owner to develop the tools and content they can use for a long time to come. The goal is to create a brand that mirrors the essence of the business in a concise, genuine, and practical manner, and I believe that is what we accomplished for the brand of Emily Eide Health & Wellness.