Brand discovery is – for us – an incredibly important part of the design process. But for non-designers, it might not be immediately obvious what brand discovery means, why we do it, and what it actually involves. Let us explain.
We start every brand identity design project with a discovery phase. It’s where we deep-dive into your business and your products – and also you as the founder. It’s our opportunity to learn where you are now and where you want to go, who your customers and competitors are, and what’s your secret sauce that’s going to be game-changing. Trying to design a brand without discovery would be like trying to make dinner without any ingredients – it’s the foundation of everything.
How does it start?
Our process starts with some gentle pre-work. Our Discovery Workbook is designed to help you think through some of our questions before you sit down with us. It helps you to get into the zone of thinking objectively about your business, which is a great mindset to be in when you’re approaching brand design. We then have an in-person creative session to dig deeper – we’ll talk about your mission, vision and goals and what makes you different. We’ll ask you lots of questions to get to know your brand inside and out. It’s an exhilarating session, and clients leave with a whole heap of focus and clarity they might not have had before.
(In fact, clients have found this so valuable that we’re working on a new stand-alone workshop offering founders the opportunity to deep dive into their brand in a one-day intensive. Keep your eyes peeled for that!)
What’s next?
Once we get to know you and understand your business, planned trajectory and audience, we’ll start our research and inspiration gathering.
As designers, we find inspiration everywhere – from a poster on the tube to a soda can – and this phase is where we focus ourselves on what resonates for your brand. It can involve looking through archival material, magpie-ing cuttings from magazines, gathering textures and paper samples, in-store merchandising, Pinterest and looking through Pantone colour guides.
If you follow us on Instagram, you’ll have noticed we post the inspiring type, colours and packaging we see everywhere. Having our eye on the design around us and new design trends feeds into every brand we create.
Using everything we’ve gathered, we begin to build a mood board for our vision for your brand. It’s one of those deep-work times when everything begins to flow as we experiment with combinations of the images and inspirations we’ve gathered.
When we’re finally happy with it, we create a digital version of our mood board to share with you.
This is the moment where our clients get to see the brand taking shape and the first coming-to-life of their long-nurtured idea.
The discovery work we’ve done is threaded through every image and piece of inspiration. That’s what makes the final brand deeply resonant, engaging to the right audience, and entirely unique to your business.
To chat to us about a brand discovery and how we can achieve transformations for your brand, please get in touch.