SO, YOU HAVE SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT BRANDING AND MARKETING?
LOOK AT YOU GO! YOU’VE HIRED A BRAND DESIGNER! MAYBE YOU’RE THINKING OF HIRING ONE BUT EITHER WAY, YOU’RE ON THE RIGHT PATH. THERE’S SOMETHING THAT CAN BE SAID ABOUT PEOPLE WHO TAKE THE COURAGE TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT THEIR BUSINESS. IF YOU’VE NEVER WORKED WITH ONE BEFORE, HERE’S SOME THINGS THAT YOU SHOULD EXPECT.
INSPIRATION
Your designer should be able to help you find the inspiration that you need to help create some of the finer details in your company. They will help guide you into figuring out who your target audience is, what type of message you want to convey, and all the other little details in between. You should have a firm idea of what your mission and motto is. You should also have a firm umbrella idea of what you’d like your brand to be visually. Whether that is minimalist, or colorful, or whatever you really want it to be. Graphic Designers are hella visual, so when you’re explaining what you want your biz to look like, I’d suggest you have an array of photos of things that inspire you, colors that move you, and other things that are visually pleasing to your mission statement. After all, they are here to help you design your logo, your color palette, help create a huge identity for your company. It’s an easier process if you have some inspiration already.
YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER
Having an idea of what you’d like your ideal customer to be is a big plus, but if you aren’t sure yet - that’s probably one of the reasons you’ve hired a branding specialist. What type of shopper to do you do around your store? What are they wearing? Who are they with? These are all things that help make your identity as a brand. Knowing what you want your ideal customer to be will open the doors to statistics and really honing in on what type of things these customers enjoy.
TIMELINE
Your Graphic Designer is ready for you. Are you ready for them? Do you have a timeline of how quickly you want your brand up and running? Is it weeks away? Or is it years? If it’s years away - I’d say hold off on getting a brand curator until you’re ready to rock and roll. Most projects that Graphic Designers are doing are completed within 4-8 weeks. The best way to figure out when you need one, is to schedule a consultation with one.
GATHER YOUR CONTENT
Pinterest or your phone are a wonderful place to store any content that may be needed for a designer to create your art. You should be collecting graphics, photography, wording that you like, color palettes, etc. All of these things will help streamline your branding process. It also helps make the Graphic Designers job easier because they can see how you’d like some of that concept incorporated into your branding. Doing this, you and the designer can ultimately avoid any unnecessary revisions. Those can cost you extra money and there’s no point in that when you can just do a little homework on things you like.
I hope this help you create a clear level of communication between your graphic designer and yourself! When there are REALLY CLEAR lines on communication, it only helps this process!