Our Unique Approach to Branding
1. Right out of the gate, we start by listening to you.
Successful branding is more than just designing a nice logo. Successful branding defines who you are. What makes your company tick? Who are your customers and what do they want? How do you compare to your competition? Your Creative People begins the branding process with a branding questionnaire that surveys your internal environment (vision, mission, values, positioning, etc.) and external environment (customer drivers, competitor differentiators, etc.) This survey provides us with a foundational understanding of your company so that we can create an accurate and effective brand that hits the mark. Listening is the most important step in the entire branding process.
“You guys really listened to what we wanted and designed a concept that was exactly what we wanted.” Read More Testimonials
2. We analyze your audience.
"Brand pillars" are the foundation. Our creative team takes the foundational information we gleaned from both our meetings with you and your survey, and we launch a session to hone in on what your brand's "core pillars" are - those things that make you, uniquely you (this is your company's personality profile).
Understanding your audience. If you can't clearly identify your audience, who your target customer is, you'll never be able to market to them. We never start a branding project without clearly identifying your target audience. At each step throughout our process, we ask the question: "will this message/piece really connect with your audience and get them to take action (ex. to buy a product, contact you immediately, understand a concept, etc.)?" If it doesn't, we go back to the drawing board. Most website and logo shops (who offer discount or template products) never go this deep, and therefore, typically miss the mark in creating effective tools that will drive your sales.
"Our team is very satisfied with the projects that they created for us. I was impressed by how the team collaborated with [us], especially their openness to our ideas.” Read More Testimonials
3. We create campaigns that will differentiate you.
This is the fun part of our creative process. During this step, the office walls, desks, tables, and a tornado of papers are filled with sketches, design ideas, and musings. Paper is taped to the walls. White boards are filled with drawings. Sketch pads are covered with concepts. Espresso abounds. From this chaos of creativity, unity emerges. We create a mood board - a collection of applicable typography ideas, layout ideas, button ideas, icon ideas, and logo ideas. From our mood board, our designers create several preliminary sketches of what your piece could look like. We choose one of the best layouts and we create a digital concept in Photoshop.
4. We delight & satisfy.
The most enjoyable part of the process comes when we invite you in to see the concept of your new piece - fruit of all of our creative labors. The actual unveiling of the concept is a bit of a ritualized event, which invariably ends with client smiles and nods of satisfaction. We carefully explain how the design communicates your brand's core pillars and engages your target audience. We always listen to and value your honest feedback on any design. We take that feedback and make any changes necessary to the concepts, presenting the final versions for you to sign off on. Once the changes have been made and the final concept has been approved, production begins at full speed.
5. We produce, test, and deliver...all on time.
The production genius is in the details, and our designers and programmers devote meticulous attention to each detail of the production phase. Our goal is simple: we want to deliver you a well-oiled product that is engaging and makes it very clear what your customer should do. For websites, once production has reached completion, a rigorous testing phase begins, which ensures that the website and products will appear consistently in all forms and versions of all current web browsers. Before we present you with the final product, we engage our team in two separate internal reviews. First, we perform a production and scope review to make sure all the "t's are crossed." Following this review, we perform a creative and marketing review to make sure each piece clearly communicates what you want it to. In the end, we aim to deliver a product that is nothing short of excellent-- always on time and within budget.
Only the beginning...
Although a branding process may seem like it is complete when the final product is delivered, we think of it as only the beginning. It’s the beginning of a long-term partnership. It’s the beginning of a productive relationship. We focus on the bigger picture--bigger than websites, logos, and slogans. There’s a reason that almost all of our clients come back and use us for multiple projects. In fact, a core of our clients turn into trusted friends who put us on retainer for frequent projects. Although we excel at delivering creative excellence, we also serve as your trusted consultant for new strategic marketing initiatives, search engine optimization, e-mail and social media marketing, video production, and a host of other services we employ for your company's continued success.