What is brand?
You know you need a logo... but you don’t think you need a brand or even know what brand strategy or brand identity is? It can be a little confusing. Your logo is a part of your brand identity but it’s not the brand. Think of your logo as identification, and your brand as communication. Done right, your brand will become your #1 sales person taking your business beyond your biggest goals.
Let’s take a look at the value of brand...
We love to use analogies when talking about brand... so think of your brand as a person... after all, a brand is a living breathing thing that needs to be nurtured in order to grow:
Brand Strategy: the brain, how a person thinks, talks, and acts
Brand Identity: the body and appearance, how that person looks, wears their hair, and dresses
Logo: the person's face
While we can learn more and grow our brains (adapt our brand strategy), and update our look by changing outfits or get a new hairstyle (update your brand identity to go with the times), and maybe even update our logo (but we shouldn’t be getting a whole new face, rather a little nip and tuck as needed) we should alway stay the same person.
That person is your brand!
Why do you need a brand?
First impressions only happen once. The first time someone sees your brand will forever change their opinion of your product or service. Having a strong brand will give you the control over that impression and leave them feeling positive about your brand. On the other hand, having no branding or a mix match of assets can leave your customer feeling confused and not understood.
It's like showing up to a pitch meeting in your underwear.
Brand will up your perceived value making it easy for people to rally behind you. Whether you are looking for investors, a dream team of employees, clients, or sales. People need to feel confident in you and your vision. Brand gives you that boost of confidence. You know your value and what you can do, let your brand show the world.
It's like being the sharpest dressed person in the room.
“Our experience working with Stellen Design could not have gone better. We operate a small town electric bike shop and hired Stellen Design to lead our branding efforts. After an initial conversation I knew that I had found the best person for the job. Jordis outlined a clear direction and step-by-step process which allowed me to contribute my ideas, and that she brought to life. If you are passionate about your business and need branding support, you will be very pleased if you choose to work with her and her team!”
Chad Emerson
Los Olivos Bike Shop, California
Now that you know what brand is… you might be wondering how we do it…
Our process is pragmatic
We start with a plan; a blueprint. We build from the ground up in a strategic manner laying a strong and foundation for your brand. Brands are not surface level and we build from the bottom up. We have a proprietary frame work and process to insure we help craft the right brand for you.
Phase 1: Discovery & Strategy
- We ask questions... some might not seem relevant, but trust us, these questions tell us a lot! We will guide you during our workshop sessions to find out what your brand should be.
- We compiled our findings from the workshop with an audit of your industry to put together what is called a “discovery doc". This doc will serve as a roadmap throughout our engagement.
- Based on your package we will present between 1 and 3 brand concepts for you to choose from.
- This step ensures we are both on the right path.
Benefits of our discovery: You are never in the dark. We want you to feel confident and on board with what we are doing every step of the way.
Phase 2: Concept Design & Development
- We start all our designs with rough hand sketches before moving to the computer and are open to share with you.
- We make a mess (like the kid in art class with paint everywhere), then we pull out the best, we will present them with contextual applications.
- During phase two we will outline your brand story.
Phase 3: Refinement & Expansion
- We trouble shoot your selected logo and make sure it will scale and work in all applications your brand needs.
- We start to build out your other supporting brand creatives and refine the brand strategy.
- Throughout this step we reference the our brand strategy to make sure we are on track for your brand.
Phase 4: Document & Deliver
- Just handling over a brand doesn't work for us. While we know how to utilize a brand, it's unfair to assume that you and your team will know the same. We create a detailed brand guide for you including all your brand strategy, all our branding work, and creative assets documented.
- At the end of our engagement we will send you a link to download your files. We will have an official off boarding call to review the deliverables and make sure you feel confident in utilizing the brand!
- You feel confident and are ready to share your kick ass brand with the world.
Phase 5 (optional): Website Design
- We offer full service website design and development.
- Website design projects take 6 weeks depending on the size and range from 5,000-20,000 depending on size and functionality with a standard 5 page site starting at 5,765.
- If you need a website after your brand build, just let us know and we can provide you with a custom quote for your site.
Go from confused and frustrated to confident and profitable.
"Jordis and her team at Stellen Design did an amazing job with my branding and logo. They helped me build a cohesive brand image.
It was really difficult because I was not sure what I wanted. Lucky for me she was extremely patiend and helped me through the whole process. I'm really happy with how my logo looks and more importantly now my company has the foundation in place to create more marketing materials with a cohesive brand image."
Devin Jensen
Jensen Reality, California
Brand Package Essential Deliverables
Customer Archetype
Let's get to know your users. Here we will define your primary and secondary customers, learn about their lifestyle, challenges and pain points. Then we synthesize these into profiles that your team can reference for all brand & marketing efforts. Customer Archetype = Super Fan!
Competitive Audit
We'll conduct a brand analysis of what your competitors are doing within your market. Competitive audits allow us to define a unique position within your market. This will help us identify opportunities to differentiate.
Brand Strategy
Brand strategy is how we will connect your brand to your customer archetype. We will work with you to define your brand by identifying your brand archetype, voice & tone, look & feel, and defining statement. All of this comes together to create your brand story.
Brand Direction
The brand direction is presented with style suggestions that are a visual encapsulation of your brand's voice, tone, look and feel. This essential step will help us set the direction for the visual identity. This step gives us a visual reference we will use throughout the brand identity design process.
Logo Design/ Type/ Color
We'll present initial logo concepts with contextual applications. Then we'll help you decide on a single direction and refine. Once the logo is finalized we will curate the perfect type faces to accent your logo and present color pallets that will work for your brands specific goals.
Brand Guide
To help ensure brand consistency, we'll craft a living document containing guidelines for the brand. We include key branding take aways, brand voice, logo usage, color palette, typography, photography style and integration, and all supporting elements.
Brand Collateral
We price all projects individually. Every project requires a unique set of deliverables based on the clients needs. Here is a list of common collateral included in our packages:
- Business Card
- Brochure
- Email Templates
- Social Media Branding
- Social Media Templates
- Interior & Exterior Signage
- Press Kits
- Vehicle Wraps
- Environmental Design
- Way-finding Signage
- Course Templates
- Packaging
- Web Banners / Ads
- Stationery
- Service Menus
"10/10 experience! The whole team was awesome, super simple and streamlined to work with, and I am left absolutely stoked with the results. thank you!"
Josh Church
Edge Theory Labs, California
Value
While all projects are custom quotes to fit your needs we start with one of our base packages. This is to give you an idea of the scope and timeline. All branding packages include the essentials and brand collateral that is needed for your brand.
Starter Brand
This package is designed to get up and running and feeling legit! The starter package is designed as a foundation you can build onto later. We do light brand discovery & strategy and the essential creatives. You can expect:
- (2) 1.5 hour brand strategy workshop
- Research, Discovery, Audit
- 1 Customer Archetype
- 1 Brand Archetype
- We Are Statements
- Brand Direction
- 2 Logo Designs with Applications
- 2-3 Brand Collateral Assets
- 10 Page Brand Guide
- 2 Hours of Meeting & Consulting Time
Duration: 4 weeks
Brand Experience
This package is designed for businesses in growth mode. Our brand experience includes a full brand strategy. We will conduct our brand strategy work prior to any creatives to ensure we are working in the right direction:
- (2) 2 Hour Brand Strategy Workshops
- 3 User Interviews Conducted By Us
- Research, Discovery, Audit & Competitive Analysis
- 2 Customer Archetypes
- 1 Hour Brand Archetype Session
- We Are Statements
- Brand Positioning
- Brand Voice
- 2 Brand Directions
- 2 Logo Designs with applications
- 4-5 Brand Collateral Assets
- 20 Page Brand Guide
- 4.5 Hours of meeting & consulting time
Duration: 8 weeks
Big Build
The name says it all...our big build is for clients who need it all! We go deep and come up with a custom brand strategy for your business, we then assess the creatives needed and executed. You will be well equip with:
- (3) 3 Hour Brand Strategy Workshops
- 7 User Interviews Conducted By Us
- User Survey
- Research, Discovery, Audit & Competitive Analysis
- 3 Customer Archetypes
- Brand Archetype Session & Custom Blend
- We Are Statements
- Brand Positioning
- Brand Voice
- Mission Statement
- 3 Brand Directions
- 3 Logo Designs with Applications
- 7+ Brand Collateral Assets
- 40 Page Brand Guide
- Unlimited Meeting / Consulting Time
Duration: 3 months
Brand Strategy
Feeling stuck with your business and not quite sure what you need or how to increase sales?
Brand strategy might be the solution for you. By starting with brand strategy we are able to build a solid foundation for your business. Brand strategy gives us a clear solution on how to better connect your brand with your super fan. It puts you in charge of the experience your audience has with your brand and ensures you are telling the right message for your brand. Our brand strategy framework is broken up into 5 phases and requires 3 (3) hour workshops. Brand strategy takes 3 weeks to complete and is broken up into 3 payments of 1,680. Please block off time on your calendar for your strategy workshops!
1. Foundation: We will build a solid foundation for your brand by defining the mission, vision, and goals. We will find out who you are (both in your mind and your customers), what you do, how you do it and why. We will outline the business goals and best possible outcome from our strategy.
2. Brand personality: Remember when I said a brand is like a human? It's true. We need to define that persons personality. We will find out what your brand values, how your company culture should be, how you should talk to your audience, and start to outline the look and feel for the visual assets of your brand.
3. Target Audience: We will define your target audience and understand why they are your target audience. We will use interviews, observation studies, or surveys to find the information needed. Once we have enough data we will craft 3 personas and create a customer journey map to outline their relationship with your brand.
4. Gap Analysis: We compare where you are right now, and how your customers are perceiving your brand today and we compare that to where you want to be and how you want to be perceived. We need to look at that gap so we can find out how to close it!
5. Roadmap: Now that we have outline the gap we can assess how to close it! That may be a new brand identity or may be a retargeting of your marketing efforts. Your roadmap is a custom solution for your brand. We will document all our findings for you and propose next steps to get you on to your goal.
After our engagement...
Let's keep the party going!
- Retainer Clients: Become a retainer client of Stellen Designs and you will have time on our calendar every month! We act as your internal design team giving up top quality work at the fraction of the cost of hiring a full time employee. We work with brands like California Pizza Kitchen and Juice It Up! on a retainer basis. Retainers start at 1,000 a month but space is limited. If you want to know more, just let us know and we can send you our retainer packages.
- Per Project: We can also accommodate one-off projects for brand clients. One-off projects require a two weeks notice prior the start date of your project so we can check our calendar and plan accordingly.
But does it REALLY work?
We have case studies to prove it!
Where she was
re-branded to
Where she is now