WHAT'S YOUR BRAND?

It’s Your Company’s Personality and Style

You want great design on your brochures, business stationery and website. And you want it all to express your style or the style of your company or organization. Together. Consistently. Always.

Let’s get serious. Sometimes it takes a while to get to that kind of strategic marketing nirvana. Sometimes the press of other things keeps us behind the curve. Or sometimes we just don't have a good "feel" for how we should move forward.

Mother of Invention

In this kind of situation, sometimes it's lucky if we're forced to do something. Anything. Like this business card Ry did for his wife, Kallayanee.

She needed a card desperately for a meeting with a top food outlet to sell her cooking classes. The meeting had come together more quickly than expected. It was not an option for her to attend that meeting without a business card.

She didn't have one because, for a variety of reasons, Ry had not completed a full strategic marketing plan with her before they launched Kallayanee's Kitchen. The company lacked visual branding. They were flying by the seat of their pants. Kallayanee's Kitchen was the shoemaker's child whose shoes were full of holes.

Quick and Dirty Wins the Race

So, for this important meeting, the strategic plan for the business card was "Quick and Dirty."

Quick and dirty turned out to be delightful and will now anchor the future branding of Kallayanees Kitchen. It will take time, though, to refine this concept and ensure that it works right across the company branding needs. In effect, the idea of an afternoon could generate weeks of branding work to get it "right" for Kallayanee's Kitchen.

The point is that branding sometimes takes time. It can be a lot like growing up and finding yourself. Your business needs to have the same kind of sense about itself and its own distinctive style.

You might also check out the Anne Lindsay website for a real branding experience. It reflects an entire rebranding of Anne and her approach to doing social work. I worked with designer Beth McLaren on that site and I thought she did a great job!