A brand is not a logo. It is the set of ideas and feelings people associate with your business — built from everything you make, say and do. Design expresses a brand, but it cannot invent one. Before any visual work begins, a brand needs a few clear answers.
These five questions are where we start.
1. Who are you for?
Describe your ideal customer as a person, not a demographic. What do they care about? What frustrates them? Where do they shop? What other brands do they love?
The more specific the answer, the easier every later decision becomes. “Busy professionals” is vague. “People who cook at home most nights, care where their food comes from, and want dinner in thirty minutes” gives you something to design for.
2. What do you offer them?
What do you actually provide — and, more importantly, what does it do for the customer? People do not buy a seasoning blend; they buy a better dinner without effort. They do not buy software; they buy hours back.
Describe the product, then describe the benefit.
3. What makes you different?
Why should someone choose you over the alternatives? Look for something true, relevant and hard to copy:
- An ingredient, process or origin
- A specific expertise
- A point of view or set of values
- An experience or level of service
If you cannot answer this clearly, customers will not be able to either.
4. What is your personality?
If your brand were a person, how would they speak and behave? Choose a handful of traits — warm, precise, irreverent, calm, adventurous — and the opposites you want to avoid.
Personality guides tone of voice, design style, photography and even customer service. It makes you recognisable when the logo is not visible.
5. Why do you exist?
Beyond profit, why does the business matter? What would be lost if it disappeared? A clear sense of purpose motivates teams, attracts like-minded customers and gives the brand depth.
Putting it together
Write your answers in plain language, on a single page. That page becomes the brief for your identity, packaging, website and marketing. Revisit it when making big decisions.
From answers to design
When the answers are clear, design follows naturally. Food Garden Market, an organic market in Brooklyn, needed a mark that could survive everything a grocery store asks of a logo — a storefront sign, a coffee cup, a price label two centimetres wide, a moss wall behind the produce. Knowing exactly what the store was and how it would be used shaped a circle of intersecting stems that reads as a single garden form.
If you want help answering these questions for your business, get in touch.