How do you know if you need a rebrand?

Having just gone through this process myself, I honestly started out thinking, “I just need to tweak a couple things.” I had some pretty good ideas about what I needed to tweak, and thought that if I’m going to spend any amount of time on this, I’m going back to basics and starting with brand strategy.

What is Brand Strategy and Why is it Important?

Brand Strategy is the foundational work that happens before picking up a pencil to start sketching new logo ideas. And, I hadn’t even gotten to the part where I decided to change my business name yet.

Brand Strategy starts with identifying your target audience, researching your competition, and honing in on your unique selling points. When you know who you want to work with and what sets you apart, the rest of the process falls into place. It feels like it all makes sense.

When these foundational pieces are in place and the research here is complete, we then start on your brand messaging. I love to use the StoryBrand method for part of this. We’ll work through your positioning statement and “Signature Phrases” that I love to use throughout your website and other marketing opportunities. When I took myself through my own Brand Strategy process, I started implementing these right away!

Not only does it build a solid foundation for your marketing efforts, but it also helps drive the website content process. You may have heard the phrase, “if you're talking to everyone, you’re talking to no one.” Going through the Brand Strategy process means you now know your target audience / dream clients / ideal customer. You now know who your competition is and what sets you apart. You now know what problems you’re solving for them, and you can clearly communicate why they should trust working with you.

Feeling Aligned with Your Brand

When I set out to make a few tweaks to my brand, I thought for sure I would just make some small adjustments to my messaging and maybe my brand colors, and be good to go. Once I did the foundational work, I realized there was more I needed to do to feel really aligned with the new foundation I had built. My previous business name no longer fit. In fact, at this point, it felt so misaligned that I couldn’t wait to keep moving forward.

What does this feel like? If you suspect you might be in a similar situation, where something feels off, something isn’t quite clicking, or working on your marketing feels like something is missing—I would start asking more questions:

Are you excited to show off your website? Or do you tell people, “I’m working on some changes.”

Are your services accurately reflected, or do you have something new? Have you made changes?

Are you attracting your ideal clients or customers, or do you often get inquiries that aren’t a good fit?

Has your business grown into a different version of itself than when you started?

Have you revisited your visuals since you started, or are you still using a logo you made yourself?

These are all questions I would ask clients who are feeling unsure. But my biggest advice would be to trust your gut. If something feels off, revisit the foundational work.

Do Your Brand Visuals Align with Your Brand Strategy?

When you know exactly who you want to help, what sets you apart, and define your values and approach to solving problems for your clients, you’ll have a better idea of what they’ll be visually attracted to.

When I did the strategy part of the process, I defined that I want to work with “small businesses passionate about their craft.” The people in this audience value quality craftsmanship, appreciate good design and art, tactile products, and refined touches. At this point, I realized I had more work to do. My previous brand visuals were glossier, brighter, and cleaner—not super aligned with my newly defined audience.

Feeling this misalignment, I continued with Brand Identity work to develop a Creative Direction that felt more aligned with textured, earthy yet elegant visuals and hand-drawn graphics that mimic linocut prints. The misaligned feeling also included my previous business name, and while I knew it needed to change, I waited until this part of the process to make a decision and landed on Form & Flourish Design Co., which I talk a little more about here.

Side Note: I’ve left out the process I used to come up with a new business name, and the massive waffling I had between a couple of different ideas. I didn’t start ideation until after the Brand Strategy process, reflecting on what I really love about working with clients and who I really want to work with. I did a lot of journaling, some self-reflection, and a little daydreaming. I used word mapping, looked up definitions and synonyms for various words, and got outside expert help to get out of my own head. Then, I sat with the ideas until the last possible minute. It wasn’t until I reached the logo sketching part of the process that I actually made the final decision!

What does this process look like? With a solid Brand Strategy, I then take my clients through a Brand Identity process that starts with honing in on the Creative Direction: the style of design that will reflect your brand’s personality and attract your target audience. The Creative Direction gives your brand visuals some sideboards and boundaries to stay within for design styling: color palette, fonts, graphic style, and photography direction.

With Creative Direction in place, I move forward with refining colors if needed, selecting logo fonts and website copy fonts, and, at this point in the process, I finally pick up a pencil and start sketching logo ideas—the fun part!

Why a Brand is More than Just a Logo

As you can see, the logo design is one of the very last parts of this whole process. Your Brand Strategy and the foundational work we do leading up to the logo design are so important for shaping your brand as a whole. Your Brand Identity and the logo design we develop represent all of this strategy work.

How Aligned do you Feel with Your Brand?

Do you feel like you may have a few brand tweaks in mind? Or would you like some help going back to basics and building a foundation that actually makes sense? I would love to work with you to craft a brand that you can’t wait to share with the world!

Here are a few ways we can work together:

Brand Visibility Checklist (free): Is your brand showing up to its full potential? Discover opportunities to improve your brand visibility and show up consistently across all your touch points.

Website Self-Analysis (free): Is your website actually working for your business? In this guide, I will walk you through the areas of a website I examine during performance assessments.

Signature Brand Analysis: Get a professional analysis of your brand and online presence, complete with a clear report with actionable insights from my perspective.

Brand Strategy & Story Building and Brand Identity Design: Your brand is the foundation of your business. Through the Brand Strategy process, we dig into your values to create a blueprint that guides creative direction and design decisions for your visuals. We identify your core values and beliefs, and incorporate these signature phrases and statements throughout your messaging.