When is the Best Time to Rebrand and Work With a Brand Identity Designer?

You're considering working with a Brand Designer, but you're not sure when the best time to take that step is. Well, this article will help you to gauge if now is a good time, or if it's too soon and you're not quite ready yet.

Many designers have some precursors that are required in order to work with them on brand design. These are set so you can make the most out of the process, and are ultimately able to create a really strong visual identity that performs well, and makes an impact. For me, these precursors are split up into 4 main areas.

1. Brand Foundations
2. Brand Positioning
3. Goals
4. Investment

Brand Foundations

Firstly, you'll want to have a strong understanding of your brand foundations. These are the core values, messages and overall mission that your brand is built upon. In order for your designer to be able to visually communicate the essence of your brand through your visual identity, you'll need to get clear on these things. They'll affect the design strategy they put together, as well as the ultimate design choices they make. Here, you can find my free guide where the first section gives you some guiding questions that will help you to explore these in more depth.

For my clients, whilst we explore and chat through their brand foundations more in our strategy and consultation call, it's essential that they have an understanding of these before working with me. If they don't, I recommend them to work with a brand strategist before starting with me.

Brand Positioning

Secondly, you'll want to be clear on your brand positioning. This means knowing exactly who your target audience is, who your competitors are, and what sets you apart from them to make you unique.

Knowing your target audience is more than just surface level categorisation such as 'young professionals working in sustainability.' Your designer needs to know exactly who they are communicating with in order to make appropriate stylistic choices. This involves getting to know how they think, what their concerns are, what they like doing in their free time, etc. the list goes on.

Knowing what sets you apart from your competition is also an essential part in the brand positioning process. This will enable your designer to communicate what makes you unique through your visual identity, enabling you to stand out from the crowd and be more memorable.

Goals

Thirdly, you'll want to have a clear vision and goals for the future of your organisation or business.  Without a clear idea of what you want to achieve, your designer will struggle to create a brand or visual identity that will help you to be successful. The brand design process is all about helping you to reach your larger goals as an organisation through the power of visual communication.

Investment

Finally, you're ready to invest time and money into improving your brand's visual communication. Brand design requires a significant investment, so if this is currently a barrier, you'll want to look at requiring some funding or freeing up some capacity before you approach a designer.

If all these boxes are ticked, AND you also fall into one of the three categories below then you're ready to work with a brand designer. ⬇️

1. You currently don’t have a visual identity

Up until now you've been existing without a visual identity, it's worked ok for you to this point, but it's not helping you to reach that next stage and get to where you want to be. This may mean your presence is currently looking messy, disjointed and inconsistent. Maybe your 'logo' is just your name written in a font, or you've been haphazardly using different colours, fonts, and styles across your material. This is putting people off, making it harder to form connections with your audience, and is causing you to come across as uncredible or untrustworthy.

Alternatively, you may be a new brand that is just starting out, and you want to avoid becoming like this chaotic brand described above.

Either way, working with a brand designer could help you to: visually represent who you are and what you do; facilitate meaningful connection with your audience and potential partners; and come across as professional and trustworthy. Resulting in more visibility, support, and sales/funding.

2. Your current visual identity is not serving you

You have a visual identity, but it is misaligned with your brand's foundations and positioning which we touched on above. This may be because you've recently repositioned your business/org and your visual identity has not been updated to reflect this. Alternatively it could be because your current visual identity was not intentionally designed using strategy and research, meaning it is currently missing the mark and not performing as well as it could be for you.

Whichever it is, this is causing a disconnect between who you are and how you are visually presenting yourself. This is resulting in confusion, a weaker connection with your target audience, and ultimately reduced trust.
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Working with a brand designer could help you to reduce this incongruence and disconnect between who you are and what your visuals communicate. This will help you to connect with you target audience on a deeper level, come across as more organised an aligned, as well as being more trusted in the eyes of clients, funders and partners.

3. You're struggling to move forward and reach your goals

You may be experiencing some roadblocks or challenges in your business or organisation that you're struggling to overcome to start moving forward again.

These could be:
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• You’re struggling to connect with and engage your target audience
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- Through strategically designing a new visual identity that is designed with your target audience in mind, you can start connecting with them on a deeper level.
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• You’re struggling to attract funding or make sales
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- You may be struggling to attract funding or make sales because your visuals are out of alignment with your message, causing confusion and distrust.
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• You're struggling to attract talent, partners, or volunteers
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- Your current visual identity isn't emotionally connecting with people and representing the strength of your mission, meaning it is taking people longer to engage with your business or organisation.

For challenges like these, brand design could be a worthwhile investment to help you to get over these hurdles. If you're unsure, feel free to book a call with me to discuss your current challenges and explore potential ways forward.

 ➡️ If you fall into one of these 3 main categories, working with a brand identity designer will help you to redefine your brand and unlock that next stage so you can make more impact. 🚀

If you're interested to know more about the brand design process, explore my brand design service page here.

And if you're still unsure whether the time is right for you to take that step, feel free to book a call with me to discuss your current challenges and explore potential ways forward.