Investing in a look & feel that clients take seriously
Logo // UX // UI Project // Branding
The task I was given
The founder asked me to redesign the brand of his company and apply it to a new landing page. The business up to that point was comprised of only developers and they collected a healthy client list, but understood the value of a modern design language that would help them communicate the next level of growth to current and future clients.
What was the planing process like?
Regardless of how long I’ve known the client or how involved they are, I’m playing at their psychology to give them comfort and confidence to move forward in the process, which in most cases means choices. Within whatever timeframe I’m given and whatever type of project, it is always a matter of providing the client with at least 2 choices. One being a conservative/attainable choice and another ambitious design that would take a larger time commitment. I’m already juggling with it in my head and part of why they are paying me is for insights like that so it feels strange not to share 2 main ideas I’m already thinking about in a certain way.
What was the production process like?
The brand and content always drive design and create good constraints. So the brand had to come first. And generally my main selling point is that you would want to wear the brand on your shirt proudly, which is something anyone can relate to and especially in the business sense, as you grow, it should fill you and your employees with pride that they would naturally want to wear something that represents the hardwork you built the business with and feels cool without it being over-designed.
And with the brand identity in tow, it was relatively straight forward for the landing page. I can relate to it easy as it essentially is a portfolio page just like the one you are viewing. We have the same motivations and slightly different services. And in that realm, you want your views to recognise a style about you and the experience you have accrued over the years. Their situation being slightly different as they wanted to push a particular product and all that really means is that you want to establish a different design pattern that stands out from the rest, while still having hints of cohesion.
What did you deliver?
I provided them with a glimpse of the future that they felt very comfortable adopting and even more, had success with their dev team using the design language to elaborate on other site content that they wanted to build out without me, which is my real barometer of success. I don’t ever want to takeover a project to the point that they need to spend more money to have me on. They could hire me as an employee, but it’s not an ambition of mine so you want to communicate and deliver ideas that someone off the street could start putting together new ideas based on the foundation I have set.
“The complete package of assets included were 3 different logo shapes (wide-square-icon only) in 4 print/digital formats (eps,svg,png,jpg). A brand document with color, typography, usage. And landing pages for web and mobile exported to their Zeplin account.”
We were able to agree on a format of content that would showcase who they are through a portfolio of work, but also heavily pushing their main analytical product, which is a very different design pattern that communicates to the user that they are more than just their dev work and they have a long-term view if you work with them that will help grow your business in key areas statistically.
“This is an example of being comfortable with the different approach in freelance work to my agency work. Habits die hard especially if you are still doing it. Giving myself the freedom to take the best parts of my agency experience and applying it to a much different philosophy was difficult.”
— The Recovering Pavlovian Designer