The Brand Program

Three stages, always in the same order: identify, build, launch. The usual shape is 9 months, and it compresses or stretches to fit the company.

We do the work first

Most firms send a proposal that argues they are good. We do a day of the work first and send you that instead.

01

What is true today.

Your site, your category, and what a buyer sees before they ever talk to you. You can check every line, and each one says when we looked.

02

Where the brand should go.

Where the brand should be aimed, and what that means for the way you talk about yourselves. This part is our opinion and we label it as one.

03

The work and the price.

Month by month, with a price on each line and the reason for it right there.

Three stages

Strategy01

Identify

We learn what the company is, study who it competes with, and find where it can stand apart.

What happensFive pieces

We sit down with the people who run the company, one session for each part of the business, and write down what the company is. Alongside that we study every company you lose work to: what they say, how they look, and what nobody in your market is saying yet. That empty ground is usually where your brand goes.

FamiliarDistinctPremiumEverydayRoom to stand apartYou
An example. The two lines change with every market.
  • Working sessions with your leadership
  • A written account of the company
  • A map of your competitors and the room between them
  • Who you sell to and who you hire
  • The brand platform and voice
The design system02

Build

We decide the look once and build a guideline your team logs into.

What happensFour pieces

Colors, type, spacing and logo rules, decided once. The guideline is a private website with about sixty rules, each one with an example beside it. The templates come from the same settings, so a deck your team builds in PowerPoint still comes out right.

  • The guideline website
  • A brand book PDF
  • A slide template and a leave-behind template
  • Your standards loaded into your design tool and website platform
Everything people see03

Launch

We design the website page by page, then the printed and physical pieces.

What happensEight pieces

Every page is designed from the system built in stage two, and the same settings carry into print, signs and advertising. You hire the developer and the printers, and we direct the work.

  • Site map and page flows
  • Wireframes
  • Finished designs for every page
  • A clickable prototype
  • The parts library your developer builds from
  • Signs, vehicles and anything else on the street
  • Print and leave-behinds
  • A launch set of ads and social templates

How we work

Most of this job is listening, and it does not stop after the first month.

Identify
Build
Launch
What we do together
Sessions with the people who run the company, and a hard look at who you lose work to.
Settle the look together, while it is still being drawn.
Design every page and piece, with your developer and printers in it.
What we make
A written account of the company, with a source on every line.
A guideline your team signs into, and the templates that come from it.
The site, the print, the signs and the ads.
What it lets you do
Say what the company is in one sentence, and mean it.
Make your own decks, cards and signs without calling us.
Walk into a room looking like the company you already are.

The order never changes. The length does, from a single month to the full program.

Things you can add

Each one is priced on its own and takes the time shown. None of them is required.

Strategy and voice

What the company is, what it stands for and how it sounds in a sentence.

1 month

The website

Designed page by page, with the parts your developer builds from.

2 months

Content and social

What you post, how it is written and a calendar to post it on.

3 months

Film

Story, storyboards and a shot list, then us on set with the crew.

4 months

A partnership

New people join, vendors make things, and the brand drifts. Each month we keep your guideline and templates current, review anything you or a vendor puts out, and sit down with you once a month.

Monthly

Tell us about your company.

A few sentences is enough to start.