Scaling Brand Strategy for Clients
Scaling a personalized brand discovery experience for high-volume onboarding seasons
Tools Used:
XD, Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Google Drive
I collaborated with a fellow designer at Wonderist Agency to produce an interactive "Branding 101" PDF that would guide clients through the branding process. The final product eventually led to the creation of a full set of downloadable educational resources covering all of Wonderist's services.
The Challenge
I worked with another fellow designer to create a resource that would answer some of these frequently asked questions, provide a standardized introduction to the branding process for clients, and educate our clients on how to formulate feedback for creative work. Some of the pain points included:
Unclear Feedback.
When onboarding new branding clients, the Wonderist design team noticed that clients struggled with articulating what they wanted, often saying that "they'll know it when they see it" when asked what they liked or disliked.
Repetitive process explanations.
The team also noticed that some clients struggled to understand the rhyme and reason of Wonderist's processes. Clients tended to ask some of the same questions, which took away time on kickoff calls that could be spent workshopping new marketing ideas and strategies that would align with their practice goals.
The solution
Articulating and Documenting the bRanding Process
A peer of mine in the design department found that providing clients with a single sheet of logo samples provided a helpful starting point for drafting initial concepts.
From this observation, we hypothesized that if we provide clients with examples and tips for how to search for inspiration, we would increase our chances of receiving more insight from them earlier in the process.
The Game Plan
My colleague and i tackled this project into four phases:
PHASE 1:
Identify Pain Points
- Name bottlenecks in the process
- Identify FAQs from clients in calls
- Pinpoint scenarios where client feedback gets stuck
PHASE 2:
Brain Dump
- Gather tidbits, tricks, and general knowledge from the design team
- Create an outline of the topics and knowledge gathered
- Place content ideas into outline accordingly
PHASE 3:
Write + Organize Content
- Have designers write content independently
- Peer review and curate the most illustrative content pieces
- Identify layout ideas that would best communicate the content
- Clean up & edit wording
PHASE 4:
Design + Iterate
- Wireframe layout
- Apply content
- Peer review
- Make edits as appropriate
- Asset creation
- Repeat reviews + edits as needed
Iterations
The project underwent several iterations before landing on the final interactive PDF format. While initially we envisioned building this resource out as a microsite featuring an embedded quiz, we eventually pivoted to an interactive PDF approach to expedite the completion and rollout of the deliverable. For this project, I was primarily responsible for:
- Managing the execution of the project
- Editing and writing the majority of the written content
- Providing art direction for the project aesthetics
- Presenting designs to key stakeholders for critique
- Re-designing wireframes to fit a letter-sized PDF document
- Asset co-creation
Results
By creating worksheets and checklists to read after their branding discovery call, we were able to provide our clients with a starting point to "think like a designer."
Clearer Feedback.
Within the first two quarters of rolling out the document, I had a handful of clients come to their branding call with feedback worksheets filled out to guide their branding process.
Happier Clients.
All clients who have used the worksheets have wrapped branding with logos they love!
A scalable framework for more educational resource creation.
This resource created a basis for Wonderist-branded educational materials and led to the creation of similar infographic resources for every department's services at Wonderist.
