For as long as anyone can remember (aka almost 18 months), I’ve been talking about ‘my rebrand’. Despite constant mentions of it on Instagram stories to try and stay accountable, the process of strategising, designing and rolling out said rebrand has taken so much longer than I thought, so I saw it was only fitting to explain the ins and outs of the process and share some of the learnings.
The rebrand itself
With my past logo and website only ever meant to be a placeholder (I’ll redo them in six months!), refreshing all of the visuals in my brand design business has been a long term to-do. I found expanding my business (through content marketing and experimenting with products) was constantly blocked by a hastily created brand that didn’t feel aligned with the strategic, multi-layered and intentional brands that I create for my clients.
Getting started, I (obviously) decided to follow my own brand strategy and identity design process and first defined what the brand needed to do.
The first big challenge the brand identity had to solve was making sure it worked alongside the diverse range of client work I’ve created. Every brand I work with has visuals shaped around their strategic needs so I’ve always found it tricky to create visuals that work alongside infinitely disparate aesthetics. From minimal Australiana-inspired aesthetics through to bold rainbow brands, I’ve often struggled to put images of all of my work together, let alone combine it with my very own branding.
The second big consideration was separating my own design style from the work I’m known for. While most of my branding projects feature detailed brand illustrations, bold contrasting colour palettes or custom brand textures- I have far more minimal and simple tastes when it comes to how I want to visually represent myself. The temptation to go ‘all in’ and create a similarly detailed brand didn’t really align with how I wanted the brand design to function- while I wanted it to feel distinctive, I didn’t want to struggle for years to come with ornate branding that competed and outshone my portfolio.
While I created a detailed strategy document (a’la my Brand Roadmap as part of my brand strategy process), in summery I wanted my brand to look-
- Intriguing, multi-layered and detail-orientated
- A touch vintage, but not belonging to any particular era
- Fresh, clean and professional (while still being me)
- Distinctive, unusual, quirky and bold
- Fun, and just a little chaotic
With this all down on paper for my own brain, I began by crafting a logotype (vaguely inspired by historical calligraphy), a brand icon (vaguely inspired by a Christmas beetle, one of my favourite iridescent creatures) and a monogram (vaguely inspired by Edwardian makers marks). I decided to opt for a BIG COLOUR MOMENT with my favourite electric shade of blue alongside complimentary jewel-toned shades. Simple typography left space for more interesting photography (obsessed with my mysterious, colourful, vibe-y headshots) and touches of historical-inspired collage.
In short, this-
As there are some unknowns in my brand (mainly around products that don’t exist yet!), I’ve also opted for a slightly more minimal look than my gut thinks is ‘done’*. This gives me space for that content down the line and also means I can experiment with other support graphic styles (and more collage) without it becoming something super cluttered.
*Apologies to all the minimalist designers who probably find this brand identity A LOT as is.
So let’s wrap this baby in statistics
- Hours clocked on rebrand= unknown (YES I SHOULD HAVE USED MY TIMEKEEPING SOFTWARE NO I DID NOT)
- Remaining pairs of socks = ~63 pairs
- Asana tasks ticked off = 127. Does not take into account illegible scribbled to do lists.
- Months in the making = 18 months since initial planning
- Time between completing website copy (created by Anna Rogan) to setting it live = almost two years
- Wonky/ misaligned logos accidentally shared as part of the grand reveal = 1
- Typos in finished print goods = 1
- Longest streak of days without a pre-2am bedtime = 16
- Photographers involved = 2 (thanks to Jill Kerswill and Libby of Elderflower Ephemera)
- Time spent starting into the abyss just wishing it was done already = infinite
Specific thoughts
While sharing the rebranding process on socials, I kept asking for questions people had about the process. Some of the most common ones included-
Thoughts on rebrands as an evolution vs a completely fresh look.
This is an interesting one! I very rarely do ‘refreshes’ for clients, just as I’ve found the ‘must haves’ or anchor points often have nothing to do with strategy. While most brands will somehow reference their past iterations (usually not visually- think more the personality or vibe), it’s pretty rare for me to ‘evolve’ a brand into a new state.
My original branding was created in a few days when one of my first clients (shout out to Ami at Damn Write) was about to send the new branding and website live. I created something super generic that didn’t have any of the care and detail I pride myself in bringing to client brands. For me, this rebrand was about creating a brand that could be all the things the former couldn’t- flexible across platforms, distinctive from other designers and also capable of communicating my own distinct personality.
To actually answer this question- I think either an evolution/ level-up OR a complete fresh can be a suitable solution for a brand. The most important part is ensuring that the goals and needs of the business aren’t being constrained by visual elements that are just personal taste or whats always been established. It’s about what the target audience needs to see, not always what the founder wants (or what feels ‘safe’).
What impact on the end result did the longer timeframe have?
In short, a brand (and everything that goes behind the scenes) that was as detailed and all encompassing as I wanted. But also it totally consumed my focus for months and was a real block mentally.
In long-
From a scroll of my Instagram archive, I started working on my rebrand in October last year with planning and strategy happening in the six months before that. I started with a lot of process building and refinements (another question below) before jumping into the brand design, collateral and website.
It has been a very slow process for a heap of reasons. Obviously, I still had a range of client projects to work on and they always took priority and my main focus. A bigger reason? I was extremely burnt out. In late 2023 I made the decision to block out my schedule because I didn’t feel like I could show up as my best self for my clients. In my mind- I had a couple of months to complete all parts of my rebrand so it was ready to go in the new year. I’m already a fairly slow worker so the addition of burn-out made every decision harder and with every element completed, I found another 8 pieces that needed attention.
The third (kind of exciting reason) everything took so long was I initially planned to launch products alongside my rebrand. StrangeGoods (launching early 2025, you can read more about it here) was created as a ‘sub-brand’ to Obscurio & Co.. It uses the same core brand elements (such as colour, typography, styling) but it still needed so many of its own elements (social templates! packaging! actual products!). Initially I had hoped to launch both brands at the same time but I quickly found that I was just designing products to ‘fill a shop’ rather than strategically building a range I 100% believed in. Never fear- reworking these product designs is my big focus over January after some time off!
With all that considered, why did it take so long? There were just so many elements. Throughout my five or so years in business, I’ve kept a huge master list of ‘to-dos’ I never had time for or weren’t worth the investment while I still had half-baked branding and a dated website. At the start of my rebrand, I was determined to try and get to the end of that list (Now is the time!) but in reality it was a list too big for one person (who had so much to learn) to achieve.
I’m proud to say I HAVE now ticked off about 90% of that to-do list (or are in the process of it) so I’m really excited to head into 2025 with the same level of strategy in my own brand that I aim to bring to my clients.
You keep mentioning ‘working on the processes’, can you explain what that means?
YES. From the outside, a rebrand is about new visuals and how that manifests across a business. While the brand identity (and everything they apply to) is a big job, I underestimated how long it would take to refine all the unsexy internal parts of my business.
A big goal of this overhaul was to make my client processes and the experience of working with me as streamlined and easy as possible. Before rebranding, I felt like my design work outcomes were the best they could be but the administration and behind-the-scenes of my business felt a bit DIY and non-defined.
After years of ‘I’ll do it when I rebrand’, some of the process-style elements included-
- Reviewing and refining my contract and proposal process
- Refining my base services and offerings and their deliverables
- Changing URLS and emails (absolutely would not recommend) and social handles for consistency
- Rewriting and expanding my canned emails at every stage of enquiring and working with me
- Reworking my project timelines to have more definitive stages (that were easy to understand for clients)
- Creating workflows and automations in Dubsado
- Writing and designing a whole new suite of documents for onboarding, offboarding, Shopify handover and content gathering (just to name a few)
- Reworking all of my brand strategy and brand design documents for a more seamless presentation of ideas
- Starting an email newsletter from absolute scratch (and all the segmenting and workflow creation that go with it)
- Creating blog content (and making plans for it to continue into the future)
- Several social elements such as pinned banners, custom gifs and post templates
Having these all mostly complete after a year makes me excited for the future. I’m no longer chasing my tail with all the things I’m not doing- instead I’m ready to start building on my business and making it grow.
Was being a client for yourself tricky? How did you manage to ‘step back’ when you’re so close to the subject?
As every creative will let you know- being my own client was the worst part of this. I’m a perfectionist by nature and with so many elements being worked on at once it sometimes felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere on this project fast.
Above all, the biggest issues I had came up when I didn’t follow my own design process. When I planned to launch products, I was scrambling with production deadlines and didn’t follow my usual idea generation/ strategic approach. I have so many half-baked designs that in hindsight don’t feel aligned to the brand I’m trying to create or feel very surface level. I know this is an easy trap to fall into (I’m shocked I did to be honest), but the biggest learning from this is to never skip parts of your process because you ‘know better’- they all contribute to the best possible outcome.
As for stepping back, the sheer length (and scope) of this project meant I could leave things for a couple of weeks or work on something else when I feel stuck. This isn’t always possible, but I think on a shorter timeline I’d look to work through strategy and planning WAY earlier than I thought, just so I could start to develop some elements ahead of time.
Why socks?!
One of the most talked about elements of my rebrand was the branded socks I created and sent out as part of my ‘curio kits’. The main reason is I wanted my ‘branded swag’ to actually be usable and practical rather than the kind of beige products you get from a corporate conference. They felt like a nice element that felt very ‘me’ and branded but also could be worn everyday under layers (and not just be moved straight to the trash). I’m also planning on releasing more socks under my product range so these served as a good ‘test product’ to try out before I look at multiple designs and larger quantities.
Socks also have no shelf-life. The branded elements I designed are not only meant for my rebrand- they’ll now be a part of my onboarding process for the months and years to come.
Big learnings
Delays can be ok, but check the revised timelines.
Even though I had so much stuff prepared in advance (I’ve had products since early 2024!), co-ordinating my Pinterest museum concept and the related print and social elements to go with it meant I launched about 6 weeks later than I wanted to. While I would always advise a client not to launch in November- January, I was at a point where I needed to reclaim my brain and be DONE. Unfortunately, I didn’t really realise until I’d started my launch sequence that the beginning of my campaign happened alongside the US election results (whoops) and ended during black friday campaigns (double whoops). This definitely meant I got less eyes on things but I think worse made me more hesitant to be actively showing up on socials alongside the campaign.
Remember the long-terms goals
Right before I set everything live, I had a huge bout of imposter syndrome show up.
Will anyone care?
Will everyone think this rebrand is underwhelming after hyping it up so much?
Should I be creating this type of content at a time like this?
This rebrand is purposefully simple and clean to allow the brands I create to shine. I really got in my head thinking everything I created was ‘underwhelming’ and not worthy of such a big campaign.
I had to remember that what I’ve created here (like everything I do) is for strategic reasons that go far past aesthetics. Acknowledging the inner critic fears and false beliefs is one thing- the important part is when you can move past it.
Another part of this came into the ‘curio kits’ I sent out. I knew that my clients weren’t as chronically online as me and paired with being in the busiest time of the year, I didn’t gather as much user-generated content as I would have hoped. THIS IS OK. I had always wanted to create a send-out as part of my rebrand and genuinely just wanted to create something fun and unique to mark the occasion (rather than expecting any kind of response). During the roll-out, I was worried that my audience would see no-one posting about these send-outs as a reflection of my work but again- the long-term goal of creating these products is to serve as onboarding gifts for my clients in future.
Iterate, don’t wait to do things in one hit
I am never leaving things until ‘the right time’ ever again. All parts of this rebrand were so much harder because I hadn’t had a ‘shitty first draft’ to iterate and work on. Work imperfectly.
Final thoughts
I feel like for the last year, my rebrand has been a bit of a constant companion (often, a weighty one). Even though there are infinite things I would change and would have liked to have done better, setting it out into the world feels so good and I’m overall pretty proud of what I achieved as one person working on it all. It feels even better though to have it out in the world and for my brain to look to new challenges and growth rather than working on ‘the baseline’.
I really hope you enjoyed it and as always, let me know of your thoughts on my rebrand or on this article!
