Altering your company’s brand is never going to be easy, here are some things to consider.

You need to answer a few questions. What makes you different to all your competitors, what do you want to be associated with, what values do you hold, do you have a vision? What is the personality of your brand, – what’s the big Idea!

Once you have answered the above questions, then you can make a start on rejuvenating your brand. At this point you may want to consider talking to a graphic designer. If you want to really do the best job possible then you will need some expert advice. Altering your company’s image is not something you want to do regularly it only weakens the perception that your customers have of you. A new brand is usually regarded subconsciously with some caution; to build trust takes time strong brand recognition comes from longevity.

Once you have defined your company’s ‘ethos’, then a good graphic designer with marketing experience should be able to advise you on the less tangible elements such as the ‘feel’ or ‘tone’ of the brand, which usually takes its form from colours, typefaces and maybe any strapline.

Its wise to get the opinion of two or three designers, you need to see who you feel best working with and it will give you a different perspective on your thoughts. You need to get this right, so don’t rush things. The more information you can give them the better chance of them being able to find you a solution.

So be prepared, make sure you give the designer information on:

• Your products

• Your customers, existing and your potential / ideal customer or target market

• Background on your business, how you started.

• How well your company is doing in the current market?

• Where do you see yourself in 5 years time, do you plan to stay a small business or plan to grow, maybe into a national or even global company?. It’s important to plan for the future, your brand may need to reflect this.

• Who are your competitors?

• Your reasons for wanting to alter the existing brand?

• Your likes dislikes, rip out from magazines colours, logos typefaces you like even if they have no relevance to your company.

• What you want to achieve from the re-brand?

• Have an idea of budget in mind for the re-brand. (obviously don’t disclose this until after the designers have quoted)

Ask the designers to show you their previous work, this is all that you really have to go on – their portfolio should show you how credible they are. Check if they ever worked on a similar branding to your company, maybe in the same or similar industry as you?

The more structured your design brief the better the chance of the designer being able to give you an accurate quote. You should expect a detailed proposal back from the designer, of course including initial costs, daily rate, hourly rate – or job rate. The job rate is normally slightly over inflated as its not possible to fully quote for a project such as this until you are immersed in it, so a designer will try to cover themselves for some unexpected ‘authors corrections’ which is when you as the client alters the original design brief during the design process. But it’s very important to know what you are getting before you commission the designer.

For example, usually a logo design is initially presented as up to 6 different versions, this would be stage 1, stage 2 would be maybe 6 more developments based on the initial designs after a consultation with you,. Then finally stage 3 is usually to finalise 6 more logos until you have achieved the desired result. It’s standard practice for designers to quote for these three stages within their initial quote. Additional work outside of this is usually charged as extra, or even re-quoted after this initial work is undertaken.

A big factor when choosing a designer is your gut feeling, can you work with them, how flexible do you think they maybe if things need to be altered, are they professional enough to stick to the schedule within the agreed timeframe?, its ok having an incredibly creative design company on board, but no good to you if they take 6 months to complete the task. Its better to work with people you like and feel you can trust rather than handing over the project to people based purely in their reputation or lower fees.

Its important not to stifle the design process though, you have supplied all of the above information which relative to the designer, and then let them do their job. All too many times I have see clients giving the designer a brief and then taking back the reins and start designing it themselves. This is fine if you are versed in graphic design and branding in which case you need an ‘artworker’, not a creative designer. You are seeking a designer for a reason – you want them to design you a brand, so you need to give them the breathing space to be creative and ‘DESIGN’.

Dean Williams

Dean Williams is a design and marketing blogger working for Print-Print Limited, promoting business and building brands through quality print marketing. If you’re interested in small business promotion then please get in touch hello@print-print.co.uk