How to (finally!) get your brand redesign project off the ground

Here’s the thing. Your business might have grown quickly. Or it might have evolved organically over time. Either way, you know the branding you started with all those years ago is woefully out of date, because it no longer reflects your service or product promise, your ideal customer, or you.

You also know it’s time to prioritize a redesign. But you’re super busy and the idea of taking on a project like this feels too daunting. After all, it’s not about just getting new business cards. Once you go down this road, everything has to change—your website, signs, collateral, advertising, sales sheets and so on.
It’s a lot of work. I get it.

Perhaps you attempted a redesign and realized there were too many factors to figure out, got overwhelmed, and put the project on the backburner for a while. But now’s the time to get the ball rolling again.

Whether you’re going the DIY route (I suggest against that) or you’re getting support to manage the process, these three steps will get you back on track.

​1. Keep the end in mind when you start

​Every successful project begins with clear, specific goals. Create a list of your top brand priorities, including what perception you want new potential customers to have about the quality of your work and the expectation you want them to have of their experience working with you.

Getting clear on your goals will help determine the scope of your redesign—if you need to just tweak a few things or do a complete overhaul (or something in between).

2. Focus on your core brand identity first

The core elements of your brand—shapes, colors and fonts—are what define the overarching style of your brand identity. Using these elements consistently helps you maintain cohesiveness across various platforms.

Your core brand identity is typically derived from your logo. So a good place to start is to determine whether or not your logo needs a refresh or overhaul. Then you can make design decisions about the other elements based on that.

​3. Phase it out

Trying to do everything at once will most likely end in frustration and a migraine. It’s better to approach it one phase at a time. The idea is to give adequate, careful attention to each detail, rather than rushing it. That might include getting buy-in from your employees and other key stakeholders to ensure the solutions you come up with are the right fit.

Once you’ve gotten the full scope of what your redesign project will be like, you can break down bigger tasks into bite size chunks and spread it over several weeks to several months, and in some cases, a couple of years.

A brand redesign doesn’t have to be a daunting project. It can be fun and, dare I say, easy! The trick is knowing exactly what you’re getting out of the process and having a solid plan and the right support in place to execute.