One of the best cheat codes for life I’ve ever found is learning how to ask for what you need. It comes in handy when you’re ordering tea, making travel plans, in relationships, and at work. Many of us feel that we’re making our needs clear or that they’re universally accepted as “normal.” But, just like a cup of tea can mean so many things––herbal, black, Chai latte–asking a brand designer for a “logo,” can mean so many things.

There are two situations where business owners can get frustrated with the branding process. Sometimes, business owners just don’t know what they want (happens to the best of us!). But I’m discussing the second situation in this blog post––clients who have trouble articulating what they need from their brand designer.

So here are five ways to ask a designer for what you need! And hey, feel free to retrofit these to work in your relationships or at the office!

Show Don’t Tell

I won’t tell you to make a Pinterest account or scrapbook a vision board for your brand. Unless you want to. But when you’re beginning a visual story for your brand, it helps to use visuals to communicate what you need.

Share your favorite company logos, unique websites you’ve seen, fantastic advertising campaigns that have stuck with you, and packaging that catches your eye when you’re out. Take pictures with your phone, create a folder on your Google Drive, or (yes) a Pinterest board. Show your brand designer a library of visuals that speak to you–even if it’s just on a gut level.

Make a Burn Book

In a separate area of your life, start collecting logos, websites, and advertising campaigns you hate. The atrocious ones–whether it’s aesthetics, the message, or the execution. Knowing what not to do is as valuable to a brand designer as showing them the things you love.

The more information you can provide in the early meetings with your designer, the more detail they’ll have when presenting you with early sketches, color palettes, and fonts. When a client tells me right away that they hate san serif fonts, it saves both of us a lot of time and improves our communication from the outset!

Sharing what you hate is a great way of telling someone what you need (hint: it’s the opposite).

Share Your Goals

Know where you want to take your brand in the next quarter, year, and five years. Or, at least, know that you don’t know. Building up to a national campaign in the next year requires different branding materials than if you’re turning your hobby into a side hustle for a little extra spending cash. One isn’t better than the other, the brands are just telling different stories.

Don’t keep your goals and ambitions a secret! I love hearing my clients’ absolute pie-in-the-sky goals for their brand. One of my favorite parts of my job as a designer is helping small business owners vault their company into the market of their dreams. I love sending out virtual high-fives to current and past clients every week.

Communicate Your Priorities

Rank your business’s priorities––like if you’re not setting up a website for another year or you don’t need packaging until the next quarter. Knowing a client’s priorities helps your brand designer. I don’t want to spend a bunch of time working on branding that doesn’t fit a client’s needs.

Asking for what you need from a brand designer doesn’t mean you have to have your brand’s story all figured out! Trade secret: branding can actually help you figure out your story.

But, by giving your brand designer a list of your priorities, you’re telling them what content you need right away––and what can wait. That way, you won’t get sketches for packaging when you need graphics and fonts for a website.

Share Your Homework

In my last post, I talked about the onboarding process with Blades Creative Design Studio. It’s thorough because you can’t have good branding without getting to know a company and its leader pretty well.

You can start creating a brand identity before you ever meet with a brand designer! There are lots of questionnaires, worksheets, even books and YouTube videos that go over how to get started creating your company’s brand identity. That “homework” will give you the foundation you need to achieve your most ambitious business dreams.

I promise this kind of homework is fun. Of course, I’m biased––I love it so much I turned branding into my career.

Collect all that information and distill it into a Google Doc or email attachment to share with your brand designer. The biggest part of telling your brand designer what you need is effectively telling them who your company is. It’s our job to handle the rest!

Book a consultation with Blades Creative Design Studio to work with a brand designer who’s in it for the journey.

Creativity is just half of the skillset of being a great brand designer. When I tell people I can showcase the magic in their brand; it’s because I’ve become a champion communicator. I can understand the why behind the business, not just the nuts and bolts of a company. Showing your customers the heart of your brand is a great way to build a loyal audience excited about your products and services.

Let’s talk! Reach out to hear more about my process as a brand designer and start your journey to authentic branding.

5 Ways to Ask Your Brand Designer What You Need