Moving through design overwhelm

Part two: ideas and resources for startup brand design

Photo by Julia Kicova, via Unsplash

In my last post, I wrote about what it feels like to be stuck in perpetual rebrand mode (from personal experience!) – how painful this can be, and my thoughts on what keeps us here rather than making real headway with our ideas.

As promised, today I want to delve a bit deeper into how we can move forward from this place, create a strong foundation to build on and keep the faith with our creative work.

What can we do?

Get clear on your mission and vision

We touched on this in the last post, but it’s so key to moving through design overwhelm and making more enduring decisions. 

For me, the times where I’ve been stuck in this place have often been periods where I’ve either lost sight of the vision behind what I’m doing, or not taken enough time to get clear on this in the first place. 

This doesn’t have to be complicated, especially not at first, and can absolutely evolve along with you. Back in 2016, I interviewed two creative business owners for a feature on how to create a strong mission statement for your business. At the time, all the advice I could find online was geared towards larger companies and while some of it applied, it didn’t all feel relevant to smaller independent businesses.

A comment by one of my interviewees, Sophie Davies, jewellery designer and founder of Oh My Clumsy Heart, has stayed with me. Sophie says: ‘A mission statement is something that should grow with your brand, it often starts as a simple idea that evolves into a true definition of what your business is about and how that provides a focus and drives your brand’s intentions.’

Sophie shared how Oh My Clumsy Heart’s mission evolved from a simple tagline: ‘minimal handmade jewellery’, into a statement focused on the importance of value, quality and ethical consumption: ‘simple delicate jewellery created using only fine metals sold at a fair price without the traditional mark-ups.’ 

The article features a number of questions you can ask yourself to help get clearer on this, and also looks at how your vision is like the ‘why’ – or ‘desired future state’ – while your mission is more like the ‘how’, outlining the work you need to do to get there. 

Finding clarity on this can help us think about branding and design in terms of what will resonate with the people we’re looking to work with and achieve our goals, rather than solely what we think looks good on a personal level.

It can also help us stay rooted in what we want to do, and not so easily swayed by trends and inspiration that might otherwise have us doubting our decisions (speaking as someone who has been there many times!).  

Keep things simple until you’re ready to work with a professional  

If you’re feeling unclear about your brand’s direction, keeping things simple at first, design-wise, means that when you do have the budget to invest in a professional, your rebrand won’t feel like too great of a leap.  

This post from Spruce Road on how to brand yourself without spending money, from back in 2015, is one that I found really helpful at the time. I’ve sought it out to share here now because the guidance has stayed with me.

In the post, founder Jamie Starcevich says: ‘As a brand identity designer, I would much rather have no branding to work with, rather than an unfitting brand that needs to be cleaned up.’ 

Jamie recommends a four-step process for getting started with DIY design:

• Type your business name in a clean font (this is your temporary logo)

• Build your website using a clean & responsive website template (eg Squarespace or Wordpress Genesis)

• Clarify the vision behind your brand 

• Invest in branding once you are confident in your brand vision & business.

If your work is visual – for example, you’re an artist or photographer – choosing a minimal template and simple typed logo can be a great starting point, allowing the images of your work to really shine and take centre stage on your website and social channels.

If your work is not so visual – for example, you’re a writer or coach – you can find some beautiful website templates based on typography alone. Alternatively, you could invest in a brand photoshoot to generate strong, unique imagery for your website, or find some inspiring stock photography.

Learn some design basics

Whether you’re taking the DIY approach or maintaining a brand identity that has been created by a professional, learning some basic design principles can help you feel more confident in your content and decisions.

Different fonts and colours create different moods and experiences. Obviously a lot of skill goes into crafting an effective brand identity for a business, but understanding some fundamental principles can be helpful when it comes to selecting your initial website theme or editing a social media template. Likewise, knowing where to find quality, easily customisable design assets can help you build a stronger foundation.

To get started, I’d recommend checking out the following resources: 

• The Brand Stylist blog – Fiona Humberstone’s blog has so many useful posts about brand strategy and design, with articles spanning colour psychology, brand styling and more.

• Creative Market – has plenty of strong assets for DIY design, created by independent designers, including website themes and social media templates that can be customised in Canva (see below).

• Canva – This design tool also has plenty of templates for various assets, from Instagram posts to presentations and workbooks, which can be easily customised with your brand colours and fonts. The Canva blog also features lots of design tips and inspiration.

Seek support 

We’ve covered some practical steps you can take to DIY or maintain your brand design with intention. Yet, in my experience, being in perpetual rebrand mode is often rooted in issues that go deeper than this, as we explored in part one of this mini-series.

As much as learning design basics and where to find stellar resources is helpful, what’s really made the difference for me is seeking support, for example through business mentoring. This isn’t a quick fix, but the right support can go a long way towards providing the guidance and accountability needed to move forward. 

Bringing ideas to life, sharing our work and creations, requires a huge amount of courage. You also need to cultivate self-trust and give yourself permission to experiment and evolve. This can be clouded by so many things – well-meaning (or not!) comments people have made in the past; what loved ones think of our work and choices, particularly if we’re treading an unconventional path. Or, if we’ve experienced burnout before, we might unconsciously hold ourselves back through fears about whether we could sustain things if they did grow. 

Without a strong foundation within ourselves, these things can be really tricky to work through. And sometimes these are not even direct thoughts, but unconscious programming that keeps us from feeling safe enough to put ourselves out there or take calculated risks.

This is where seeking support can be invaluable. Doing things alone has always been my default mode, but when you’re working alone, not having the support of a team around you can take its toll. Tools, resources and mindset shifts can all be incredibly helpful, but seeking support to delve deeper is where I’ve really started to see a difference. 

If one-to-one support is not within your budget, business communities and memberships can also offer some beautiful support and accountability at a more accessible level. I’m a member of the Aligned Community, which is a joy to be a part of. Or, you could simply ask a friend on a similar path if they’d like to have a weekly/monthly check-in to listen to and support one another.

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