Is a Brand Package best for your business?

Are you a business owner just starting up and needing to make a big impact with your product or service? Or perhaps you’re a marketing manager looking to refresh your organisation’s image? Even if you’re a self-employed service provider, influencer or creative professionals, you can benefit greatly from branding yourself and your business. A well-strategised, attractive, and engaging brand will help you to reach your desired audience, potentially helping to spread your message and earning you more money.

Read on to find out how you can benefit from branding (or rebranding), and how you might be able to save time and money with a brand package.

What is branding?

Branding is the process of shaping perception of an entity, such as an individual or a business, through messaging. The branded entity is given meaning and becomes closely linked with chosen characteristics that appeal to a specific audience. Aesthetics and styling are used to capture the attention of a target audience, and appeal to their wants and needs. Branded communication at every touchpoint that the audience interacts with creates strategic associations and informs them of what they can expect from your brand. For this to happen, branding needs to be conveyed through consistent and well-thought-out visual, linguistic and tonal communication.

In short, you can reach your audience if your brand is carefully considered and well executed. Good branding tells your brand’s story clearly and concisely, without any confusion. It communicates your values, beliefs, and purpose. It builds connection through emotion, shared meanings and passions, and connects like-minded people to your brand. And of course, as with all popular brands, your brand will gain credibility, trust, and recognition among the people who matter the most.

Not only will customers be attracted to a brand that they can connect with, but other stakeholders such as staff are more invested and trusting if they can relate to your brand. Branding can create direction for your business by narrowing down and clarifying its focus, and makes it easy for those who believe in your brand to engage with it.

Think about all the big brands existing today and the effects they have had on the consciousness of previous generations, and will have for generations to come. Having great branding makes sense if you want to have a successful business with longevity. It is understandable that sometimes the cost in time and money can seem like a barrier. It may be helpful to think about what the value of good branding would be to you and your business. How much do you expect to earn from your business when your brand is established? How much is a powerful and engaging brand worth to you? Can you afford not to invest in your branding right now?

How is branding priced?

When you need design work done, you may be faced with the option to decide between working with a freelance graphic designer or a design studio. The experience is likely to be very different, as is the pricing and design process. Design studios can offer a wide range of services if they are employing a wide range of people. You won’t necessarily know who is working on your designs, and what their level of skill is. With a freelance designer, you are more likely to know what you are getting, as the person you are briefing is probably the same person who will be doing the work from start to finish. You are able to build a relationship with the designer as they get an in-depth understanding of your business and can communicate their process with you directly. There’s also greater flexibility and a potentially customised service, as a freelance designer sets their own schedule.

One huge difference is the price. Working directly with an experienced freelance designer is often many times more affordable than the services of an established design studio. A large organisation with £10,000+ budget and complex needs will probably benefit from working with a design studio that can offer more detailed market research and a range of services beyond graphic design. Those with smaller budgets can still get excellent outcomes and return on their investment by working with a professional freelance designer on their branding.

Be aware that you do get what you pay for. Inexperienced designers may charge anything between £0 and a few hundred, and that may be fine for you if you don’t mind your business being an experiment or a way for a beginner to gain experience. There are of course some great designers offering competitive prices, especially on speculative freelancing websites and marketplaces like Fiverr. Many of these designers are based in countries where that money can go a long way, but you may find that seeking services abroad comes with its own challenges.

You can expect to pay £1000+ for a more experienced designer to work on your branding, but this will depend on the complexity of the project and how that person chooses to charge. Good quality work takes time, and freelance workers have to charge enough to keep the lights on, so you might find that striking up a deal for regular work with a designer that you trust could work out better for the both of you in the long run.

As a self-employed designer, I set my rates based on how long the project might take and how complex it is. I’ve been working professionally as a designer in London (UK) for over 10 years, helping clients develop their brands and a wide variety of other types of graphic design work. Every business is different and has different needs, so I like to ask a lot of questions before getting started and my creative process allows me to work closely with the client to create outcomes they can be excited about. As you will see from the info on my Products page, sometimes a simple package deal works better for a project than a more detailed proposal. For brand design projects, this is where Brand Packages come in.

What is a Brand Package?

Unlike a custom design proposal which is created especially for your unique brief, a brand package is a more universally applicable package deal that simplifies pricing for less complex projects. The price of a brand package will usually cover the cost of digital and print assets such as logo, fonts, and colour choices to get your brand started. It also includes the estimated cost of labour, time, and skill taken to create and compile the assets. The benefit of going for a package deal is that it is sometimes a simpler option than an approval process for a complicated brief might be. It would be best suited for straight-forward briefs that have a set budget. If you have a more hands-off approach to creative projects, the idea of a brand package might appeal to you.

Unfortunately, a lot of design projects are not suited to being served in a neat package. Design projects, by their nature, often require a designer to offer unique solutions with unique ways of getting to those solutions. Many changes can happen along the way, and prices need to take that into consideration too. This is why many creatives will not provide up front quotes, and will need to know more about your project before providing a price estimate. Although it might seem like it would be a headache to go through the design process, an experienced designer will know how to make that process as easy for you as possible. For example, when I work with clients on design projects, I am able to help them write a brief if it’s not something they are familiar with. I communicate regularly to update the client on progress and to get their feedback. I am organised, and my clients can rest assured that the project is under control.

Although a custom proposal may be best for most design projects, you are welcome to browse the packages I have available on my Products page to see if any of them might suit you. The Full Brand Package is perfect for those in need of an entirely new brand with branded stationery included. If you would rather not invest in stationery just yet, the Brand From Scratch package includes the essentials to get you started – a unique logo, custom colour palette and font selection for your brand. You can always come back for a Stationery Set at a later date. If you have established most of your branding already, an awesome logo design to match will be the cherry on the top of your deliciously-designed cake. A Standard Logo would be the ideal package for you, unless you prefer to give more creative control to the designer and get a logo made quicker with the Speedy Logo package.

My design process for all brand packages is thorough and carefully considered, including research into your target market and competition. My goal is to understand and help to maximise your brand’s position in the market, through all elements of visual communications. You will be presented with reasons for each design decision, making it easy for you to follow and participate in the process of creating your brand. All artwork will be provided in appropriate industry-standard formats for the intended application, and a free style guide is included with all brand designs to help you maintain consistent branding.

Consistency is key to developing a recognisable and trusted brand. If you need help with applying or maintaining your brand, get in touch to book a Design Day or two. It may also be useful to arrange a follow-up 6 or 12 months after the initial implementation, to see how your audience has responded, if your marketing message has changed, and if anything needs tweaking in the designs. Sometimes the needs of our business change, or we simply want to grow in a new direction. Strategic design based on market research is the way to ensure that your branding and marketing is helping you work towards your business goals rather than wasting your resources. The Brand Booster package is a way for established brands to make strategic changes without completely overhauling the brand. It includes research into the market, reconceptualisation and reinvigoration of brand elements, and of course, the appropriate artwork formats and a style guide for brand maintenance.

Book a call now to arrange a free consultation to discuss your business goals and design needs. Whether you choose one of my brand packages or request a custom proposal, you can be sure that I will provide a professional and personalised service that takes into consideration the purpose and goals of your one-of-a-kind business.

Read more:

☞ The Design Process

☞ How to Write An Effective Design Brief

☞ Alex Makes / Novel Notes