Take a deep breath. You’ve done it. The hardest step is out of the way. The decision is done. The first step taken—you made the big leap and dove into a beautiful new world of brand development.

Congratulations! I am so excited. You are going to brand or re-brand your amazing business. (Or, at least, that is the assumption I am choosing to make today. Either way, let’s have fun and dream big.)

I have found that the first steps in branding design are often disregarded—everyone wants to jump right to the fun, to the logo—but the importance of the brand discovery process should never be overlooked.

Brand Discovery: The initial process of research between your business, the industry and the brand designer you hire to design your new brand is integral to the development of a brand that goes deeper than a simple veneer and will speak to your target audience and build trust with new customers for years to come.

When designing new brands, I like to begin my brand discovery with a big list of questions that help my clients understand some of the important elements of the design process and help me understand how their business functions and grows. Additionally, these questions help me understand specific preferences the client may have for graphics, colors, and other aesthetic brand elements.

Let’s jump in.

Questions Your Graphic Designer Should be Asking You Before Starting a Branding Project:

BUSINESS QUESTIONS:

Your brand designer should want to know a lot about your business. Designing a brand goes far beyond selecting a nice font and colors. It is important to understand the industry you are in. the history of your industry. What your competitors are like and what your expectations for growth are.

By knowing about your business, your graphic designer is going to be able to make truly informed design decisions that are going to make you stand out from (or fit in with) your industry. They are going to know what symbols to use to create specific associations with your target audience and what symbols to shy away from.

What your graphic designer may ask about your business:

• What does your company provide?
• How did your business start?
• Tell me about the history of your business.
• If you were to describe your business in three words what words would you use?
• What are the business verticals that you serve the most? / Or, what type of clients do you have?
• Where do you see the business in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years?
• Who are your top 3 competitors?
• Who in your industry do you really admire? Why?
• What makes doing business with you different?  (What is your secret sauce?)

AUDIENCE QUESTIONS:

Just as important as who you are is who your customers/clients are. Without your customers, your business is just an empty shell. Your clients give your business life. Their feeling about your business drives the shape of your brand far more than any visual identity ever can.

Understanding the needs of your customers will help ensure that a new brand identity will not seem out of left field to them. That it with mesh with their pre-established and often deep-rooted feelings about your business.

What your graphic designer may ask about your clients:

• Who is your target audience?
• Are you looking to expand your target audience? To who? Why?
• Where (geographically) do your customers come from?
• Does your audience have any cultural traditions?
• What do you think your customers would say about you/your business?
• How many customers do you serve a month?
• When is your busiest time of the year?

LOOK AND FEEL QUESTIONS:

Almost everyone as some sense of an inkling of a hint of an idea in their head when they reach out to a brand designer. The look and feel questions are all about finding out what the inking of an idea in your mind is. How does that idea and concept fit into your business, your audience and with the designer you reached out to.

What your graphic designer may ask you about the visuals:

• What will make this brand successful for you?
• What is the primary message you want to convey to current and potential customers?
• Where will you use the logo? (sign, internet, shirt, social media, business card?)
• Are there any colors, fonts or symbols that appeal to you?
• What do you dislike about the look and feel of your current brand? (logo plus overall graphic style)
• Are there any restrictions to consider when designing the new logo and brand?
• Share 2-3 links to businesses with Logos that you admire? What is it about those brands do you like?
• Share 2-3 logos that you dislike. What about them doesn’t work to you?
• Do you have a specific budget in mind?
• When do you need to have this brand up and running?

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Once you and your brand designer have gone through their discovery questions. They may ask you for more information to clarify and dive even deeper into your business’s history and goals. If you are a larger business, your brand designer may put together a SWAT analysis and/or a competitor analysis before moving into brand development.

The questions above represent the first step I take with clients on the branding journey. I typically send a very similar list that is customized to each client before putting together a scope of work for them.

However, every graphic designer and design team is different and uses a different process to help their clients reach their business goals.

The key takeaway is that your brand designer is listening and asking questions so that you can reach your goals and grow your business.