Sean Malone, Photographer

1. Gather & Research

The creative brief is the first step that helps us gather the insights leading to an understanding of why your business exists. At this step, the you should expect to spend enough time to provide accurate information as it will have a direct impact on the results. The goal of the creative brief is to capture all necessary strategic information as well as gain a deep understanding of the your brand.

After analyzing the information in the creative brief, follow up questions may be required along with further research, to achieve a clear view of the situation and to ensure an understanding of the authentic relationship between your company and your customers. We'll complement these insights with related industry research and competitive understanding. At this point, conflicting ideas may have been exposed and need to be addressed to ensure a single focus.

2. Visualize & Analyze

With a mind map, a diagram we use internally to organize thoughts, the project’s vocabulary (words that describe the brand, personality, emotion etc) goals, and other information collected around your company & product or service comes together. As a by-product of reorganizing the information in this manner, additional questions may surface allowing further clarification before the next step.

At this point we start to visualize solutions based on the information collected. Thumbnails may be small, quick and unfiltered ideas sketched with pen and paper or digitally. The goal is to explore as many ideas as possible without becoming attached to any particular one. These thumbnail are primitive, can be misinterpreted and cause confusion, so they are only used internally to drive preliminary concepts.

Concepts are refined until they are at a stage that clearly communicates the desired message. The refined ideas are developed to show how the identity works when scaled large and small, in reverse, in black, and in color. While the concepts may look finished, more time will need to be spent on refinement, typography, color, etc., to reach a stage where they are complete.

3. Presentation & Feedback

The preliminary identity concepts are provided with a brief discussion for each design. Questions and discussions are had over the phone or in person. By referring to the creative brief and taking the time necessary to reflect, we'll select one design for further refinement. 

Changes to the selected design usually include scale, balance, font and color.

The revised identity is delivered to you via email or online for final review and discussion. 

Referring to the creative brief and creative direction, you may have slight modifications you want to explore further. These changes are incorporated into the final identity.