INSIGHT

A Deeper Look Into Our
Branding Approach

What distinguishes our service from other early-stage branding firms or design sprints? A good mix of functionality and adaptability. Because we understand. The times are a little tumultuous, and resources are a little scarce. Every moment — and every dollar — counts in the early and pre-seed stages. Your brand investment must be useful right now.

At the same time, quick changes are the characteristic of a startup. Perhaps you will experience rapid growth. Perhaps you will pivot based on features, audience, or value proposition. To maintain traction, your brand identity must be able to adapt to the unexpected.

Our method reaches that sweet spot, allowing us to create brand identities without sacrificing quality, value, speed, or scalability. Here's what that entails behind the scenes.

Preparation

We collect critical information from you from the start, which allows us to be intentional and organised in our approach. The centrepiece here is a self-guided exercise that identifies the key attributes of your brand's essence. Attributes are how we translate emotion (what will truly "sell" you in the long run) into expression (your visual identity).

Evaluation

We start with a Brand Evaluation, which is a high-level, tactical audit of your competitors' visual identities. Who are we going up against? What does their brand look like? Evaluation reveals what makes sense for your brand in the context vs what is already overdone. It's a very enjoyable, rewarding, and productive stage of the project. Clients may even gain more clarity and emphasis on their goal, value proposition, or differentiation.

Opportunities for design differentiation come from there.

Align

Branding decisions are frequently questioned. That is the goal of the Brand Evaluation: to keep uncertainty and distraction at bay. With our research in hand, we use a portion of the evaluation phase to determine the single most important thing to include in your new look, also known as your SMIT. This is our conceptual North Star, a constant touchstone with emotional resonance as well as practical application. The SMIT serves two functions. It energises everyone while keeping the project on track and focused on what's most important to you.

Design

Preparation, Brand Evaluation, and our meetings with you all have an impact on our visual direction. Armed with this knowledge, it's time to put the design work into action, first through mood boards and then through custom designs for your brand. We ask ourselves, "Are we Aligned enough?" with every decision. Collaboration, feedback, and refinements are all centred on this central concept.

Your design will reflect the quality and calibre of your company, from the logo to the colours to the typography. You are now ready for deployment.

Deliver

Our Timeline engagement concludes with brand guidelines. These guidelines, which are filled with detailed instructions and inspiring examples, will serve as a single source of truth for applying your new visual identity consistently and intentionally. Odi's add-on Brand Support offering can start knocking out rebranding tasks right away, allowing you to launch even faster.

The project is over, but this is where you start — with a brand that is built to last. Hitting the proverbial "publish" button could be one of the most significant days in the history of your company. You can enter the competitive landscape with a level of assurance you did not expect going into the project. And we'll be there to support you every step of the way.

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