Establishing Your Brand Identity Through Design with David Preston and Morgan Kitzmiller

The Future Belongs to Creators

For those of us without a natural artistic gene, designing our brand from scratch can feel incredibly daunting. Even professional designers work tirelessly to perfect a brand’s launch or relaunch. Luckily, designers say it’s not worth overthinking the details, especially at the start. Taking small steps forward while continuing to focus on what’s most important, creating content, will get you to your destination in one well-designed piece.

Take it from David Preston, a Senior Marketing Designer at ConvertKit responsible for ConvertKit’s stellar brand design, and Morgan Kitzmiller, an account manager at ConvertKit and aspiring designer who’s designing a brand of her own on the side.

In this episode, David, Morgan, and Miguel discuss how to start designing when the task feels overwhelming, when it’s acceptable to settle for an imperfect look, practical tips and promising tools for developing your aesthetic, the right time to change your style, and the wrong time to hit refresh on a rebrand.

Key Takeaways

• [00:53] - An intro to David and Morgan.
• [03:39] - Have you heard?
  • [03:44] - Meta is adding exclusive content options for paying subscribers to help creators build their audience.
  • [06:32] - A newsletter from Justin Welsh reminds us that doing what we’re passionate about makes goal-setting and discipline far easier.
  • [08:47] - Shopify has launched a Sell On YouTube feature and is moving toward live shopping experiences.
• [10:37] - Today’s main topic: Establishing your brand identity through design.
  • [11:14] - Design begins with an idea. Ask yourself, what is the thing you’re designing about? What is the goal of it?
  • [12:35] - Sometimes design is approached through a problem-solving lens, other times it’s purely creative. Regardless, each project lends itself to creative constraints that designers have to consider before diving in.
  • [14:08] - Creating a brand and brand identity is daunting because there’s no single output, you’re creating several assets that complement a larger theme. Start by brainstorming a few words that you feel describe your brand and go from there.
  • [15:07] - Don’t let design perfectionism stop you from releasing a brand and creating content.
  • [19:55] - In a practical sense, you don’t have to pick an entire color rainbow all at once. Focus on just one primary color and one accent color to start.
  • [21:41] - Unless you’re a design content creator, you can get away with having imperfect branding on day one.
  • [23:25] - In the early days of design, be on the lookout for things you like that you see out in the world. A folder of design inspiration goes a long way.
  • [25:22] - If something isn’t working, don’t be afraid to rebrand. Just be mindful of timing. Rebranding during your busiest sales month isn’t great.
  • [26:52] - On the flip side, a fresh rebrand can win back former and new followers, subscribers, and clientele.
  • [28:55] - If you are making big brand changes, have a clear path forward in mind and communicate that brand change to your audience ahead of time.
  • [29:16] - Avoid multiple back-to-back rebrands.
  • [29:27] - Repeating brand ideas, whether that be visual or otherwise, is a great way to help users remember you.
• [32:30] - Today’s listener shoutout: Morgan’s side hustle, root and rise, helps women stop binging and restricting and start building strength and confidence through health and fitness.
• [37:41] - A sneak peek at next week’s episode.

Quotes

[12:14] - “Really getting clear on what is the goal of the thing you’re creating first can help inform some of the other decisions that you make like the design itself, what is on that page or image, what does the writing look like, what do the colors look like.” ~ @morgankitzmiller

[17:14] - “When you get so focused on the big picture of a website, a logo, colors, images, everything and you're so focused on perfecting it, it can be a really good excuse to not actually do the work itself which is where you’ll actually learn the most about yourself, your brand, and what you want that brand to be to people that are finding it and consuming it, and interacting with you.” ~ @morgankitzmiller

[35:29] - “I am a designer for a living and even I will advocate for, choose the thing that is as simple as possible that can get the job done.” ~ David Preston

Links

• Watch The Future Belongs to Creators on YouTube
• David Preston
• Morgan Kitzmiller
• Craft + Commerce
• Nathan’s Craft + Commerce 2022 Keynote
• Meta
• Instagram
• Patreon
• The Future Belongs to Creators 163: How To Make a Living From Sponsorships with Armando Roggio and Jay Clouse
• Justin Welsh’s The Saturday Solopreneur Newsletter
• Daniel Vasallo
• Justin Welsh’s Twitter thread
• Shopify
• YouTube
• QVC
• Pinterest
• Coolors
• Dribbble
• Coca-Cola
• The #AskGaryVee Show
• root and rise
• root and rise on Instagram
• root and rise Strong Girl Summer
• Squarespace
• Collin Tate
  
  

Connect with our hosts

• Charli Prangley
• Miguel Pou
• Haley Janicek

Stay in touch

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram

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