What to Expect When Working with a Brand Designer
- May 7
- 5 min read
While you might understand the importance of a good brand, most small business owners don't know what it actually looks like to invest in professional brand design. I'm here to walk you through what you should expect when hiring a graphic designer to design your logo and brand identity, from the first call to the final files.
getting to know the business 🔎
How you know that your branding will be authentic
Before considering the brand, a designer needs to know the business and the people behind it all. A branding project will typically kick off with a questionnaire, virtual call, or in-person meeting. There should be a focus of getting a really clear idea of what the background of your business is, where you are now in your journey and what your goals are for the project.
I like to meet my clients in-person at a local coffee shop. These are my favorite meetings – over our conversation, I get to learn what you're really passionate about. I always leave the Discovery Meeting with a mind full of how we can begin to visually translate all of those things that make you you.
A foundation of brand strategy 📝
The essential step that comes before the first sketch
Strategy is what separates a professional designer from a Canva-creative with a good eye. Jumping into designing without a strategy leads to a brand that feels unintentional and underdeveloped. Brand strategy provides a solid foundation so that you can be sure that your logo and brand design doesn't just look pretty but it...
attracts and resonates with your target audience
communicates the right things about your products and services
sets you apart from your competitors
aligns with your unique values and mission
is based on your business, not aesthetics and trends
After I've done industry research and mapped out a client's brand strategy, I present everything to them in my Brand Direction meeting. This ensures I have an accurate picture of their purpose, people, positioning, and personality. In this session, I also show two moodboards to discuss visual directions based on everything we've established in the brand strategy. Doing this ensures that a client is being led to decide on things like color or imagery not based on preference, but on what will work well for their business.
With the stage set, design begins 🎨
Your logo and brand design gets brought to life
Graphic designers that specialize in logo and brand design will do this part of the process many ways. Some will show a client 2-3 different logo/brand concept options and let them pick their final brand design. Depending on the designer's methods, concepts presented like this can be very similar with a few distinct differences or completely different in palette, fonts, and imagery.
Other brand designers, like myself, give the client options (via moodboards or other general directions) in the strategy stage of the process. This way, I can take the client's visual preferences into consideration along with the strategy, industry standards, and my own design expertise to develop the strongest work for the brand. Instead of designing and showing a client multiple brand designs, I devote my time and effort towards building out one brand for your business – complete with logo suite, color palette, brand fonts, assets, and patterns – and present it all through a virtual presentation. I show the brand mocked-up on signage, business cards, and other real-life examples so you can get a real sense of how it would feel in context.
Feedback and revisions ✍🏻
Your input matters – here's how the design is refined
The revisions process will differ among graphic designers as well. It's always worth reviewing your contract or having an open conversation before a project to get clear on the boundaries for design revisions. But all design projects should include an opportunity for a client to provide feedback and request edits to the design.
In a Pennington Design Studio project, I walk through the brand design in a pre-recorded Loom presentation, explaining the strategy and intention behind every design decision. I email over the video along with a list of reflection questions that help the client evaluate the design. This way, a client has the privacy, time, and space to sit with the design, make informed choices and give thoughtful feedback.
If the client sees something that feels misaligned with the strategy and goals of the brand or just doesn't sit right, I'm happy to take their feedback and refine the design. The purpose of a revision round should be to improve the design, so I'm always intentional to maintain the quality of the work while carefully listening to and addressing client feedback. A good designer will guide you through revisions with intention, not hand the design decisions back to you.
What you walk away with 💌
What a brand designer should provide you with
At the end of a comprehensive brand design project, you should have (at least) the following in your final files:
Logo Suite: set of logo variations in different orientations and shapes, provided in varying colors and raster and vector file formats (JPG, PNG, EPS)
Color Palette: set of 3 or more brand colors with specific color codes (RGB, CMYK, HEX, PMS)
Typography: designated fonts to use for your brand and associated licenses if needed
Brand Guidelines: reference page or book that houses the design standards associated with your brand, as well as design examples to show how the branding is used on print/digital materials
Additional Brand Assets: illustrations, icons, patterns, etc
The deliverables will depend on your investment and needs for your brand. For example, in my Identity Package, I provide the above but with a brief one-page Brand Guide. While in my Signature Package, I provide more assets, a full Brand Guidelines book (15+ pages), and a set of designed material to launch your new brand confidently.
How to know if you're ready
Hiring a brand designer is an investment in your business, your credibility, and your long-term growth. So how do you know if the timing is right? Here are a few signs you're ready:
You're serious about your business: You're committed to building something real and you want it to reflect that from the start.
You have a budget set aside for it: Professional brand design isn't a spontaneous purchase. If you're ready to treat it like the business investment it is, that's a good sign.
You feel your current brand holding you back: If you're embarrassed to hand out your card, inconsistent across platforms, or just know your visuals don't reflect the quality of your work, you deserve a better brand for your business.
You're approaching a pivotal moment: Launching, expanding, opening a storefront, or rebranding for a new audience. These moments call for a brand that's built intentionally to grow with you.
At Pennington Design Studio,
I set out to create brands rooted in who you actually are, built to attract the people you want to serve, and designed to hold up long after launch day.
If this sounds like the kind of process you've been looking for, I'd love to hear about your business. My Intro Call is free, low pressure, and a great way to figure out if we're a good fit!