It’s official – the new branding and website design for Chloe Creative made its debut yesterday and the support of this community made it SO amazing. If you missed our post on Instagram, go check it out right now!
This blogpost came to fruition because I had many people ask why we didn’t design our own branding. There were several factors that went into it, but I’ll outline the most thought about ones below. 🙂 Either way, we are so thankful for Mckenna at Mckenna Sherill Design Co for welcoming us with open arms and taking any creative direction I had! Let’s dive into it.
As most of you know, our most popular service offering here at CCS is our branding and website design packages. We specialize in creating custom branding and website designs for dietitians – SO, why on earth would we not create our own branding to target dietitians?
A little over a year ago, I actually learned how hard it was to design for yourself.
I was constantly changing my own branding for CCS because it’s what I do – I’m a designer. I was designing several beautiful brands for our clients and my skillset was ever-changing. With that, I felt the push to always update my brand with my portfolio. Bad decision!
It isn’t a great idea to constantly change your branding because you are trying to establish brand awareness; I was actually doing my business a disservice by changing it often, when all I was trying to do was improve it.
When we are in our zone of genius, it’s hard to not be a perfectionist. This leads to point number two.
By designing for myself, I wasn’t able to receive outside perspectives. I missed a lot of unseen references.
I was actually limiting my business. I was designing my brand to what I *thought* was right. I wasn’t practicing my own principles that I teach all of my clients daily!
A few months before I made the decision to rebrand, I did a poll on my Instagram showing two different color palettes [one neutral and one more colorful] and asked which one seemed more like “me” – which one do you think won?
The colorful. Talk about surprised!
My old branding was comprised of all the earthly neutrals – brown, white, green, black. I was OBSESSED with these colors, but to others, they felt it didn’t represent my bubbly and outgoing personality. Instant “wow” moment for me.
I even had a fellow brand designer say “I actually always envisioned your colors to be bright and colorful versus neutrals!” and that’s when I knew I was limiting myself from outside thoughts. I needed to gain more insight on what others thought of me. How often do we see ourselves in a different way than others do?
I wanted to serve and target my audience even more than I already was.
About a year into business, I really focused down into the dietitian niche. It just so happened that dietitians really vibe well with earthly colors so my original color palette served well. However, I wanted more.
It was time to hire someone who knew NOTHING about my business or myself. I wanted the real, raw first impression of what my brand should be.
Mckenna did an amazing job of swooping right in and diving deep into strategy. She picked up on color palettes we both had our eyes on and created a perfect brand that now serves my audience and gives me the confidence to not hide behind neutrals – who knew bright colors would be something I enjoy!
If you are a designer and struggle with designing your own brand, consider hiring out. It could be the most important decision I’ve ever made for my business. I wanted to put my clients wants over my own, gain a third party perspective and start fresh. The end result was something amazing! You don’t have to struggle!
