Metrics of Brand

Maybe it’s my tendency as a designer but it’s easy to second guess or downplay the impact of our work. It’s because of this I’ve been reluctant to lay claim to the success our clients see after they’ve worked with us. The hard work that founders/leaders/business owners are doing, the risk they take, the innovative nature of the thing that they’ve come up with, numerous other factors, are all contributing in different ways. So what portion of that success do we deserve?

Here’s what I’ve landed on: post-project catchups with clients. Partly to see how we can improve but also to ask: what did this do for you?

The conversations have surfaced things I wouldn’t have expected. Here are a few snippets from a call with Jessica Jacobs who was CMO of MDVIP during the rebrand we did for them.

When rolling out a dramatic redesign to a website, generally it immediately tanks results. Not only did that not happen, but it was pretty clear that there was an immediate increase in conversion rate.

We printed up these posters with the new brand and taglines and we just left them in the office for people to take, and everyone put them up at their cubes, brought them home. When we had Zoom backgrounds, everyone had them in their background. It was just clear that people felt a pride and affection for what was done.

At the board level, our investors, in particular the person who leads the consumer practice at Goldman Sachs said, this is really great work. She was super complimentary of the work. Frankly, the ROI of the whole project, was super high.

It seems to me the people best placed to measure the impact of our work are the folks truly immersed in the day to day of the business. The people working with the things we create.

Botanica

I caught up with longtime friends/clients Botanica in their new office. Botanica is a landscape design & build firm that’s been doing increasingly impressive work in and around Vancouver. Their business has grown and they’ve been slowly expanding their offerings. It’s interesting and inspiring to me that the ways they’ve been expanding are largely driven by things they are interested and excited by and less about what is a profitable opportunity.

We chatted about a lot of things they need help with but one thing I brought up was their dependence on Instagram for a lot of lead flow. I worry that them being beholden to a single platform is a bit risky. We’re looking at ways to capture/own at least some of this audience. Get followers to sign up for a mailing list? We don’t get into social media much so if any readers have some insight/ideas on this please drop me a line.

Authentic Generation

Currently we’re working on a brand and web project for an HR tech product. The brand emphasizes human/AI collaboration, so a lot of authentic human imagery is required. We’ve been having a lot of success generating images with FLORA. It’s kind of a perfect fit: the quality is really good and it’s fast. Contrast this with stock: the images would be generic, it takes forever to find something usable, and then you have to license it. Anonymity in the subjects is also preferable here, which rules out a photo shoot. I can’t imagine the stock photo industry has much life left.

Sensory Links

Audio — Recently discovered Telefon Tel Aviv’s 2001 debut was reissued with a bunch of bonus tracks

Visual — Love these guitars

Are you better than you look?

Bolster fixes the gap between how good you are and how you show up. Know someone whose identity is holding them back? Let us know, maybe we can help.