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Photo by Angela Knox, The Divine Group
Quick reminder that you're reading issue four of the third annual Summer Strategy Series where we walk through my whole brand strategy process. Catch up on issue one here, issue two here, issue three here, issue four here, and issue five here.
Let’s play a game - what brand would you want to sit next to on a seven-hour flight?
What about the brand you’d pick to have a cozy coffee chat with in front of a roaring fire?
What about the brand you’d take on a days-long hiking trip versus a night on the town?
For me, I’d want to sit next to Charmin on a plane ride so I could listen to their snarky potty humor and stay entertained.
I’d want to sit in front of a cozy fire with Toms Shoes and talk about conscious capitalism and how we can do business differently.
I’d take Patagonia on my hiking trip because they’d be able to teach me so many things, and Cards Against Humanity for my night on the town so I’d spend the night laughing and having a good time.
Of course, we aren’t actually sitting next to Charmin on a plane ride or having a beer with Cards Against Humanity - even so, I am willing to wager that as I rattled off those questions, a few brands automatically popped into your head.
And that, my friends, is the power of brand personality. It allows you to picture an intangible thing like a brand in a tangible form with human traits and characteristics and mannerisms.
Your brand’s personality is the set of human characteristics associated with a brand.
I like to think of those characteristics as being in one of two buckets - behavior or aesthetic.
The behavior is how the brand acts and includes elements like tone of voice, engagement style, and common words and phrases used.
The aesthetic is the visual aspect of your brand and includes elements like logo, fonts and colors.
Together, these two can go a long way towards creating a magnetic personality that truly connects with your right audience.
While there are several personality frameworks out there, today I want to focus on the one that has become central to my work: Seasonal Brand Theory.
This framework categorizes brand personality and aesthetic into four seasons - Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. From the words on your website to your photography style to your color palette, each season has a set of guidelines that embody and evoke emotions based on color psychology and seasonal theory.
The concept was originally created by Carole Jackson for personal styling and was brought into the branding space by Fiona Humberstone. This isn’t about having a logo and color palette that looks nice - it’s about creating alignment across every brand touchpoint.
Spring brands are full of energy, movement, and optimism. They tend to be friendly, warm, and approachable. Their design style often includes bright colors, playful elements, and rounded shapes. Messaging is upbeat and conversational.
Spring brands are more community, less recluse. More friendly, less exclusive. More loud and boisterous, less delicate and quaint.
Because real examples are helpful: a travel agency focused on client-need advocacy and education, because travel isn’t a one-size-fits-all endeavor. Their brand experience is built around making clients feel worthy of having a voice, seen, and empowered to advocate for themselves. Their primary attribute is empathy. Their brand adjectives include joyful, courageous, encouraging, and safe. Their voice is compassionate, trauma-informed, and genuine. They’re helpful and encouraging, yet concise and to the point. They’re about talking with you, not at you. The creative direction included bold, bright colors; fun, ditzy patterns; chunky, playful typography; and busy, creative photography.
Summer brands are elegant, calm, and intentional. They are often more reserved but still warm. Their aesthetic leans soft and understated, with cool colors, serif fonts, and structured layouts. Messaging is precise and considered.
Summer brands are more thoughtful, less reactive. More polished, less casual. More measured, less boisterous.
Summer is the season I encounter least in my client work, so I don’t have a real-life example to share. However, a Summer brand done well might look like a business coach who works with high-achieving women navigating career transitions. Her brand uses soft lavender and sage green tones with elegant serif fonts. Her website copy is carefully crafted, with thoughtful metaphors and sophisticated language. She offers “Intentional Leadership Intensives” and sends weekly newsletters with curated resources and reflective prompts. Her photography features natural light, muted tones, and carefully styled moments that feel quiet and considered.
Fall brands are warm, earthy, and deeply values-driven. They evoke trust, authenticity, and a sense of connection. Visually, they lean on rich tones, natural textures, and handcrafted elements. Messaging is rooted in story and purpose.
Fall brands are more authentic and warm, less serious and dramatic. More casual and organic, less aspirational and elegant. More substantial, less delicate.
Because real examples are helpful: a brand photographer providing soul-filled brand photos that capture a business’s unique brand story and substance. Their brand experience is built around making clients feel inspired, confident, understood, and seen; not worried, because someone genuinely gets them and what they’re trying to create. Their primary attribute is mystical: imperfect, airy, and ethereal with plays of light and a sense of mystery. Their brand adjectives include timeless, trustworthy, powerful, and authentic. Their voice is clear, direct, warm, and empathetic, with a witty touch of smart sarcasm, grounded in its beliefs while remaining open. The creative direction included moody, warm colors; strong yet approachable typography; informal and chunky patterns; organic and cozy photography.
Winter brands are bold, clear, and driven by precision. They feel confident, modern, and high-impact. Their visual style is crisp and clean with high contrast, strong lines, and minimal color. Messaging is direct and powerful.
Winter brands are more dramatic and extreme, less refined and calm. More big and bold, less delicate and polished. More precise and detailed, less bubbly and casual.
Because real examples are helpful: an accountability partner for integrating self-care practices into daily life. Their brand experience is built around making clients feel empowered, clear-headed, and motivated to take action. Their primary attribute is simplicity, being clear and easy to understand, not elaborate. Their brand adjectives include practical, impactful, energetic, straightforward, and ambitious. Their voice is clear, straightforward, and energizing. The creative direction included bold, moody colors; geometric, structured patterns; clean, chic typography; minimal, organized workspaces.
Identifying your brand season is the starting point. What it produces is a set of outputs that give you practical guidance for how to show up consistently in your writing, your visuals, and the overall experience of your brand.
Brand experience summary: When someone experiences BrandRaise, they feel warmth and openness, as well as strength and professionalism.
Brand voice and engagement style: BrandRaise sounds like sitting down with a friend for coffee who is supportive and excitable but also gentle and firm. When engaging with their audience, they’re decisive, approachable, and warm, leading with education and information-sharing in a welcoming and easy-to-understand way.
Brand attribute: Intentional - being deliberate and purposeful.
Brand adjectives: Warm, collaborative, optimistic, intentional, supportive, dependable, kind, strategic, resourceful, direct.
Primary season: Spring - fun, energetic, and friendly. Full of possibility, bright colors, and bursts of energy. More community, less recluse. More friendliness, less exclusivity. More loud and boisterous, less delicate and quaint.
Secondary season: Fall - full of integrity and authenticity. Reveling in knowledge and education. More authentic and warm, less serious and dramatic. More casual and organic, less aspirational and elegant. More substantial, less delicate.
Misaligned brand communication: Ostentatious, sophisticated, or glamorous. Standoffish, cool, or shallow. Short, impersonal, and unkind. Snarky or rude. Delicate, formal, or elegant. Corporate, cold, or heavy-handed.
The point of identifying your brand season is to bring intention and consistency to your brand’s personality and visual identity. Instead of picking colors or styles because they look nice, you make deliberate decisions that support how you want your brand to be experienced.
Your season guides two things in particular (which coincide with the two buckets of a brand personality... coincidence, I think not):
Your brand identity and design decisions - each season comes with a set of colors, typography, graphic styles, and photography cues that help ensure your visuals work together cohesively.
Your behavior - think voice, engagement style, tone, and words used, all of which are emphasized when paired with visuals that also enhance those characteristics.
Meaning, if you want your brand’s behavior to be fun and bright and bubbly, you can further reiterate that perception by using bold, fun colors like bright pink, yellow and teal. With seasonal brand theory, your aesthetic and behavioral brand personality characteristics work together to create a unified perception.
Your brand can have a primary season and a secondary one, knowing that there are instances when one will be more dominant than the other. The goal isn’t to fit one season perfectly, but to use the season’s attributes to better understand how you want to be perceived so you can align your choices accordingly.
And as with everything else in this series, nothing is set in stone. Your brand’s personality can and should evolve as your business does.
With that, happy branding :) And we’ll see you back here on August 20!
— Kelly
PS. Like this newsletter and want more? Let’s work together! Click here explore my brand services.
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