Joe Redston

Challenge

Joe's brand was split into two - his personal brand and Raise. He had previously created the branding himself for these platforms. He had a website for each that had not been touched for a couple of years and now did not reflect his current goals. Also, promoting both of these brands was too much for him to juggle. He needed some guidance for streamlining his content creation and sharing, to enable him to focus on his personal brand, workshops, content and build a “fan-base” with whom he could share insights and guidance with.

Our Approach

Starting with a brand workshop with Joe we dug deep into his vision, goals, clients, likes, dislikes, word association and the problems he currently faces day-to-day. The information for this framed a discovery phase. We compiled details of all of his current brand assets, website, copy and social posts to enable us to perform an audit that would define what deliverables we could produce to maximise the impact of this personal branding exercise. In-depth research into design, colour, typography and photography was performed and presented to the client via mood boards. This helped us to know exactly what he liked and disliked. But most importantly, why?

During a second workshop with the client, we refined these visions down to a single mood board that was to be used as the guide to building the foundations of a brand language. Three words were chosen - Subtle, Simple, Brave - and this was referred back to over and over during the project.

Now, this gave us some very interesting information to play with. Joe did not want to be like others in his field. He also did not want an orthodox website. In his own words “There are a gazillion people out there doing similar stuff to me - and I don’t want to be like them. I want people to go “oh shit - I wasn’t expecting that” … and most of them will then say “I don’t get it - I’m off” … but 1% will be “stop looking - we’ve found our guy”.”

The Solution

It was decided that the best approach was to perform a full re-brand which would help align him and his personal brand for the future, redesign the website in a simple but effective way and combine Raise as a project/landing page. From there we could support him to automate his processes using branded email marketing, aligned social platforms and a blog on his website to focus on growing his network.

Concepts for three logos were created and then refined; Joe Redston, Raise and a Monogram for JR. These are connected by type, style and repetition of the coloured circle which then combines in the Yin-Yang style monogram that also translates as a J and an R (Joe's initials, but also Joe and Raise).

Website wireframes were developed so Joe could preview and approve the style. This also gave the framework for background colours and finish for all other assets that were created. The website was developed as a custom WordPress build focusing purely on type and space. This also included a blog that automatically shares to his social platforms when he publishes any new articles and Mailchimp connection to grow his audience.

Additionally, Keynote templates were supplied for Joe to use during his presentations or workshops along with templates for social media posts and Mailchimp email templates.

Design must be clean and simple - Joe now had a clear visual language that matched his approach.