A brand is a bridge.
The brand you create—it's name, story, impact, and style—is a bridge that connects many things.
Most importantly, it connects you to the community you serve. It's the space where relationships are nurtured and resources are exchanged.
And especially for long-lived brands that are ready to evolve or be rejuvenated, the expression and embodiment of your new brand needs to also be a bridge between your past, present, and future. Whether you are honoring a proud legacy, or distancing yourself from a bygone era, your community needs to be brought along with you. Through storytelling, imagery, and engagements, you can build this new bridge to the next chapter without erasing your past.
This delicate and generative work of branding/rebranding is what I love to do most with my creative skills as a facilitator and designer. Whether it's with large teams and organizations or solopreneurs, the fundamental work is the same:
- Know yourself: Look within to clarify your true vision, mission, values, and personality
- See your community: Reflect with others on the outside about their perceptions and needs and dreams
- Build the bridge: a strategy and identity that is true to you and the essence that you and your community have in common—a space with room for what you are and what you're becoming.
A brand is a conversation.
I happen to still feel a little uneasy using the word "brand".
While "reputation", "image", "persona", "experience" or "impression", don't have the legibility that "brand" does, they are actually better at describing what a brand is.
The definition I reach for most often comes from renowned strategist and author Marty Neumeier:
“A brand is a person's gut feeling about a product service, or organisation.”
We understand intuitively what goes into forming that gut feeling, since we are doing this ourselves all of the time:
- Interactions we have with the people who represent that business or organization
- Our feelings about the impact of their service or product
- How others talk about them
- Our subconscious impressions based on their language choices and visual appearance
And as people running an organization or business, we all have an experience with trying to communicate and promote a brand we are invested in.
Often this can be frustrating or feel haphazard—especially when you're just starting out, bootstrapping, and DIY'ing—without a clear underlying strategy or a cohesive or flexible visual system. It may be time to invest in a professional upgrade.
And for others, you may have a decent system in place, but you've outgrown it. The substance or culture of your work has evolved, aesthetic trends have shifted, technology has advanced. The expression of your brand no longer feels aligned and you might fear it's undermining the impact of your work.
This is where someone like myself can lead a creative process to develop a strategy and identity that serves you and your brand better.
Some of those I have been fortunate to support
A few featured projects...
Forbes Library: Strategic Brand Identity
This dramatic redesign was able to earn buy-in through a strategic approach that honored the existing identity centered on its architecture.
Town of Amherst: Wayfinding & Identity
The town of Amherst is a relatively small rural community and home to Massachusetts’ flagship state university campus. Somehow most folks were unaware of the vibrant bohemian downtown just up the street.
Safe Passage
A comprehensive identity redesign with website and media for constituent outreach and fundraising with an extraordinary organization “dedicated to creating a world free of domestic violence and relationship abuse.”
It’s true, Seth Gregory Design is me: Seth.
I am— first and foremost—a creative partner in the growth of your organization or business. Whether we work one-on-one, or involve a larger team, I'm intent on facilitating a process centered on listening and understanding. You are the real expert on your brand, I'm just here to help you uncover and express it!
As a self-aware people-pleaser, I'm committed to making sure you come away from this process feeling proud, relieved, inspired, and empowered. We stick at it until we find the solution that feels right to you—no hassling over the minutes or nickel-and-diming from me—this is a partnership, and I want to see you thrive!