The Minimum Viable Brand: How We Build Great Brands in 5 Days
Posted on October 7, 2024 • 7 min read
By Jeremy Blaze
Most of the branding world will tell you designing a brand in 5 days is impossible. They're not entirely wrong. Our brand process is a self-confessed MVP brand. This won't be the brand that represents your business forever – but what brand actually lasts that long anyway?
Our brand process is driven by the belief that, for early companies, we don't yet know the market well enough to get the brand right – whether we spend $50k on it or $5k. This is especially true if you've not even gone to market.
For this reason, we mostly run fast brand sprints. They normally take about two weeks all in, but there are really five main steps we go through.
When I say brand, I really mean 'visual identity'. There are two main things that go into a visual identity: the logo, and the other stuff. You know about logos already, but it's the other stuff that is too often neglected.
The 'other stuff' comprises logo, colors, fonts, patterns, 'brand devices' (more on that later) and essentially anything that your company wants to look uniquely 'you'.
The key takeaway here is that a brand cannot just be a logo. A brand encompasses the full picture of your company. I often analogize this by talking about fashion: a top hat won't make your t-shirt-and-jeans outfit formal. You need to consider every piece of the outfit to create a cohesive (and unique) look. Only then do you have a brand that's truly ownable.
It's important to note here that because such a huge piece of your brand look is this 'other stuff', nailing that can actually take some of the burden off your logo. There are heaps of brands who have essentially no logo but make up for it with everything that goes along side it. We've designed brands like this as well such as Galileo and Blair. In both of these cases we used simple text-based logos but created effective and unique 'brand devices' to accompany them, thereby creating a unique, ownable look.
We run through a short brand workshop to set the scene. We're trying to dig into who we want to appeal to and understand what appeals to them in turn. Grab our workshop template below and run through it yourself!
An effective brand has personality. We've all met people we get on with and people we don't. We know people who are super fun, and super serious. Those human identities are exactly what we're trying to represent in a visual identity.
So, who is {Your Company}? To answer this, we start with the basics. Demographics and value propositions. We tend to use this exact questionnaire when kicking off this part of the process, but pitch decks, whitepapers and your existing website (if you have one) often answer this.
If you went through the workshop in step 1, you probably have a lot of this already. The next part is to represent your brand as a character. Yes. A real, human character. If your company walked into a room, how would you describe it? That's your brand's personality.
We can represent this in a few ways. The Brand Archetypes a great start. We like to do expand on that a little. Here are some examples...
Blair – a guided meditation app:
Blair walks into the room and immediately puts you at ease. They have a calm, grounded energy, the kind of presence that makes you feel like everything is going to be okay. Blair is empathetic and attentive—a great listener who always seems to know exactly what you need to hear. They’re the friend who never judges, always encouraging you to embrace your imperfections and find joy in small moments.
Astra – a software penetration testing and security company:
Astra is the kind of person who can solve puzzles that leave others scratching their heads. Precise and methodical, Astra approaches challenges like a scientist in a lab—breaking down complexity into manageable pieces and working relentlessly to find solutions. They speak with clarity and authority, never using jargon to confuse, but to educate and empower.
Sounds wooly, I know. But moodboards are a great device for honing in on a visual style. Below is an array of moodboard examples...
Creating a great logo starts with a great idea. It could be an icon like the camera for Instagram, or perhaps something a little more abstract like the arrow in the Amazon logo, pointing from A to Z.
The hacky way to create a logo is to come up with an idea, sketch it out yourself in a crude way, and then send to a graphic designer to execute it – to make it pretty and create a polished version. (You can find a graphic designer on Upwork or Fiverr, and so long as you give them really clear direction you'll be just fine).
The right way to create a logo however, is to work on the idea and the execution together. This is our method. This allows us to create much more abstract logos that go beyond being just an icon. They have a unique style and they evoke a 'feeling' not just a meaning.
(Get in touch if you'd like some help here)
It's also completely OK to essentially skip creating a logo, and use a what we call a 'wordmark' instead. A wordmark is a stylized font. Just make sure it matches the look you're going for and you have the licence for the font.
Often this can be done in conjunction with creating the logo, and sometimes even beforehand. This however is the step too many people neglect, but which can make or break your whole brand.
These are the key elements you'll need to work out:
The final element to consider is what we call your 'brand device'. This is an element that accompanies pretty much every piece of marketing you'll produce. Below are some examples of great brand devices...
Hopefully this clarifies the brand design process to some degree. I've cut out a lot of nuance here for brevity, but these are the broad steps we take every client through on a brand project. If you're interested in us taking you on this journey, please feel free to get in touch. You can also learn more about our brand process and see some of our branding work here.
If you want an off-the-shelf logo, I think that's an entirely OK thing for an initial brand. But as I've said above, it's critical to nail the stuff that goes around the logo. Nevertheless, here are some great places to get ready-made logos:
