Something that’s common in any industry, are industry standards. In the design world, the standard branding process is to present 3 logo options to a client and let them choose their favourite. It’s what we were taught in design school and what many of our clients even expect us to deliver for them. However, within the first year of running Salt Design Co., we realized it was time to throw that “standard” practice out the window. Instead, we switched to what’s known as the ‘one concept approach’ for all of our brand design projects.

What is the one concept approach and why do we use it?

The one concept approach is basically just a fancy way of saying we only present our clients with one full brand and logo concept. We present it as a fully formed brand identity, with examples of how the brand could be used and applied across a range of mediums; considering the spacing, imagery, messaging and more as we do so.

Instead of showing a few, less fleshed out ideas for our clients to compare and choose from, we choose one solid direction and really focus on making it the best we can.

And the reason we do this is two-fold:

1. OUR WORK IS STRATEGIC

Typically, once we get into a brand design phase it’s relatively obvious to us what the style direction should be (a.k.a what types of fonts, colours, etc. we should be exploring) and the design phase is about testing out all the options within that style and figuring out how they should all be used.

The reason it feels that way, is because we focus so heavily on strategy in the beginning part of our projects, and also spend time testing different styles for the mood board, which ultimately sets the style direction.

So, once we get into brand design we have a good idea of where to take the brand. Focusing on one concept in this phase allows us to put our energy and time into fully developing the best brand identity we can for that style direction.

2. WE USUALLY KNOW WHICH OF THE OPTIONS OUR CLIENT SHOULD PROCEED WITH

What we were finding in the early days, when we would show our clients 3 different options, is that we knew which option made the most strategic sense and would end up pushing them towards that option, or being disappointed when they didn’t choose it. You see, in order to have 3 options to present to a client, we had to make sure they were different enough to be able to contrast and compare. If they were too similar, well, what was the point? But that led us showing a scale of where the brand could go – option 1 could be the most decorative for example, and option 3 could be the most minimalist, while option 2 sat somewhere in the middle. But… shouldn’t that have already been decided upon? We would know from the strategy phase whether the brand needed to be decorative or minimalist, so the options felt fruitless and like something we should have already decided upon.

But, if we stuck to one end of that scale and showed 3 options within that style, (let’s say the minimalist end of the scale for this example), then all the logos would be pretty similar and confusing for our clients to choose from. We’d spend time worrying that they weren’t different enough, that we needed to show more of a range to our clients – but ultimately we knew which one was strongest or made the most strategic sense for the brand. And, instead of putting our time into that concept, we spent time working on the options and making sure each one was distinct enough.

So you see, presenting options to our clients felt confusing for them and like a waste of time for us.

And that’s where the ‘One Concept Method’ came in. We discovered this approach through Rowanmade, another brand designer, and began testing it out.

The way it works is that we guide our clients through the strategy process, discovering who the business is and what it needs to communicate. Then we compare that to the competition (both direct and indirect) that our client identifies, and end it by looking at what ideas or tastes our client has that we need to keep in mind.

From there we create a mood board that will set the style direction for the brand – using the information we’ve gleaned from the strategy phase we find the best visual way to communicate the brand personality and messaging, whilst also ensuring that our clients taste or ideas have been kept in mind and that the brand can also stand alone from the competition.

Basically, the client shares their expertise about their business, and we present what we see as the best solution to visually communicate that.

By no means is this the end of the branding process - for all projects we have 1-3 rounds of refinements to ensure that our brand concept is perfect. Is this design too feminine, is it too childlike, do we need to explore some icon or pattern options… anything that’s not quite perfect for their brand ethos and target market, then we want to hear about it! Together we can refine the initial concept until it’s perfect.

We ask questions that push our clients to think beyond the visuals, and consider how the brand design supports the brand messaging and how it will attract their ideal customers. What’s working towards those goals, what’s not?

From there we can start to evaluate what can be tweaked and improved until we hit upon the final result. And in the 6+ years we’ve been following this branding process we’ve never needed to go beyond the 3 rounds of refinement – in fact many projects only require 1 round of refinements, and some don’t need any!

What’s included in a brand presentation?

Below is an example of what’s included in an ‘Initial Brand Concept"; the first concept we send to a client, showing them the logo design, font system, colour palette, and any other brand details in use. This concept is referred to as the initial presentation because we will then take this concept through 1-3 rounds of refinement to ensure that we get it just right, but this is the very first.

As a side note, we find that labelling it as a concept makes it clear that we are presenting it as an idea for the brand, not the final never again changing design. It’s open to refinements and this is the starting point for that.

You’ll see in this slide that we also include the original mood board created so that a client can see where we started and what we’ve been using to guide us and inspire us. Throughout the design process we use both he mood board as a style direction and the Brand Strategy as a reference, pulling in keywords and adjectives we need to fulfill with the visuals.

We often get to know a business well enough with this process and it helps us create language for the brand too! The above tagline (‘Do it once, Do it right’) was our concept for Type C Consulting and owner Connie ended up loving it so much that she is now using it as the tagline for her business, even though we were originally just using it as text for the brand mock-ups.

Here are a few more examples of initial concepts we’ve sent to recent clients:

BAKAU CONSULTING

ANDREW WAY PREC

JORDAN PICKELL COUNSELLING

So that’s the one concept approach! Our favourite way to create brand identities - a branding process that we will live and die for because it allows us to really dig deep into a client’s needs and find the best solutions for them.

Interested in working with us to create your own strategic brand identity? Email hello@saltdesignco.studio or check out our brand package here.

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