in a world of brand fatigue, it’s time for brand art.
We’re all bored by slick branding and trendy design templates. You are making a meaningful contribution to the world: let’s translate your beautiful vision into evocative, original, sensual imagery your people can feel in their minds, hearts, and down to their tippy-toes.
: : : : INTRODUCING : : : :
Great branding in today’s environment is not longer a rigid set of rules and static, consistent-to-the-point-of-exhausting design systems. It’s a flexible, dynamic language that can adapt and change with the times.
It may be strange to hear a brand director say this…but don’t waste your time investing in a fancy web site!
It’s time to go all in on images. Imaginative, tactile, original ones.
After 25 years of design and branding work and a lifetime of being a visual artist, I can confidently tell you:
While a powerful brand story and identity is as important for small business as ever, it is now MUCH more important to speak your brand’s language with freshness, creativity and responsiveness than it is to have an elaborate web site, a rigid style guide, or other such static things.
In one intense week in the studio, I’ll produce a collection of original, brand-attuned, handmade works of art to power your distinctive visibility for years.
I’m a wildly/weirdly experienced visual artist and a branding expert: so I can create in-touch, imaginative images and speak your unique and strategic brand language without falling into the trap of a trendy but inflexible brand template. And I’ll leave you with not only the images, but the materials, tools and methods you’ll need to keep on creating.
YOUR VISUAL VOCABULARY INCLUDES TWO KINDS OF IMAGES:
1.
Feature images.
These are the ones that stop people in their tracks for their visual distinction alone. They can be interspersed with your text-based posts on social media, or used in your web site, blogs, and publications.
2.
Raw material.
These are backgrounds, textures, patterns, crops of feature images, and other ephemera that you/your team can easily turn into images you need to publish on the fly. Perfect for social media sharing and ongoing visual invention.
view the art deck.
From heaps of past work, I’ve collected a few examples that can help you understand my approach and process to developing a visual vocabulary, for myself and for my clients.
Wanna see into my brain and process?
Note: All artwork in Your Visual Vocabulary is primarily made in the physical world, not the digital one.
Meaning: Painting. Sculpture. Drawing. Printmaking. Collage. Cut paper. Studio Photography. My access to materials includes human-made and natural objects across time periods, styles, and aesthetics.
Only after that happens do I bring it into the digital realm and get it ready to use across all your platforms. It’s the physical materials, not the pixels, that are making magic, originality and meaning for you here.
The result is a brand that is powerfully unique, sensual and evocative of the world you can touch as well as see.
If this sounds like you, keep on reading.
who it’s for
You are eager and ready for the increased visibility and energy that new and powerful brand images can bring (I know this seems like a no-brainer, but some folks have resistance to blooming in public - and I want you to be thrilled to take action with the fruits of this creative labor).
You have a validated business product, service or similar, and basic business foundations in place; so we can know enough about your work to make a visual brand expression that will stay relevant and alive for you for years.
You are excited about the idea of physical artwork for your business, and you respond positively to some of my past work (above). In other words, we share some overlap in our visual likes and dislikes.
You are more interested in amazing art than conformity; you are willing (and excited) to let your brand stand out from the environment around it.
You have a fair degree of self-trust in a collaboration. I will bring you mid-process work and I’ll lead you in creative conversations about it; I’ll need your absolute honesty about your likes, dislikes, and I-don’t-knows as we move through the process so we can find the most thrilling and on-target brand expression for your work.
“Do it!!!!! You’ll be blown away by the level of depth you’ll go with Amy to excavate your TRUE brand without borders!”
“Our work together was one of the highlights of my year, and continues to send out shoots of creative ideation each time I think or talk about what we did.”
“My work with Amy was more than marketing; it was showcasing who I was becoming as a businesswoman. And we got to be innovative AF! I came out of it with a collection of amazing photos and GIFS that perfectly captured my work; for as long as I had that business I continually shared them and people RAVED about them.”
process
DAY ONE: BRAND INSPIRATION CALL, RESEARCH
We’ll spend 2 hours together clarifying your brand’s vision, story and identity, and find starting points for possible visual directions. We’ll also determine your needs for visual assets and build those into our production plan. From there, I will begin sourcing materials and researching methods to meet our goals.
Prior to this meeting, I will give you about an 90 minutes of homework that you will bring to the meeting. This will include making a Pinterest board according to my instructions, and gathering together any of your existing visuals for us to look at.
DAY TWO: RESEARCH, SOURCING, PROTOTYPING
On Day 2, you go about your life while I spend the day researching, and sourcing/purchasing/collecting materials and inspirations for the possible directions we chose on Day 1. I’ll most likely begin prototyping on this day as well.
DAY THREE: PROTOTYPING, CREATING
On Day 3, I’ll begin prototypes and experiments, moving beyond the starting blocks and developing “rough draft” versions of our brand direction ideas, allowing other possibilities to bubble up, and evolving the ideas until they are ready for us to evaluate them. Many of my creations from this day are likely to already publish-ready.
In the afternoon, we’ll meet for 60-90 minutes to discuss the experiments and refine our direction further, and from there I will begin turning the most successful prototypes into final works.
DAY FOUR: CREATING
I’ll spend all of Day 4 creating the artworks: both “feature” images and raw materials (described above). With the research. collecting and prototyping already complete, much will be produced on this day!
DAY 5: LIBRARY BUILDING
On Day 5 I will digitize everything and produce a library of images in Canva, appropriately sized/shaped and ready for use in all of the platforms you need them so it’s all web site, social media, and blog ready.
Additionally, I’ll prepare a “user’s guide” to your library, equipping you with ideas, methods, and procedures so you can start running with your new images.
deliverables
While every client’s needs, and every brand itself, is different, here are some things I can promise. You’ll get:
A SERIES OF STAND-ALONE, FEATURE IMAGE WORKS OF ART FOR YOUR BRAND (4-6 images)
In our initial call, we’ll determine how many of these you will need and what functions they should serve; the number of standalone images we create will be based on that conversation. These images, of course, will be made with the practicalities of your digital platforms in mind, and will be deeply tuned in to your brand voice and vision.
A COLLECTION OF “RAW MATERIAL” IMAGES FOR YOUR BRAND EVOLUTION (30-50 images)
This will be a library of backgrounds, fragments, crops and details, colors and patterns and textures you can use in a variety of ways over the long term. Social posts and stories, custom text images for blog posts and articles, design for products etc. What makes this collection useful for you is not just the beauty of it, but the size of it and the versatility of it. They are meant to work interchangeably with each other, responding to your varied needs.
THE CANVA BUILD-OUT
I’ll take all the images and build out your library in Canva with templates for you to add text to, standalone graphics and with everything in the right sizes and shapes for your platform needs. You’ll also receive a set of instructions about ways to use your images in your kit:
YOUR CONTINUE KIT
I’m going to send you a box of fragments: materials, scraps, and art supplies I used in the process of making your brand art. This includes a set of prompts and instructions you can use to guide how you use the images I made for you, and even to prompt you to continue making more on your own if you are so inspired!
investment & next steps
Your Visual Vocabulary packages begin at $8k.
Ready to talk? Let’s talk and see if this is a good fit for you:
What’s this, you ask? Why, it’s the footer of course!