Rebranding Basics: Where to Start & Other Considerations

Your business brand is your first impression, memorable feeling, and unique presence in the interior design industry. It’s not something to take lightly. If you’re just starting out, this area of your business deserves a good amount of contemplation, planning, and careful implementation. If you’re rebranding your already-established business, your brand deserves the same amount of consideration and attention. For interior designers, branding can be the difference between a client choosing you over another, so I want to take a careful look at the rebranding basics.

“A brand is the sum total of how a product or business is perceived by those who experience it.” - Brian Lischer, Ignyte 

What Makes a Brand

The brand sets the tone for your client experience, it is the very foundation of your business. Some basics that make up a typical brand are:

• Visuals

• Personality

• Voice

• Value proposition

• Positioning within the industry

Visuals, Personality, & Voice

Your visuals are the images, color palette, typography, iconography, and other purely visual elements. The visuals naturally tie into the personality and voice of your brand, taking their cue from the atmosphere created through the tone of your copy, messaging, how you communicate with your ideal clientele, and the way you wish to be perceived. 

Value Proposition

The value proposition of your brand is what you offer. In terms of a rebrand, you need to consider any new niches, any pain points you’ve come across that your services solve, and any new services. Answer the question: What do I give my customers that makes their experience memorable and my services a must for them?

Positioning Within the Industry

As an interior designer, your services are most likely luxury. That is simply the nature of the interior design industry. However, there are probably a few other words that could apply to your business and how your services, preferred style, and approach to design fit into the industry. Here’s where a brand personality quiz might come in handy.

The options are nearly endless, but finding the perfect match will, in turn, influence your voice, visuals, personality, copy, color palette, and more. 

The Rebrand Basics: Considerations

According to brand strategist, Kimberly Sundt, there are 4Cs of branding: Clarity, Communication, Consistency, and Conversation. 

Establish a firm grasp and clarify for yourself what you want your brand to look like: colors, visuals, even website layout. Clarify what your purpose and focus are, what your values are, and what aspects of your personality you want your clients to connect with. Then note the voice of your brand, the keywords, the brand words, tagline, words not to use, and the messaging. 

Next, determine which platforms you will be using. At this point, if you’re rebranding, you’ve probably tested out nearly every social media platform, tried a few software programs, and established a design process that works for you. Decide what works best, cut out the extras, and start implementing your branding everywhere possible. Consistency helps establish the legitimacy of your business and communicates a sense of organization, professionalism, and trust. 

For Sundt, conversation means having a story for your clients to tell to others about you! This story can be created through the content you post, the actual stories you tell, the type of experience you provide, and so much more. In essence, the final C—Conversation—simply means having a “Why” behind your business, values you’re proud to talk about, a carefully crafted client experience, and an identity your clients are attracted to.

Rebranding Your Interior Design Business

Now that you’ve gotten the gist of what makes a brand, and you’ve noted some considerations, let’s talk specifically about how to go about rebranding your interior design business.

Design Philosophy

Truly a unique aspect of interior design businesses, design philosophy is incredibly important. When rebranding your business, take time to reevaluate your design philosophy, hone in on your values, what’s important to your clients, your creative approach, and your Why.

Voice

Your voice as a brand is somewhat determined by your own personality, design philosophy, design specialty, and brand words. Create a voice that is honest, authentic, and reflects your values.

Photos

Take stock of the visual aspects of your business and don’t be scared to change them out. A great place to start in finding new visuals for your business is to find inspiration in your projects. If you’re rebranding, you have a portfolio of inspiration and can search out photos that align with the types of projects you design, and therefore a bit of the personality behind your brand. Don’t be afraid to add images of fabrics, patterns or textures. Think of how you would present a mood board or a flat lay to a client, not all images have to be of full spaces.

Color Palette

As a designer, color palette really matters. If your color palette doesn’t match the rest of your branding, or isn’t consistent, it can reflect badly on you as a designer. Do a deep dive on Pinterest, Sherwin-Williams or other paint suppliers and find some color palette inspiration. Or, better yet, pull inspiration from your brand words, voice, and visuals. 

Brand Story 

Your brand story has grown over the years, and now that you’re rebranding you have a great story to tell your potential clients! This is your Why, your origins, what you’ve learned, and your design philosophy all laid out to tell your clients who you are at the very core of your business. 

The Cost of a Rebrand

The cost of a rebrand can range depending on what pieces you’re able to implement yourself, if you hire a branding consultant, and whether or not you need a graphic designer, web designer, copywriter, etc. You can decide for yourself which contractors are necessary to achieve the look you want, and it’s never a bad idea to “shop around”. Some great resources I have in my arsenal are:

Symspace Design

An all-in-one marketing and branding firm that offers graphic design, and web design. 

Glory & Brand

Glory & Brand offers a brand intensive, as well as strategic websites, and SEO services.

Hello June Creative

A fantastic resource for logo design, web design, email templates, collateral copy, and so much more!

I highly recommend using a branding consultant as they specialize in thinking trough the strategy with you. The hardest work as a business owner is to create for your own business, similar to why your clients hire you as a designer. You know what you like and want to portray, these specialists will pull it together for you. The cost/benefit is the same you tell your clients; you hire an expert because of their experience and abilities which results in time and error savings.

This decision to rebrand shouldn’t come lightly though, the cost of the rebrand will not only be effected by the cost of a consultant, but the time and expenses incurred by all of the marketing materials needed for your firm. Depending on how big the change is in the branding, you may be spending a lot more on new resources such as signage that may not have been considered from the onset.

Help Rebranding Your Business

You might feel your brand is outdated because you have changed as a person, or your priorities have changed as a business owner. Or maybe you’ve found a niche you love and want to reposition yourself as an expert in that area. No matter what your reason for wanting change, your business brand deserves some undivided attention. As an OBM, I see dozens of brands and specialize in honing in on just what makes them so special. If you’re ready to rebrand your interior design business, but need a little help, I’m ready to lend a hand!