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Month: May 2021

Sutton Coldfield design studio

What running a Sutton Coldfield design studio & brand consultancy taught me

It started with some short cuts…

Everybody has different paths to their chosen career. And everyone will have different experiences with self-development professionally and personally. Education has always been important to me as a designer. From the moment I entered the creative scene in London, to now where I am the creative director of a Sutton Coldfield design studio, keeping myself skilled-up is a key element of my working week.

Graphic design and brand consultancy may be based on talent, but it’s hard to be a good designer without additional skills in software, technology, understanding businesses…

Sutton Coldfield design studio and brand consultancy

When I was an artworker at a London design agency, every lunchtime I stayed in and basically hacked on a scrap document to learn what could make my typesetting faster. Soon, I was the person that would know a shortcut key if there was one. It helped being recognised as a valuable team member and it felt like the right thing to do. Back then we used Quark, and Adobe was that new thing that made pdfs that would embed fonts, oh wonder! I guess I was lucky to start my career at a time when software started to change the creative industry in a storm.

Two years on, I was studying at Central Saint Martins whilst working freelance. I’d spend most of any spare time in libraries going through books about advertising, graphic design, interior design, typography, colour theories, human behaviour, communications – and how to run a business. 

Learning from running our Sutton Coldfield design studio and brand consultancy

As soon as I transitioned to working full time as a designer, it fascinated me how we’d end up with those briefs to design a brand identity. What If there was another way to shape that brand? So off I went again to Brunel University to do a course on brand strategy.

And on it goes – workshops, networking mastermind sessions, online tutorials… all the way to starting our Sutton Coldfield design studio back in 2005. To be fair, Essence is probably not a regular graphic design studio: Steven, the other half, is super tech-focused, our data meister and the man that taught me all about CSS, JS, JSON, HTML, how to troubleshoot, and how to comment on code. And I come from a highly conceptual, ideas-focused advertising background with a passion for typography, print technology, copywriting, and using photography to tell a brand story in different media. We like to call Essence a brand consultancy for those reasons.

Even now, more than 16 years in business here, my motto remains: ‘Every day is a school day’. My biggest ongoing learning challenges are UI / UX, tech, automation, and SEO-related because that’s what my clients need help with beyond solid graphic design and branding. There’s so much out there nowadays, even here on social channels, the learning world is your oyster. 

To keep improving your skills has nothing to do with your field of expertise – whether you are a business coach, interior designer, marketing manager of a hotel or restaurant, a shop owner selling products to the trade or consumer – or you are a brand consultant and graphic designer, like myself – it is vital to keep learning.

What running a brand consultancy and Sutton Coldfield design studio taught me is not just about business methodologies, project- and client management, cashflow planning, having pricing structures, sales and marketing plans, a vision for the brand, and a comprehensive service setup… It taught me that everything is in flux and you have to move with it. Industries change. Trends change. You change and your experience can greatly enhance what you sell and how you sell it. Keep looking around and up from your work to see what else is out there. It will be time well-spent.

Brand consultants brochure

A Graphic design studio and a brand consultancy – what’s the difference ?

Ever wondered what the difference is between working with a studio or a consultancy? You may be looking for a local partner to help you with your new website. Or you are a start-up with a vision, but not quite sure how to let the world know about it. Or maybe you are an established business that simply needs to have some new brochures designed. Who do you approach?

There are lots of commonalities and some may say it’s pretty much the same as any full-service design agency, but there are nuances that may be worth considering.

A graphic design studio provides print and design services to clients, such as the creation of brochures, flyers, stationery, signage, etc. A brand consultancy, on the other hand, provides a range of services that are not primarily focused on design and artwork. These services can include brand strategy, naming, packaging, content strategy, and marketing – as well as graphic design.

Brand consultancy vs graphic design studio07

Brand Consultancy vs Graphic Design Studio

Graphic design studios offer professional and comprehensive design services, such as print design, web design, business branding, logos, and creative development. The clients are the ones who come up with the idea and finalise the creative concepts, while the studio employees craft them into reality.

In general, a graphic design studio will work with a client to produce a design or product, then hand it over to the client to use.

A brand consultancy will help you set up an effective brand strategy. They are focused on broad-based branding with the aim of enhancing the image of your company. This will involve brainstorming the business and identifying branding opportunities. You can’t have a strong and effective brand without a strong strategy that will drive the value proposition of your brand. It will inform every decision that your business (or yourself) will be seen to make.

The consultancy will help in the process of defining the right brand identity concepts and designs, typography and colour schemes, designing packaging, exhibition marketing and developing social media or advertising campaigns for your business.

Brand consultancy strategy

Of course this is the point when the lines start to get blurry.

Every good brand consultancy will be able to see through your project from conceptions and strategy to the actual production of the outputs, which makes it synonymous with the services from a graphic design studio. Equally, good graphic design studios wil gladly try their best to accommodate any strategic requirements. After all, good designers will love a challenge and they will want to see their clients succeed just as much as brand consultants, so it’s a bit down to semantics and individual expertise.

If you already have a communication strategy, with a comprehensice brand and corporate identity guide, (ideal) customer personas, marketing strategy and basically a brief for a specidic list of items, you may well find a graphic design studio is the right fit for you.

If you are not sure about where your business is in the market, where you want it to go and how you are going to get there, working with a brand consultancy could be a good step to ensure you are confident with the materials you are producing – and with a long-term vision in mind. Because the creation of certain brand touch points (print or online brochures and literature, websites, membership portals, loyalty programmes, interior designs etc) is just one element of the work, special attention is given to the impact any creative outputs have on the brand itself.

It’s a step before the visual drawing board that is often forgotten, yet so important if you want to build good foundations for your business.

Pantone swatch part of branding process

So how do you pick?

Choosing between the two boils down to a few key factors. Consultancies have highly skilled graphic designers that can work closely with businesses to provide services that might not be suitable for smaller businesses. Consultancies often specialise in certain industries, offering the added benefit of getting brand advice from a seasoned professional.

Consultancies work with branding specialists to handle some of the more sophisticated tasks such as the creation of logos and brand identities. They will have a team of experts for online, print and social media design projects, brand photography and copywriting – after the strategy is in place. Just like graphic design studios, they have a network of suppliers in the print, adertising and exhibition industry, helping their clients to get the best finishes for their brand literature.

A graphic design studio should also be able to work well with any client to help them get the best out of their print and web design. They may even work with a brand consultant to bridge the strategy gap in their services, which brings me back to the blurry lines.

Ultimately, it’s probably down to personal choice. If you are hunting around your local networks or the search engines, it’s worth looking at both –  listings for brand consultancy and graphic design studio – and then let their portfolios, websites and customer service speak for themselves.

The two can differ greatly in scope and experience. Naturally, a graphic design studio will offer graphic design services. A brand consultancy will also serve the needs of clients in other areas.

Therefore, it is essential to ensure that your chosen partner has the right skill set to support your business with the appropriate services, whether you identify it as design or branding. And if there are still any doubts, just get in touch with us and we can chat through your ideas and plans.