DW Creativ

Kids brands are our favourite! In love with how this branding turned out for this one. The colours, the meaning behind the business, the vibe, everything!

We do our best work when people truly trust our creative process. The only creative direction given was a photograph of our their son.

What ya think? Love it as much as us?

A peek at the Brand Identity package created for .ca. Stay tuned for some behind the scenes !

Loved bringing this one to life.

Check out this fresh branding we did for ! Anyone loving the blue as much as we are?

A brand guidelines sheet or a condensed style guide is perfect for brands who have limited budget and just need the basics to help guide how to use their brand identity elements.

Our basic package includes a logo design and condensed style guide that is per free cut to get you started.

We love when clients send photos of our designs in action ! Check out these beautiful postcards. Just gorgeous 😍

Creating a logo without having a brand strategy is like buying team jerseys before deciding what sport you’re going to play.

Check out our latest blog that breakdowns why a logo shouldn’t be your only focus when it comes to starting a business.

Link in bio

When you establish a brand identity for your brand you should also be making sure you have a brand style guide document that can be used to instruct others on how to properly use the elements of your brand identity.

This takes out the guess work for people who have no context about your brand identity and gives them something they can easily use to guide them.

It also ensures your branding is consistent no matter who might be creating the work. Building strong brand resonance and presence requires consistent and strategic use of your brand identity.

Most people think that a logo is all you need for a company/organization. This couldn’t be more wrong. A brand identity is made up of much more than just a logo. Your logo works together with colours, fonts, graphic elements and imagery informed by your brand strategy to create your brand identity.

Happy New Year! We hope you did something over the holidays that made you smile.

We spent the holiday break reviewing some of our processes, pricing and developing solutions to help craft more effective brand identities for your company/organization. We are introducing fixed rate pricing for all brand identity projects and have introduced 4 standard options for you to choose from.

We hope this will streamline the process a bit and give us more time to spend on the important things like bringing your vision to life. This change will also introduce a minimum/base in terms of what we deem to be the absolute minimum elements necessary to create a successful brand identity for you!

Our biggest change is that you can no longer just get a logo design, you must at minimum do our logo package that includes a condensed style guide that outlines your colours, fonts, graphic devices and logo usage rules. You will thank us later!

We are excited to work with you throughout this year and explore this new process with you. Our brand identity bookings for the 2023 year are now open, you can inquire about starting a new project by emailing [email protected] or by filling out the form on our website.

Logo Project for

Halifax Charcuterie approached us in search for a logo that is clean and has strong brand association. They desired a clear conveying of the primary aspects of their business which they identified as wine and charcuterie.

Swipe >


.

PROMO SUITE
The Peace Tournament

say a lot without saying anything. If you’re a designer make sure you pay close attention to the feelings your clients brand/business wishes to provoke. Perfect example as season approaches. If you’re a Halloween costume store how do you think your customers would respond if you had the word ‘BOO’ in the window in a classic serif typeface? LOL I’m sure they’d be confused.

When selecting a font to use for , think in the same manner? Ask yourself, does seeing this font contribute or take away from how I (or my client) wants customers to feel when they see the brand?

What I asked for VS What I got
tREv x TPT Collab

the number of people we get coming to us in need of a vectorized Is mind boggling sometimes. We’re not saying you can’t create in but make sure you give your client final packaged files that include both pixel and vector versions of their logo.

3 terms people often times mix up. Some will use them interchangeably even 🤷🏾‍♀️. See my take below on the most straight forward summary I could come up with.

Brand: how people and/or you perceive your business.

Brand Strategy: a plan that helps you determine what, when, where, how and who you are communicating your brand message to.

Brand Identity: the visual representation and elements of your brand informed by your brand strategy.

Long story short, all 3 are equally important and are required for solid “Branding”. Yes another word lol. But here’s the key point… you can’t have a brand identity with no strategy and you can’t have a brand strategy with no identity.

Many people start a business and think the first thing they need to present to the world is a logo.

Wrong.

Your logo is only one small piece of your businesses brand identity which should actually be informed by a brand strategy.

Spend time crafting your brand strategy including things like your brand voice, personalities, mission and vision statement and positioning first. Once you’ve established a solid understanding of the brand itself you can use that to inform and generate ideas for how to visually represent that best.

SHIRT DESIGN
DBDLI Summer Scholars

First things first, if you have the privilege to be able to say no to a project consider yourself lucky. Not everyone has it.

I’d be a liar if I said I always had the privilege to do so. Not the case. What I have learned however is that saying no to a project has to make sense for you and only you.

Sometimes that might mean sacrificing a pay day or potential exposure. I’ve learned that taking on projects has to make sense and align with my values as a person, as a creative.

Once I switched to that mentality I enjoyed my work much more and generated more authentic relationships with my clients. There is nothing wrong with saying no to a project if it doesn’t align with your soul.

Teach yourself how to explain to potential clients that their ask is outside of your expertise and the typical projects you work on. And of course just beware of and play with the trade off.

Revision cycles are probably one of the most challenging things to manage with clients. If you’re billing your client hourly you’re likely to see less revision cycles because the client is aware that they’re being billed accordingly.

The tricky part is when you give your client a flat rate for a project. If you don’t define how many revision cycles are included, you might find yourself in a never ending loop and end up spending much more time than you originally accounted for.

So how can you prevent it? Try offering your client a set amount of revision cycles included in the flat rate you give them. Let them know that if they go past that amount they will be billed via your hourly rate for any excess cycles.

Being upfront about revision cycles can ensure that the client is mindful and thorough with their feedback in each cycle. And ultimately get you to a place where both are happy with the outcome of the project.

LOGO // BRANDING
DBDLI Afrocentric Research Series

Every designer might have a program they enjoy using the most however the reality is that some just make more sense to use based on the project. When I first started as a graphic designer I wanted to use Photoshop for everything lol BIG mistake. Using the ideal program for your project can improve your efficiency exponentially and generally improve the output. Below are a few quick general rules to consider when deciding what program to use:

1. Photoshop: Use this for special effect artwork and photography. It’s a pixel based program and ideal for projects that require high detail and photo manipulation.

2. Illustrator: Use this for creating things like logos, vector-based illustrations and graphics. This program is vector-based so it’s ideal for crafting things that require clean crisp lines, shapes, patterns, etc.

3. InDesign: Use this for creating long document such as books, magazines, or text layouts. This program has functionality built in that helps automate your workflow through the use of styles, master pages, etc.

LOGO // BRANDING
J. Anthony Media

To grid or not to grid? 🤷🏾‍♀️ Most will tell you to use a in every …. wrong! Do what makes sense to you and the project you’re working on. Nothing wrong with challenging design rules with intention!

LOGO // BRANDING
East Preston Pacers Easter Classicpacers.easterclassic

Part of helping your clients understand the concepts you create is to visually help them see it. Create a mock-up of the concept according to its end use; it will make you and your clients life so much easier !

LOGO // BRANDING
Rudder Creative Mgmt.

Determining a monetary value for your time can be hard. Especially in a time where there are so many apps, software, etc. that are out there offering alternatives that people can use. Figuring out what your hourly rate is a combination of a few key elements:

1. Industry Standards: Do your research, look for what others are charging to do similar things that you do. A great starting point for those in Canada might be ‘s creative earners report.

2. Your Experience: Now that you have an idea of what people are charging you can factor in how much experience you have. You default might be to calculate this by how many years but take a deep look and reflect truly on your experience, the projects you’ve worked on. Having less or more years under your belt doesn’t necessarily mean more or less experience.

3. Your decided value: This is totally subjective. I call this the “why me” factor. Think about your uniqueness and why someone might want to work with you versus another alternative. How valuable do you really think your work is and what feels good.

LOGO // BRANDING
Advanced Maintenance Cleaning Solutionssolutions

🤣 asking for a friend …