Most branding starts at the wrong end.
A logo gets made. Colors get picked. A site gets built around them. Nobody asked the question underneath any of it: what is this business for, and who is it for?
Intent-Based Branding™ reverses the order. We find the intent first. Every visual decision after that has something to be measured against, which is why the work holds up when the market moves.
33
YEARS BUILDING BRANDS
1
METHOD, APPLIED EVERY TIME
118
ALABAMA BUSINESSES BRANDED SINCE 2015
The Four Phases
They run in order. Each one produces something you keep, whether or not you continue to the next.
01
Essence Extraction
An intake and a creative consultation, run as an interview rather than a form. We are after the thing you say when you stop selling: the reason the business exists, in your own words, before marketing gets near it.
YOU LEAVE WITH — A WRITTEN CORE MESSAGE AND POSITIONING STATEMENT
02
Intent Mapping
We map what each audience needs to believe, and what each page or piece has to do to move them. This is where marketing goals and design goals get reconciled on paper, while changing them still costs nothing.
YOU LEAVE WITH — A PAGE-BY-PAGE INTENT MAP
03
Core Expression
Only now does anything get drawn. Identity, typography, color and art direction are built to carry the intent, and every choice can be argued back to phase one instead of to taste.
YOU LEAVE WITH — IDENTITY SYSTEM AND ART DIRECTION
04
Build & Launch
Built, coded and shipped: responsive, fast, and yours to edit. We run the moving pieces so you are not the one chasing them.
YOU LEAVE WITH — A LIVE SITE AND TRAINING TO RUN IT
What this is not
Not a logo package
A logo is an output of the method, not the product. If a mark is genuinely all you need, say so and we will quote just that.
Not a template
Nothing here is reused between clients. The method repeats; the answers it produces never do.
Not a quick turnaround
Phase one is finished when the core message is true, not when the calendar says so. Work that has to last does not get compressed into a week.