There are three reasons to hire a brand designer that no one really talks about, and they can actually bring a lot more value than just the visuals alone. Sure, you hire a designer to design something for you, create a marketing piece, or help shape your brand. But these are the unexpected bonuses they bring that add a ton of value to your business.

Is design just about making things look good? After 20+ years as a brand designer, I’m sharing the real purpose of design—and why great design is about engineering outcomes, shaping perception, and guiding customer decisions.

Before someone reads your business name or notices your logo, color has already shaped how they feel about your brand. In this post, we break down why color works faster than your business' other visual brand assets, how it creates instant emotional context, and how it can help your business be more recognizable.

As the owner of a business or startup, the subject of branding has probably come up in one or more conversations. If you’re like most people, the meaning of the word "brand" is fuzzy, and you might find yourself asking “what is a brand?” or “do I need a brand?” Read on as I try to tackle the question of “what is a brand?” once and for all, as well as other related questions.

If you’ve ever wondered what you’re actually getting when you invest in a brand design—this post (complete with video) will walk you through it. We’ll break down exactly what’s included, what it means, and how it helps a business show up consistently and professionally.

This past fall, I had the opportunity to attend ArtPrize in my hometown of Grand Rapids, MI. As defined on their website, ArtPrize® is an open, independently organized international art competition that is hosted by over 200 venues throughout downtown Grand Rapids. It is the world’s largest art competition, and 2016 marked its 8th year in existence. This year, event branding and design was on my mind because I was on the home stretch of designing the collateral for Phoenix Design Week collateral, and the ArtPrize 8 event branding was absolutely stunning.

One of the annual events of Phoenix Design Week is PechaKucha night. A pecha kucha—Japanese for "chit-chat"—is a roughly 6 1/2-minute talk with a rigid framework of 20 slides that auto-advance after 20 seconds. This year’s theme revolved around the idea of process, and I thought it might be fun to share about my so-far-unsuccessful quest to find "my art." Grab a seat and get ready to watch me fail!

Back in July the 2015 Method + Madness conference was initially announced, and I approached the event chairs about getting involved. I met with Robert Renteria over coffee and, to my surprise, he asked if I'd take up the role of this year's Design Chair. The past months have been a whirlwind, and I thought it would be fun to break the project down by the numbers!

As a brand designer I notice examples of good and bad branding everywhere. In fact, I recently watched the classic movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s and noticed a scene that stuck out to me as a good example of how important it is to be purposeful in developing your brand.

A couple of weeks ago, Michigan-based artist and illustrator Troy Deshano reached out to me about participating in his new side project entitled FUTURALBUM. The concept was simple: redesign an album cover of my choosing using an image from the Flickr Book Archive and the typeface Futura for any text. The project sounded like so much fun, I didn't hesitate to accept the offer.

Strong Design was conceived in a small bedroom in Grand Rapids, Michigan back in 2001. The original concept behind our studio was to create concept-based design that performs with the strength of a weightlifter. Since that time, we've went through a heck of an evolution. This is our story.

Understanding all of the terms that are used throughout a design project isn't always easy, yet it is hard to fully engage in the process if you aren't understanding all of the terms. To help clarify them, we compiled this little design dictionary with some brief descriptions that will help you understand some of the most common terms and concepts we use throughout a project.

We recently decided to take a little foray into designing and printing a few t-shirts and wanted to share the process and the results.

A web presence has become a critical asset to any business, so it is good that you're dedicated to trying to put your best foot forward, despite your limited resources. If you've started searching for themes, you probably already know that there are thousands of WordPress themes available to you. We recently attended a WordPress Grand Rapids meet-up where they addressed this topic, so we'll recap a couple of guidelines they had mentioned below.

A few months ago, there was been an incredible website, Start-Ups, This Is How Design Works, circling through social media. The mission of the site is clear: teach start-ups why they should value design. This got me thinking that maybe we should address that topic in our own way here on the blog.

When we create an estimate for you, you'll usually see some sort of reference to a number of revisions that are included with your project. We believe iteration is important to the design process, and although not every design requires revision, often it can produce a tighter, more unique design in the end, but is a design revision exactly?

Hiring someone to design or redesign your logo can be a pretty overwhelming thing. Your logo will be a fixture in your business for years to come, so it makes sense that you will want to truly understand the process of designing it. The good news is that we follow a simple 4-step process, and understanding these steps will can help you feel more confident throughout this duration of the project. Here's how a logo design or redesign unfolds.

While we understand why it seems sensible to ask for a sample design, we really can't do any work unless we're contracted for the project. The industry term for sample work is called Spec Work, which basically means doing work without any guarantee of payment. There are a host of reasons we can't perform spec work. We'll talk about each in this post.

As usual, Phoenix Design Week (PHXDW) was awesome again this year! And just like in previous years, they had a poster exhibition where designers could submit their interpretation of this year's theme. The 2012 theme was 'Here and Now,' and I thought it could be fun to submit an entry this year, and so I chose to practice my type by creating a typographic solution.

It's great that you are taking the time to consider whether your logo and brand image needs to be updated. It is good to consider this from time-to-time, because you are correct that after a while, even great logos need updating. Thankfully the life of a logo tends to be much longer than the life of a website these days, so you won't need to reconsider your logo near as often as you website.