How to Design Your Brand at Any Stage

It’s true: while building or revamping your brand can be exciting and fun, it can also feel daunting. It’s hard to know where to start, what you need, and what your objectives are. Plus, there’s all the jargon (“brand” v “style,” “logo” v “wordmark,”** etc.). Here at Williamson Creative Agency (WCA), we approach our branding services at various depths so we can meet our clients where they’re at. 

The Brand Audit

The Brand Audit is a great choice for organizations that already have at least a few brand assets and guidelines. You’d be surprised at how many opportunities you might have to connect your audience with your pre-existing brand in a clearer, more engaging way. This “big picture” offering includes a Clarity Call with your key team members and ours, followed by the delivery of both an audit brief and a recommendation video. These deliverables outline key considerations for your brand, including accessibility needs, font reviews, and overall structure. 

The Style Glance

This is another great option for organizations that already have a collection of brand assets that get the job done but need someone to formally organize and systematize how they’re used, while filling in potential gaps such as color codes, accessibility requirements, and other nitty-gritties. It’s also an option for anyone who just needs to choose new brand assets, such as fonts, colors, etc. This offering involves a one-page deliverable: the “style glance.” 

What is a style glance? It’s a concise, visually cohesive document that brings all your brand features together in one place. It’s meant to be used as a quick reference for projects or businesses that are still scaling, or to introduce new team members to the core principles of a more detailed style or brand guide.

The Style Guide

This offering builds on the style glance and goes further. We focus on your brand's colors, fonts, and accessibility requirements, and also handle the creation of assets such as photos, patterns, and icons. The design of a logo suite can be added to this offering, but is not automatically included. 

In 2025, we prepared a style guide for Step Into Our Stories, a keystone project of the Michigan Department of Education’s Indigenous Education Initiative. This project included original work by Anishinaabe artists that we digitized with care. Seasonally changing secondary color palettes, richly colored icons and graphics, and key font choices to support both web-based and printed text-heavy resources meant this project required careful accessibility considerations and clear instructions on how brand features could be used and attributed. This style guide included document mock-ups, social media use examples, and key statements with use explainers. 

The Brand Guide

A brand guide takes a style guide to the next level. It’s a complete summary of your organization: its mission, vision, values, personality, audience, and voice. In addition to the visual clarity offered in the style guide, we focus on your message and the words used to convey it in the brand guide. 

Spark Potential is a leadership development organization run by Poppy Potter. In 2025, we had the privilege of developing her brand guide and updating her logo and emblem. We refined her audience archetypes, developed clear new mission and vision statements, and articulated the promise of the Spark Potential brand. We also created a suite of icons that enliven the brand visuals.

**Logo v. Wordmark

Hang on! What is the difference between a logo and a wordmark? A logo is usually a graphically driven version of your brand’s name that may or may not have that name in the design. A well-designed logo is rooted in an extensive, intentional storytelling strategy and includes file types that fit several landscapes and horizons of your organization’s touchpoints. A wordmark always displays your brand name clearly, with personality, and is great for organizations that are scaling and want to increase their name recognition. Less variation is needed, as it remains relatively consistent in color and layout, no matter where it appears. A logo or wordmark is not automatically included in our Audit, Glance, or Guide offerings, but can be added to both Style Guide and Brand Guide packages. 

Whether you’ve got a collection of existing brand assets that need to be refined, organized, and audited, or need to build a brand from the ground up, we’ve got you covered! Visit our home page to get in touch.