Why do we present
one brand concept?
Branding
We used to present three options and quietly hope you wouldn’t pick one of them.
Usually the one we’d made because we’d promised three.
That started to feel like a fairly ridiculous way to do our job. We were spending time on work we didn’t fully believe in, then getting nervous that someone might actually choose it.
Also, three great ideas? Hell, one is hard enough.
So we went back through our projects. How often had the client chosen the direction we thought was strongest anyway?
The client chose the direction we thought was strongest.
That was our own look back at our work. And it raised a slightly uncomfortable question: what were we doing with all that other time?
From our internal project review.
You’re allowed to expect a recommendation.
Imagine calling a plumber because something is leaking. They explain three ways they could fix it, then ask which you prefer.
I don’t know. Which one would you recommend? That’s a fairly large part of why you’re here.
Creative work has more room for interpretation, obviously. But I sometimes ask clients to think about their own businesses. When someone hires them for their expertise, do they simply lay out the possibilities? Or do they help that person understand which direction makes the most sense?
We think a branding agency owes you that judgment, too.
A lot happens before you see the concept.
We explore. We test things. We abandon ideas that looked promising until we actually tried to make them work.
We also establish a lot of the alignment early: what the business needs, who we’re trying to reach, and what kind of visual direction feels appropriate.
That gives us somewhere useful to put our energy. Once an idea has legs, we can spend more time finding out how far it can go.
The route to a clear idea can be fairly messy. Pull the line below to see the point we’re working toward.
Our work got better when we spent more time developing the idea we believed in. There’s a considerable amount of work between having an interesting idea and making it really good. It helps when you aren’t also trying to finish two others because the proposal said so.
But the other agency is offering three.
Fair question. On paper, that can sound like more for your money.
I’d ask what happens before those three concepts reach you. How thoroughly have they been explored? Does the agency believe in all of them? Will they tell you which one they recommend, and why?
For us, presenting one direction means we’ve done enough work to stand behind it. We should be able to explain the decisions, show how the identity works, and connect it to the problem you hired us to solve.
Paul Rand famously took this approach with Steve Jobs on the NeXT identity. In Jobs’s account, Rand declined to provide several options and committed to solving the problem the best way he knew how. He was fairly direct about getting paid, too. Subtle man.
You don’t need Paul Rand’s bedside manner to appreciate the point. A clear recommendation is part of the work.
And if we get it wrong?
Then we have more work to do.
We once developed a direction for a Jewish food delivery business. The typography was supposed to evoke the culture. It landed closer to German.
Whoops.
You can put considerable thought into something and still miss. If an idea doesn’t work, we’re willing to pull it apart and start again. Being confident doesn’t make us incapable of being wrong.
By the time we present, we should be able to tell you why this is the direction we believe in. And show you what it can do for your business.
One idea. Given everything we’ve got.