Do I need a rebrand or just a new website?
If people understand what you do and only the site is tired, you need a website. If you struggle to say what makes you different, or your logo belongs to a business you no longer run, you need the brand first, because a new website will only say the wrong thing more beautifully.
What is the difference?
The website is fashion. The brand is the bones.
A website is the most visible thing you own, so it gets blamed for everything. It also wears out fastest. A brand is what the website is built from: what you stand for, how you say it, and the mark, colors, and type that make you recognizable anywhere.
Percona is my favorite proof. I designed their logo, a sun behind a mountain that forms a P. They have redesigned their website twice since. The logo has not changed.
What are the signs I only need a website?
- You can say what you do, and who it is for, in one sentence without wincing.
- You like your logo and colors. They just have nowhere good to perform.
- The site is hard to update, slow, or invisible to search.
- Clients tell you the site doesn’t do you justice, and they mean the site.
That is a website project. Mine is called The Stage: a custom site of about five pages, designed to wear the brand you already own. It starts at $5,000.
What are the signs I need the brand first?
- You explain the business differently every time someone asks.
- Your logo was made for the company you started, not the one you run now.
- You look like a different business on your card, your site, and your LinkedIn.
- You are attracting the wrong clients, or the right ones at the wrong price.
- You have already redesigned the website once, and it didn’t fix it.
That last one is the giveaway. If a new site didn’t solve the problem, the problem was never the site.
What if I need both?
Then do them together. When the identity and the website are designed side by side, each one makes the other better, and you are not paying to redo the site when the brand changes a year later. My package for that is The Spotlight: a full identity and a five-page website, starting at $7,500.
How do I find out which one I need?
That is what brand therapy is for. It is a 90-minute conversation followed by a written diagnosis, and the diagnosis recommends the work your business needs and only that. Sometimes the honest answer is smaller than the client expected. I would rather tell you that than sell you a rebrand you didn’t need.
If you want a first read before talking to anyone, the Brand Smart Check is ten questions and about three minutes.
Sound like you?
Everything starts with a free twenty-minute hello, where we both decide whether this is a fit. Or take the Brand Smart Check first: ten questions, about three minutes, and a straight answer.