MAKING THE BRAND:
BRIGHT EDITION
BRIGHT LIVE
01–06 2022
OVERVIEW
When Bright underwent its first round of branding, the project was rushed and not optimized for digital environments. We made do with what we could, but it became increasingly clear that the lack of a finished brand impacted more than the product. Without time or resources, we found a way to upgrade the brand ourselves and won the support of the entire company.
LOGISTICS
TEAM
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Project co-led by the Director of Product Design (myself) and the Director of Research & Strategy
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1 Systems Designer
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1 Product Designer
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1 Jr. Brand/Marketing Designer
TIMELINE
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3 months as a side-project
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3 months as top priority
BACKGROUND
WHAT IS BRIGHT LIVE?
Bright is an all-in-one platform for Creators, Influencers, and Teachers to host ticketed, live learning sessions with their fans.
WHY DO THE REBRAND INTERNALLY?
Long story short: Minimal startup resourcing and initial lack of understanding of value. (More details on this in a moment.)
THE CHALLENGE
THE NEED
After operating for over a year with unfinished and unpolished branding, both our Product Design and Marketing Design departments were in dire need of a polished brand that fulfilled the promises we were making to our customers. It soon became clear that our Talent & Sales teams were also suffering from the lack of high-quality branding, which was our final trigger to take this on ourselves.
THE PROBLEM
“Brand” had become a bad word at the company, and the CEO was convinced it was unnecessary and would be a waste of time.
GOALS
To unify our company with one cohesive brand that would unify our product design system, product experience, marketing efforts, and increase our perceived value and trustworthiness to new clients and partners.
CONTEXT
THE AGENCY’S BRAND
When I joined Bright, an external firm had already started the branding process—without input from the design director. Concerned, we stepped in to provide feedback. As our website launch neared, we realized the firm’s work wasn’t optimized for digital: the logo lacked readability at small sizes, and the web design felt too basic.
QUICK UPDATES
After the design director’s unexpected departure, I did my best to quickly adapt the brand for our needs; making the logo a bit more legible and updating some of the colors to feel geared more towards our target audiences by building on the principles the firm had created.
With this brand skeleton, we quickly reskinned our MVPs of our Sessions experience as well as our Discovery & Booking website for a speedy launch.
CRACKS START TO SHOW
Though the brand had been rushed and incomplete, because it covered us for the launch, it was seen as finished and that no more time needed to go into finishing the brand guide or thinking of how this minimal package would scale to marketing or other parts of our product offering.
As time went on and with no guidelines, our junior marketing designer was doing everything he could to develop interesting designs for social media campaigns, while the talent team was interpreting the brand in their own way. Simultaneously, the product design team was doing our best to adhere to the minimal brand, resulting in many different interpretations and a fractured identity.
The Director of Talent and Marketing emphasized the need for a stronger brand, noting that our Instagram presence was discouraging potential growth. While she saw the value in investing in design, the CEO remained unconvinced.
Meanwhile, the Director of User Research and Strategy was now overseeing the marketing designer. She and I agreed we couldn’t wait any longer. Our teams began refining the brand as a side project, ensuring it wouldn’t interfere with our primary work.
SECRET MISSION
NOT STARTING FROM ZERO
A lot of the work that was done in the strategy phase of the agency’s original brand work was solid and still true to what we were building towards, so we were able to start with a strong foundation.
Starting with our brand persona, we ran a brainstorm to update our positioning as well as build experience principles to use as a solid foundation for the new look and feel.
CREATING A FEELING
We went back to the mood board I had created to do the initial brand update and used it as a starting point to develop different themes based on our new principles, and eventually landed on one direction that felt most fitting: The Perfectly Imperfect.
CULTIVATING BUY-IN
As we had been progressing on our own, I had been planting seeds with our CEO, mentioning occasionally that we were noodling on a few ideas on the side. I found that by keeping conversations about the brand and marketing materials light and optimistic, I was able to slowly gain trust and even build up some excitement about what we were working on. Once we got to our chosen direction, but before we invested time creating new designs, it was time to get his feedback. As a unified team, we presented our concept. The feedback was generally positive and he gave us his excited blessing to continue.
With his feedback, we created revised directions and worked with him to land on one to move forward with.
ALL IN
Excitement grew as word spread that we were moving forward with the brand alongside our regular work. The Head of Marketing reinforced its importance, and it became clear the company was fully on board.
Once direction 3 was chosen, the brand was added to our roadmap, and we were given the green light to prioritize it. With full focus and ongoing feedback from the CEO and Marketing, we began iterating towards a clear, cohesive identity.
THE BIG REVEAL
After months of hearing that our multi-department tiger team was hard at work on a new brand, it was time to reveal the new direction to the company.
After the big reveal to the company, the team largely went back to their individual projects, and we designated the creation of the brand guide to our incredible Systems Designer, Marisa. The team's finished brand book is one of my proudest bodies of work to date.
LEARNINGS
This project was a powerful lesson in securing support effectively. While articulating value can persuade some, others need to see it in action. And sometimes, when you’re confident a solution is what the company truly needs, the best approach is to take initiative. The key is to move forward with empathy, acknowledging skepticism while demonstrating the impact firsthand.