Redesigning the look of your brand in 10 easy steps

July 31, 2025

When you first set up your business, you probably rushed to create a logo, a few business cards, and a handful of folded leaflets – but now you’re ready to grow. The time’s right to become more professional in the way you promote yourself to the wider world.

Lots of growing businesses struggle when trying to get design work right. It can be hard to know what’s going to work and often owners think branding and logos are for bigger companies, not for them.

Good design can be an important part of helping your business grow as packaging, in-store displays, the look and feel of a website, are the things that help customers recognise products – and that’s true for companies of all sizes.

In this article, we’re going to take you through a ten step process that will help your business come to life through design. By the end, you’re going to be in a strong position to redesign the look of your brand, because we’ll have worked out the values and messages that are unique to your business.

1. Ask yourself a key question about your business and products

Why is your business important to you? It’s a simple enough question, but you’d be amazed how many owners can’t communicate this easily.

Task one:

Ask yourself that question. Write down all the things that come into your head.
Now, ask yourself what you think your business does well. Add those things to the list.
Now, put the answers to one side (you’re going to need them in a moment).

2. Examine the competition

Look at the competition. Establish facts about your market.

Task two:

Make a list of things your competitors do well.
You should be left with a list of ways your business is unique and better than others.
You might want to add to this list any areas where the competition is currently better, but you hope to surpass them by introducing new ideas.

3. Find out about your customers

It’s a simple fact that not everyone will be interested in your products and services. However, you must find out what your customers like, why they buy your products – this information will help establish a lasting connection with those people to whom your products appeal.

Task three:

Think of all the points you’d like to know about your customers – age, gender, wealth, shopping habits, general attitudes, why they buy your products, etc.
Write a list, then highlight the seven or eight points that are most important.
Design a survey with simple questions and multiple choice answers.

Here’s an example:
Which of these factors most closely describes why you buy Product X?

Price
Product quality
Production conditions (this could be: Is it made in India?)

Ask these questions to customers. This could be through any combination of email, online, or face-to-face surveys.
Once you’ve gathered the survey information, write down the key findings on:
- What sort of people buy your products?
- Why they like your products?

4. Find out what people say about you

Gather all the articles published about you in newspapers/ magazines.

Task four:

Gather all the articles published about you in newspapers/ magazines.
Using Google, search in the News section to find any online news mentions about your brand.
On Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, other social channels, and online review sites, search using your name, your company’s name, and your products name to find mentions about you.
Create a list of themes that emerge when others are taking about you.

5. Establish your brand values

Using all the above information create a series of key business values.

Task five:

Using your list from Point Two and your findings from Point Three and Point Four, write a list of all the key points about your business. The list should be a mix of why you love your brand, why customers and the wider public love your brand, and the reasons why your brand is different.
Now, refine that list. Select four vital sentiments that most closely represent what your brand is about.
Now, congratulate yourself, because you have just established your brand values.

6. Create a key message

Designs carry important messages to customers about your values, so it’s important to get those messages right.

Task six:

Using the values established in Point Five, draft three or four messages about your business. Each message should be one or two sentences reflecting the values you have worked hard to establish.
Once you have these messages, select the best one.
You now have a brand message to call your own! What’s more, you also have a message that’s ready to use directly as part of your design work.

7. Gather images

Until now we have focused on establishing what’s important about your brand. Next, we need to use all the work you’ve put into this process and start to translate that into a visual identity.

Task seven:

Take the list of key points created at the start of Point Five, and search each term on Google.
For each term, click on the images tab and save pictures to create a collection of images appropriate to each of your terms.
Now, use Google to search for images related to your competitors, their products, their communications and create another collection.
Repeat the process, this time searching for images of products in similar categories to those you produce – then products that share your brand values.
Repeat the process, this time searching for images of products in similar categories to those you produce – then products that share your brand values.

8. Research tones of voice

After establishing the visuals you’ll use to inform your new designs, you need to take what you have learned so far and think about an appropriate tone of voice.

Task eight:

Just like the image search in Point Seven, Google around your key terms, products in similar categories, or products that share your brand values.
Make a note of the types of words used in the promotion of these products and the way in which they are conveyed (Is the tone fun? Formal? Friendly? Posh? Professional? Or relaxed?).

9. Gather together all your work

Now you have all the materials you’ll need to translate your values and messages into a new look.

So, how did Samantha use all the information she had gathered?

After applying a similar branding process to the Southsea Bathing Hut, Samantha altered her business cards, website, and social banners. In doing so, she created a new look and feel by removing descriptive text to instead reflect a lighter visual identity focusing on natural, brighter, pure scenes and incorporating thematically-appropriate wording.

In addition, Samantha radically altered the imagery she was using. Her new images incorporate herself at the centre of her business identity. Through benchmarking against larger competitors, Samantha found those businesses she wanted to emulate often had the owner front and centre. So, she adapted her visual identity to reflect this trend.

Task nine (don’t worry, it’s a quick one):

Gather together:

Your set of unique business values
The key message that neatly sums up your business
The collections of images related to all your customer and competitor insights
The collection of words related to your tone-of-voice insights

10. Start the design work

You have created a series of documents that represent a strong, new brand identity, so it’s time now to think about the new look of your brand.

So, final task:

Pass your documents to a designer as part of the brief to create a new look, or use the materials as the starting point for your own design work.
Work through your images, slowly discarding those you don’t like or don’t fit your brand values or message.
Do the same with the tone-of-voice collection of words.
Repeat steps B and C until you have a core set of images and words from which you can draw inspiration and start putting pen to paper for your new look.