Branding & Design

Visitors form an opinion of your business in five to ten seconds, before they read a word. This post sticks to graphic design basics (your logo, typography and color) and explains how they tell people whether you look established or new, premium or budget, and when it’s time to bring in a professional.

A polished website, social media that looks like another company, and a different logo on the sign than on the business card. Customers may not call it inconsistent branding, but they feel it and trust you less. We break brand consistency into visuals, voice and messaging, and show how a one-page style guide and a quick self-audit close the gaps.

Stock photos are quick and cheap, but visitors may have already seen that smiling team on a competitor’s site. Real photos of your people, products and workspace build trust and help your SEO. Start with your homepage, About page and service pages, and see how professional job-site photos changed one generator company’s website.

Wild Iris designed the official logo for Evergreen’s 150th anniversary, working alongside the Evergreen Chamber of Commerce. Here’s how the design came together around Evergreen Lake, the surrounding mountain peaks and the town’s namesake evergreen trees, with colors drawn from the forests, the lake and the mountains of a town whose history goes back to 1875.

The wild iris grows in roadside gravel with scarce water, and that’s the story behind Wild Iris Marketing’s name. This 2024 Tuesday Tip uses it as an example of a brand story, and explains how a memorable story helps people remember your name and keeps your marketing consistent from one platform to the next.

Your website text, photos, logo and slogan are all intellectual property. This 2021 guest post covers the basics of copyright, trademark and patent protection for your marketing, how to avoid using other people’s work by mistake, and simple ways to watch for misuse, like a Google Alert on your brand name.

A creative website can work, as long as the creativity fits your brand. Using the playful, video-game-style site of the Yamauchi No.10 Family Office as an example, this 2021 guest post offers questions to ask: does your design support your business goals, match your audience and set you apart from competitors in a way that makes sense?

A $5 coffee special will convert faster on social media than a million-dollar home listing, and there are good reasons why. This 2018 post by Clay Robeson explains why social media results vary by business, and why customers who found you there might never mention it, even when it played a real part in their decision.