WHAT IF I CAN’T AFFORD CUSTOM BRANDING?

So you’ve decided to start a business! In the early stages it probably feels equally exciting and terrifying, and that’s actually totally fair. 

You’ve planned out your mission statement, your offerings, the gap in the market you’ve decided to fill, the dream client, and now comes the practical pieces. The website, the logo, social media, packaging, documents, and maybe this is where the sneaky little “this is more than I was expecting” voice is creeping into your head.

Hey, I get it, I’ve been there.

Starting your own business in your 20’s can be thrilling and feel like a big step in the right direction to finally be doing what you want with your life, but it is a big undertaking.

Each industry is unique, so I’m not here to offer nitty-gritty business advice, there are mentors in your specific field for that. But one common denominator within most industries is that if you're starting a business at some point, you’ll need a brand. The odds are, if you’re reading this that means that you’ve also run into a problem.

Everything feels out of your budget.

You might have been told “just DIY your logo” or “no, you need to hire a brand designer”, but creating your own logo isn’t going well, and you simply don’t have the cash in your bank account to hire the designers you’ve found.

At this point, it would be typical for me as a brand designer to say “it’s so worth it, make the big investment in custom branding”. In some cases, that is 100% true and exactly what I’ll tell you, and I honestly mean it.

At the same time, like I said earlier, I’ve been there. When I started my business back in 2021, it was so exciting and so scary. It felt like the way out of my full-time job into something that set my heart on fire. But there were so many things on my ‘Starting a Business’ checklist that also came with a price tag. Once my own branding was done, then came the website. 

It took me AGES to mull-over if I needed one right way. A handful of blog articles said I didn't, but all of the successful designers I looked up to had gorgeous sites. It felt like a monumental decision because it was also, so expensive. The aforementioned full-time job I was trying to quit was a non-profit that didn’t pay a lot, and the cost of a website when I had no client work to pay it back, felt like far too much money to invest (also during the height of the covid economy, oh boy).

Eventually (with the helpful nudging of my husband) I clicked “subscribe” on a Squarespace plan and built my first website. I was over the moon, it gave me such a huge sense of confidence, that I could share my work with the world and shout “PLEASE HIRE ME!” and have a website people could see that made me look and feel legit.

This confidence to shout about your business from the rooftops, is exactly what good branding can do for you. So how do you get there when you simply don’t have the money for custom branding right now?

Here’s where I’m going to stray away from the norm, and I’m going to say, you don’t need to build a big custom brand package right away. If you’re just starting your own business, I DO believe you need more than just a logo, and I believe you should make this a non-negotiable. In my many years of experience I can tell you that a business with just a logo and no clear brand identity, gets sloppy looking FAST! And hey, nobody wants that!

Alongside a logo, get yourself a brandmark, colour palette, visual direction moodboard, and brand fonts. This will be enough to have all of your initial elements branded well and have you present yourself in a clear way so that your audience isn’t confused and doubtful of your credibility.

Now that we’ve outlined the bare minimum of what deliverables you need to get started, you might be asking “okay but how do I get them”? Let me tell you!

This exact scenario is why I started offering Semi-Custom Brand Kits! I remembered what it was like to be starting a business with tight purse-strings and wanted to help ease that burden for others! These Brand Kits come with all of the above deliverables, but they’ve all been expertly designer made. 

So all of the work on selecting colours, fonts, logo layouts are done for you. Even if you don’t have a creative bone in your body, you can have gorgeous branding without breaking the bank. 

Once you purchase a Brand Kit, I’ll pop in your business name and tagline/established date, then I pass along the logo files in all of your brand colours alongside a document outlining all of your colour codes and brand fonts. Then you’re off to the races!

The BEST part about these Brand Kits, is they can also be a jumping off point for a custom package. Maybe you love the logo layouts of a Brand Kit, but you have something specific in mind for your brand colours, or you have packaging that you want custom illustrations for, we can add those on for you!

It still means a lower cost barrier starting with a Brand Kit but now you have some custom elements that make your brand feel a bit more like you!

You can dance into your new biz journey with confidence, and a brand that doesn’t look like everyone else. Once you've proved your concept and you’re flourishing, you can explore fully custom strategic branding to take you to that next level. If you’d let me, I'd be honoured and over-the-moon to be a part of that journey.

xx Kabrie