How to Define Your Brand: A Simple Whiteboard Exercise

Building a strong brand starts with understanding what makes it unique. But let’s be real—defining a brand can feel overwhelming. That’s why I’m showing you this simple whiteboard exercise to help you and your team pinpoint your brand’s core attributes. By the end of this process, you’ll have a clear picture of your brand’s personality and how to communicate it effectively. Let’s dive in!

---

---

What Are Brand Attributes?

Brand attributes are the traits that define your brand’s personality and how it shows up in the world. They guide everything—from the way you communicate to how your customers experience your business.

Here are the six key attributes we’ll focus on:

1. Values: What principles guide your brand?

2. Culture: What’s the vibe or essence of your organization?

3. Benefits: What value does your brand provide to your customers?

4. Behavior: How does your brand act or interact with others?

5. Voice: How does your brand sound when it communicates?

6. Look & Feel: What’s the visual and emotional impression of your brand?

---

The Power of Elimination

Defining these attributes is often a process of elimination. Instead of trying to define everything at once, start by brainstorming broadly. Then, gradually narrow it down to what truly fits. Think of it like chiseling away at a block of marble until the statue emerges—it’s all about clarity through focus.

---

Step-by-Step: How to Define Your Brand Attributes

Step 1: Gather Your Team

Bring together key stakeholders—people who understand your business and can provide diverse perspectives. Collaboration is key here.

Step 2: Use a Whiteboard (or Digital Alternative)

Set up a space where everyone can contribute. This could be a physical whiteboard or a digital tool like Miro or Jamboard. Divide your space into six sections, one for each attribute.

Step 3: Brainstorm Freely

Start by asking questions for each attribute. For example:

Values:

What principles or beliefs are non-negotiable for our brand?

What would we never compromise, even under pressure?

Culture:

If our organization were a person, how would we describe their personality?

What’s the internal vibe or energy we want our team and customers to feel?

Benefits:

What unique value do we offer to our customers?

What’s the primary problem we solve for them?

Behavior:

How does our brand act in different situations (e.g., with customers, online, in public)?

What kind of actions or habits would we want to be known for?

Voice:

If our brand were speaking, what tone or style would it use?

Are we more formal or casual? Friendly or authoritative?

Look & Feel:

What kind of visual style do we want people to associate with us?

How should someone feel when they see our brand—energized, calm, inspired?

Write down every idea—don’t filter yet.

Step 4: Narrow It Down

Now it’s time to refine. Eliminate anything that doesn’t feel essential or authentic. The goal is to end up with 2–3 defining traits for each category.

Step 5: Connect the Dots

Look at your final list. Does it paint a cohesive picture of your brand? Each attribute should feel aligned with the others.

---

Why This Matters

Your brand attributes are the foundation of your brand identity. They influence how you design your logo, craft your messaging, and build marketing campaigns. With a clear understanding of these traits, you’ll make more confident decisions and create stronger connections with your audience.

---

Next Steps

Now that you’ve defined your brand attributes, put them to work! Use them as a reference when designing marketing materials, creating content, or making business decisions. A consistent brand builds trust—and trust leads to loyalty.

---

Final Thoughts

Defining your brand doesn’t have to be complicated. With this simple exercise, you’ll gain clarity and alignment, setting your brand up for long-term success.

Have questions or want to share how this process worked for you? Reach out to me on one of my social channels—I’d love to hear about it!

Identity Design Makes Everything Easier

Why Identity Design is the Cornerstone of a Strong Brand

In the world of branding, identity design is the unsung hero that sets successful businesses apart from their competitors. But what exactly is identity design, and why is it so critical to building a cohesive and trustworthy brand? Let’s break it down, explore why it makes designing touchpoints more seamless, and, most importantly, understand what’s at stake if you skip this essential step.

What is Identity Design?

Identity design is the process of creating the foundational visual elements of your brand. These include:

• Logo: The centerpiece of your visual identity, symbolizing your brand in a single, memorable mark.

• Color Palette: A carefully curated selection of colors that evoke the desired emotions and ensure consistency across all touchpoints.

• Typography: A set of fonts and type treatments that reflect your brand’s personality and style.

• Supporting Graphics: Patterns, icons, or other visual elements that enhance your brand’s aesthetic.

Together, these elements create the framework for all your marketing materials, from your website and social media posts to packaging and print collateral. Think of identity design as the DNA of your brand—it’s what makes everything you create instantly recognizable and uniquely yours.

Why Identity Design Makes Designing Touchpoints Seamless

Imagine trying to create a marketing campaign without a clear logo, color palette, or typography. Every decision—from choosing the right shade of blue to finding a font—becomes an exhausting exercise in trial and error. Without a unified identity, you risk:

• Wasting Time: Endless back-and-forth over design decisions slows down your team and your output.

• Inconsistency: Each piece of collateral looks like it came from a different brand, confusing your audience.

• Added Costs: Revising designs or starting from scratch repeatedly can drain your resources.

On the flip side, when you’ve invested in a strong identity design, every touchpoint becomes a seamless extension of your brand. Here’s how:

• Efficiency: Designers and marketers have clear guidelines to follow, making the creative process faster and more straightforward.

• Cohesion: Your website, social media, print materials, and other assets share a unified look and feel, reinforcing your brand.

• Professionalism: Consistency projects a polished and credible image, making it easier for customers to trust you.

What’s at Stake Without Consistency

Skipping identity design isn’t just a cosmetic issue—it’s a business risk. Here’s what’s at stake:

• No Consistency = No Predictability Inconsistent branding confuses your audience. If your logo looks different on your website and your social media, or your messaging and colors change across campaigns, customers won’t know what to expect. Predictability is key to building trust.

• No Predictability = No Trust Trust is earned when a brand delivers a consistent experience. A lack of cohesion makes your business seem unreliable, leading customers to question your credibility.

• No Trust = A Diminished Brand When customers don’t trust your brand, they’ll look elsewhere. Over time, this erodes your market position, diminishes your reputation, and ultimately impacts your bottom line.

• A Diminished Brand = Fewer Sales Without trust, sales suffer. Customers are less likely to buy from a brand they don’t trust. This ripple effect can lead to decreased revenue and, in the worst-case scenario, going out of business.

The Takeaway

Investing in identity design isn’t just about creating a pretty logo or picking nice colors—it’s about laying the foundation for everything your brand stands for. It ensures consistency, which leads to predictability, trust, and ultimately, a strong and sustainable brand. Without it, your business risks falling into the chaos of inconsistency, leaving customers confused and uninterested.

So, before you design your next website, flyer, or social media post, ask yourself: Does this align with my brand’s identity? If the answer is no, it might be time to go back to the drawing board and build a stronger foundation. Your brand’s future depends on it.

Joining vs. Buying: The Power of Branding Over Selling

Have you ever been to a bustling mall or a popular tourist spot and felt overwhelmed by persistent vendors? They seem to emerge from every corner, offering products with aggressive sales tactics. Their approach often includes bartering, discounts, and relentless promotion. Their goal is singular and transparent: to close the sale.

However, this method tends to repel rather than attract. Why? It's not just the persistence, but the underlying message it sends: you are a target, not a person. This perception is born from several distinct vendor behaviors:

1. Lack of Personalization: Vendors often do not understand your desires or needs. They are not equipped to assess whether their product aligns with your interests or requirements.

2. Short-term Focus: These sellers are interested in immediate sales, not in building a relationship or securing your future business. This approach is transparent and off-putting.

3. Indifference to Customer Frustration: There is often a blatant disregard for the annoyance or frustration their tactics may cause. It's a gamble they're willing to take in the hope of a quick sale.

4. Desperation: The 'now or never' attitude can be repulsive. Desperation is not an attractive quality in any interaction, commercial or otherwise.

Sadly, this approach is not limited to street vendors. Many businesses and organizations still rely on these tactics, often wondering why they fail to resonate with their audience. The answer lies in the difference between selling and branding.

Branding vs. Selling

Branding takes a longer-term approach, recognizing that the true value of customers extends far beyond a single transaction. Brands understand that customers have aspirations and seek connections that go beyond getting the lowest price.

Consider Apple, a prime example of successful branding. Despite their products being pricier than many competitors, they maintain a significant market share. Apple's strategy revolves around storytelling and identity. In one of their iconic advertising campaigns, Steve Jobs said in 1997:

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

This message resonated profoundly. People don't just buy Apple products; they buy into an identity, a worldview. They see themselves as 'the crazy ones' and Apple as a manifestation of that identity.

The Essence of Branding

Companies sell products, but customers join brands. A successful brand sees its customers as people, not targets. If you want them to buy, you must offer them a brand they want to be a part of.

Remember, any effort to acquire customers is marketing, and any effort to acquire customers and keep them is branding. People dislike being sold to but love buying into something that resonates with their identity and aspirations.

Aggressive selling tactics might yield short-term gains, they are counterproductive in building lasting customer relationships. In contrast, effective branding fosters a sense of community and belonging, turning customers into loyal advocates. Businesses looking to thrive in competitive markets should focus on developing a brand that resonates with the values, aspirations, and identities of their target audience.

The perils of featuritis: Simplifying for clarity and impact

In the world of brand strategy and design, there's a widespread epidemic that's often overlooked, yet it's impact is profound. It's called "Featuritis" – an insatiable desire for more, which inadvertently leads to clutter, affecting all brand touchpoints including logos, websites, videos, photos, and graphics. This clutter not only diminishes the aesthetic appeal but also complicates the message you're trying to convey.

Consider websites, a common victim of Featuritis. The misconception that users dislike clicking or tapping has led many to cram their websites with excessive information and features. However, this approach overlooks the true culprits that repel users: waiting, confusion, and clutter. Users don't necessarily mind a few extra clicks if it leads them to their desired destination without hassle or confusion. What they're really seeking is a streamlined experience that offers clarity and ease of navigation.

Clarity, in the realm of communication, often stems from subtraction rather than addition. It's about peeling back the layers of unnecessary elements to reveal a clear, concise message. In their pursuit to communicate effectively, many brands fall into the trap of adding complexity. However, the mark of a true communicator lies in their ability to simplify, to distill complex ideas into something digestible and engaging.

Innovation in branding, regardless of the medium, must be focused on creating the most positive user experience possible. This requires a keen anticipation of which experiences will resonate most effectively with the audience. It’s here that brand strategy plays a pivotal role. A well-thought-out brand strategy helps in identifying the core values and messages that need to be communicated and determines the most effective way to do so without falling into the trap of Featuritis.

The challenge, therefore, lies not in how much we can add, but in how much we can gracefully take away without losing the essence of the message. It's about finding that sweet spot where every element, every word, and every visual contributes to a coherent, compelling narrative. When we achieve this, we not only enhance the user experience but also reinforce the brand's message in the most impactful way possible.

In conclusion, the next time you're evaluating your brand's touchpoints, ask yourself: Are we adding for the sake of adding, or are we strategically simplifying to amplify our message? Remember, in the world of brand communication, less is often more. Simplify, clarify, and watch your brand resonate with your audience like never before.

What matters more? Your features, or their interests?

In the realm of brand strategy and consumer engagement, the question posed here is a critical one. It challenges the conventional approach of focusing on product features over audience interests, highlighting a common misstep in brand communication. This approach can lead to a disconnect between what the brand offers and what the consumer actually seeks.

The sequential model of customer engagement detailed in the question reveals a deeper understanding of consumer behavior. It suggests that the customer journey begins with an initial attraction, often driven by visual elements like color and contrast. This is followed by a series of mental questions that lead the consumer from basic awareness to a deeper interest in the product.

1. Initial Attraction: The role of design and visual appeal in catching the customer's attention cannot be understated. This stage is where a product stands out from the competition, not through its features, but through its presentation.

2. Identification: The "what is it?" stage is crucial for clarity. Here, the product's name and category need to be clearly defined, helping the consumer quickly understand what the product is and its basic function.

3. Personal Relevance: The critical question of "why should I care?" is where many brands falter by jumping straight to features. Instead, this stage should focus on a succinct message that resonates with the consumer's needs or desires, answering why the product is relevant to them personally.

4. Desire for Information: Once the consumer's interest is piqued, they naturally seek more information. This is the stage where brands can start to introduce more detailed aspects of the product, supporting the initial value proposition.

5. Decision-making Information: Finally, the consumer is ready for the detailed specifics – features, price, compatibility, guarantees, awards, etc. At this stage, they are evaluating the product's tangible aspects to make an informed purchase decision.

The order of these stages is crucial. When brands lead with features, they risk overwhelming or alienating consumers who are not yet at the stage of seeking detailed product information. Instead, aligning marketing materials with the consumer's mental journey - from attraction to decision - ensures that the brand communicates the right message at the right time.

For brand directors, marketers, and company owners, this model offers a roadmap for more effective communication. It encourages a shift from a feature-centric approach to a consumer-centric one, where understanding and aligning with the consumer's journey becomes key to creating resonance and building a lasting bond with the customer. This approach not only addresses the immediate need to attract and retain customers but also aligns with the broader goals of brand strategy, media, and design in creating compelling, consumer-focused narratives.

Why Purpose, Vision, and Mission Dictate Your Existence in the Market

In the unforgiving expanse of today’s marketplace, businesses and organizations that do not stand for something find themselves on the precipice of oblivion. People no longer part with their coin for the mere commodities you offer; they invest in the why behind your actions. This is not a realm for the aimless wanderer; the market is a beast that feeds on intention.

Purpose: The Dark Matter of Business

Picture your purpose as the dark matter of your business universe—the unseen force that holds your galaxy together while the cosmos hurtle towards entropy. It is the silent pulse of your enterprise, the gravitational core that dictates your every move, yet remains invisible to the naked eye. Without this core, without a purpose, your business is a mere specter in the market, formless and forgotten. Your purpose is not just a narrative; it’s the unseen script that actors on the market stage perform unknowingly. It’s the compelling story that customers across the universe feel in their bones, a narrative that whispers to them, “This is why we exist.”

Vision: The Guiding Prophecy

Your vision is the prophecy you dare to fulfill, a vivid image seared into the future with the fire of ambition. It is not a dream; it is a destination—a point on the horizon that steers your ship through the stormy present. An organization without a clear vision is a vessel groping through the fog without a lighthouse, vulnerable to the jagged rocks that lurk beneath the waves of change. When you broadcast this vision, it must resonate with the clarity of an oracle's foretelling, leaving your audience in awe of what awaits.

Mission: The Blade that Carves Your Path

The mission is your blade in the dark. It is the action, the relentless stride with which you march towards your vision. A blunt instrument with no direction is a dangerous thing; it can wreak havoc without cause. But a mission channeled with precision is a force that cuts through the market's noise, cleaving a clear path that others can witness and, in awe, choose to follow.

Communicating Existence: The Resonance of Authenticity

Let’s speak bluntly: the market does not care for the timid or the hollow. People sense the tremor of authenticity; they can smell the fragrance of genuine intent. In this age, your product is not the hero; the reason behind your product is. You must communicate not just what you offer, but the essence of your offering—the belief that what you do is a testament to why you exist.

People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. This is the anthem of our times. Your purpose, vision, and mission are not corporate fluff; they are your war drums, the rhythm to which your brand marches. In every message, every campaign, every handshake, you must exude the certainty of your existence. Anything less is a whisper drowned out by the roars of those more daring.

In conclusion, understand this: the currency of purpose, vision, and mission is the only tender accepted in the realm of lasting legacy. Trade in it, and you trade in the realm of the extraordinary. Fail to grasp this, and you consign your brand to the shadows, to be a footnote in the annals of those who dared not declare why they exist. Stand up, be seen, and let the market behold the power of your enterprise's truth.

Brand Strategy Isn’t an Option Anymore

In the merciless arena of business, your brand hangs by a thread in a storm, ready to be torn apart by the tempest of consumer indifference. The only salvation? A brand strategy.

Purpose, Vision, Mission: The Trinity of Survival

Dive into the marrow of your business. Without the bedrock of purpose, vision, mission, and goals, your brand is but a ship aimlessly adrift, destined to be swallowed by the abyss of irrelevance. Brand strategy is the beacon that cuts through the fog, a lighthouse guiding you to the promised land of clarity and conviction. Ignore it at your peril.

Carving the Brand: No Room for the Timid

The marketplace is a graveyard of brands that dared to be timid rather than bold. Defining your brand isn’t a gentle stroke on a canvas—it’s a slash of paint that announces your presence. It's a declaration of war against mediocrity. A strong brand strategy isn't just your armor in this fight; it's your battle standard that rallies customers to your cause.

Target Audience: Your Only Ally in a Faceless Crowd

They're out there—a throng of faces, each a puzzle piece to your success, or a domino to your downfall. Your target audience isn’t a mere segment; it’s your lifeline. Brand strategy is the map that reveals where they stand, what they crave, and what haunts them at night. Find them, know them, or fade into obscurity.

Research: The Harsh Light of Truth

It's a cold, hard truth that the market does not forgive ignorance. Researching your target audience is a relentless pursuit of reality—a dive into the depths of their psyche to unearth the pain points and behaviors that will make or break your brand. It’s not about what you want to see; it’s about what you need to know. Brand strategy forces you to confront these truths head-on.

Brand Marketing and Communication: Your Voice in the Silence

Without a brand strategy, your marketing is a scream into the void—desperate, scattered, and ultimately, lost. Every piece of communication, every campaign, every word must be a calculated step towards embedding your brand into the collective consciousness. Brand strategy ensures that when you speak, the world listens.

The truth is stark, unyielding: without a brand strategy, you are wandering in the dark, hoping for a miracle in a landscape that awards victory to the strategic, not the hopeful. The choice is clear—wield your brand strategy like a weapon, cut through the noise, and seize the power that is rightfully yours.

Forge ahead with purpose. Be brutal in your clarity. Let your brand strategy be the harbinger of awe, the shadow that intimidates, the legend that inspires.

Logo vs. Brand: Unraveling the Crucial Difference

A logo is the visual identifer of a business or organization. It can be a symbol, an icon, or a wordmark designed to identify and differentiate a business or organization in the marketplace. Think of the iconic golden arches of McDonald's or the sleek swoosh of Nike – these are instantly recognizable logos that have become synonymous with their respective brands. A logo serves as a shorthand way for customers to identify and recall a particular business or organization.

On the other hand, a brand is a comprehensive concept that goes beyond just the visual representation. It encompasses the entire experience and perception of a business or organization in the minds of its customers. A brand comprises the entity's mission, values, personality, messaging, customer service, and overall reputation. It is the emotional connection that customers develop with a business or organization, and it influences their decision-making process.

In essence, a logo is just one piece of the larger puzzle that forms a brand's identity. It acts as a visual cue, triggering associations with the brand's values, products, and services. However, a successful brand extends far beyond its logo. It involves consistent messaging across all marketing channels, a strong company culture, exceptional customer experiences, and a genuine understanding of its target audience.

To put it simply, a logo is the "what" and "who" of a business, while a brand is the "why" and "how." A logo can create brand recognition, but a brand creates customer loyalty and advocacy.

Conclusion

Understanding the distinction between a logo and a brand is crucial for any business or organization looking to establish a strong and enduring presence in the market. While a logo serves as an essential identifier, a brand is the essence of a company's identity, culture, and relationship with its audience. By cultivating a powerful and authentic brand, businesses and organizations can foster lasting connections with their customers and set themselves apart in today's competitive attention landscape.

You should work on your brand before you work on marketing.

First off, let’s get this out of the way: a brand is not a logo. A brand is your audience's gut feeling about your business or organization.

‍‘Branding’ also isn’t the same thing as ‘marketing.’ Your marketing efforts should inform your target customer that you can solve their problem. Branding means modifying the way you consistently present yourself so that your solution is appealing to that target customer.

Marketing efforts invite people to try your business, your brand reinforces the initial invite and makes them want to come back a second time.

What does this mean?

You should start building your brand before you start marketing.

Imagine creating commercials or paid ads that lead people back to your social channels, website, or physical location -  but your channels, website, and physical location have no substance because you haven’t worked on your brand.

Your brand has a lot of things factored in to create substance:

Foundation:

Your purpose, vision, mission, & goals.

(The reason you exist, and the reason why anyone should care.)

Personality:

Comprised of your values, culture, attributes, benefits, actions, tone of voice, and aesthetics. 

Target Audience Identification & Research:

You identify your target audience in order to research them to learn about how you can position your business/organization to solve their problems or appeal to them.

Gap Analysis

Compare how you perceive you VS. how your audience perceives you.

‍

The combination of theses elements directly informs every area of your business:

• Storytelling

• Brand Identity

• Branding and Messaging

• Marketing Communication

• Business Development

Figuring out who you are is always the most important first step before attempting to attract others.

When you don’t understand the key areas of what makes your brand; there’s no story to tell, no identity to know you by, no messaging (that works), no marketing communication (that works), and no overall business development.

Unlocking the power of brand strategy: why it's vital for business success!

Brand strategy is all about crafting a game plan to build and maintain a strong brand identity. Imagine a brand as if it's a person with a personality—how it looks, what it says, and how it makes you feel. A great brand strategy ensures that all these elements are aligned and consistent across different platforms, from logos and taglines to social media and customer experiences. Having a solid brand strategy is important because a well-defined brand strategy helps businesses connect with their target audience, build trust, and differentiate themselves from competitors. It's like the foundation upon which all the cool stuff like marketing campaigns and product launches are built.

So what are the things you understand after forming a solid brand strategy?

Purpose, Vision, Mission

Understanding the purpose, vision, and mission for your business or organization enables you to form a proper origin story. It helps you to answer the question: "Why do you exist, and why should anyone care?"

Simon Sinek summarized why this is so important when he said, "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it."

Brand Personality

The fact is, many brands don't have personality, which means they aren't really brands at all. Because after all, a brand is just an audience's gut feeling about a business or organization. If you don't know who you are then how can you possibly convey who you are to others? When you understand your brand personality you can articulate your brand's values, beliefs, and personality traits.

The information you learn during the brand personality phase of brand strategy, along with what you learn about your target audience - directly influences your brand's identity, i.e. your logo, typography, color scheme, design language, etc.

Target Audience & Research

During the target audience & research phase of brand strategy you work to understand who your target audience is, and who makes up that audience. Narrowing your target in this way allows you to focus on a specific type of individual, along with their specific needs.

This information helps you to form a solid positioning statement for your business or organization, and create user personas for your ideal customer. A positioning statement defines 'what you do, and who you do it for,' and directly influences branding and messaging, which is how your business or organization is presented to the public. Your user personas work together with your brand personality to influence your brand's identity.

Gap Analysis

During the gap analysis phase of brand strategy you work to understand the different gaps that prevent customers from reaching your brand.

Visualize a trench (the gap) - on one side is your customer and on the other is your business or organization. Knowing where your customers are and the problems they face will inform you where you need to build bridges to close the gaps.

There are 3 types of gaps:

Brand Gap: Does your audience think of your business or organization the way you do?

Opportunity Gap: After you learn about a day in the life of your target customer, what are some ways you can solve their problems? Maybe they're on Instagram a lot but you're only publishing to Facebook. Now you can also work on your Instagram profile because you understand there's an opportunity gap.

Marketing Gap: How is your brand perceived compared to other businesses or organizations? How would someone rank you based on your competitors, and what can you do to be number 1 on their list?

The information you learn during gap analysis directly influences your marketing communication and business development.

Conclusion

Brand strategy is crucial for businesses and organizations because it serves as the compass that guides their growth and success. By defining and consistently communicating their unique brand identity, businesses and organizations can connect with their target audience, foster trust, and stand out in a crowded marketplace. A well-crafted brand strategy sets the stage for effective marketing campaigns, builds customer loyalty, and ultimately helps businesses achieve their goals. In short, brand strategy is the secret ingredient that propels businesses and organizations forward and sets them apart from the competition.

How to speed ramp in Davinci Resolve

A speed ramp adds a unique visual appeal to your videos when used correctly, but what's a speed ramp?

What's speed ramping?

Speed ramping is when you gradually change the speed of a video clip. You can see speed ramping in countless action movies and sports videos, when the action changes between slow motion, standard speed, and fast motion.

Things to consider

To successfully create a speed ramp when you're editing, you need to make sure you check a few boxes when you're shooting your footage.

Shoot at a higher frame rate

Remember, speed ramping means changing the speed of your footage to make it slower or faster, so you need to shoot any footage you intend to speed ramp in a higher frame rate than your timeline footage. For example: if your editing timeline and footage is 24fps, then you need to shoot the footage you intend to speed ramp in 60fps, 120fps, 240fps, etc. The main thing is shooting your speed ramp footage at a higher frame rate.

Shoot smooth

The smoother your shot, the easier it will be to speed ramp when you're editing. Using a gimbal while you're shooting your higher frame rate footage will go a long way to ensure you can create amazing visuals while you're editing.

Conclusion

Speed ramping adds a unique and appealing visual to videos when used correctly. You just need to plan accordingly to make them happen.

How to drastically speed up your editing workflow using proxy footage

Have you ever wondered why other creators seem to be able to fly through edits? Hint: it's not just that they have a high-end computer. Even the most beefy setups still lag when editing high resolution video... the answer to this is proxy footage.

What is proxy footage?

To put it simply, proxy footage is just less 'beefy' footage than your original footage. When you create proxies, you're effectively creating copies of your footage that are easier for your computer to handle.

Why use proxy footage?

The main benefit of using proxy footage is that it allows the editor to move through their edit with buttery smoothness and ease.

How do I create proxy footage in Davinci Resolve?

In the video below I teach you the correct way to organize your footage and create proxy footage.

Conclusion

Taking the time to properly organize your footage and create proxies will drastically increase your editing speed and effectiveness. Happy editing.

What size should your Facebook event image be?

So you're putting on an event and you're ready to start marketing it on Facebook by creating a Facebook event, but you're unsure what size your event image should be. No worries, I'll help you out by covering some best practices.

Don't do this.

Whatever you do, don't just take a graphic that you designed for a completely different purpose and upload it as your Facebook event graphic. Doing this will likely make it hard for your audience to understand key details about your event, because they probably won't be able to read those details on your event graphic due to cropping issues. Instead, you should be intentional about designing a graphic that is specifically intended to be your Facebook event graphic when designing marketing material for your event.

What size should your Facebook event image be?

Your Facebook event image should be sized with the following specs: 1920 x 1005px 72 ppi. Sizing your event graphic in this way will ensure the graphic is legible and readable on most devices where Facebook is accessed.

What else should you consider?

Facebook is accessed from a wide variety of devices including desktop computers, iPhones, Android devices, etc. The sizing above will ensure a consistent experience across the board, but Facebook may crop your event graphic differently depending on where it's displayed within Facebook.

I sometimes find I need to slightly tweak the size and positions of elements within an event graphic to ensure an audience gets the best experience. I also keep in mind which devices people own the most of, i.e. iPhones, and most of the time design for that user experience.

Following these best practices and sizing requirements will ensure that your audience understands everything about your event.

Conclusion

Being intentional about your Facebook event graphic design will drastically increase the liklihood that your audience engages with your event, and attends the event in person when it becomes time.

How to sort your selects in DaVinci Resolve the efficient way

Sorting your selects (or your best useable footage) is an important step any time you sit down with your computer to edit a video. Staying organized helps you to make the best edit possible.

Have you ever wondered how professionals shoot hours, days, weeks, and sometimes months worth of footage and still keep their useable footage organized? They stay organized by sorting their 'selects.'

In this video I'll show you how I personally sort my selects, and I'll show you how I stack my timelines so that I can pull directly from my selects to make my final edit.

What are 'selects?'

'Selects' is a word that videographers and photographers use to describe the raw photos or footage that they're likely to use for their edits.

Why sort 'selects?'

If you're a professional who wants to stay organized and have your best footage readily viewable and available, then you should be sorting your selects.

Conclusion

Sorting your selects before you start editing is one of the best steps you can take to stay organized and produce the best possible edit.

Hastes makes waste in the branding, marketing, and design world

Building a brand takes patience, dedication, and consistency. So a word of advice.. do not rush.

A huge part of building a brand is designing your touchpoints in such a way that they properly represent your brand, and are also attractive/functional for your target audience.

Note: Touchpoints are anything where your brand interacts with your audience. Your website, social media channels, business cards, menus, coupons, etc. are all examples of touchpoints.

When you rush on pushing a touchpoint out the door you often don’t make something that properly represents your brand, even if it happens to be ‘functional.’

Let's envision the following scenarios:

Scenario 1: Function without form

You’re a restaurant and all of your menus have a constant look and design. This includes your digital menus, handheld menus, and drink menus. All of a sudden there’s a need for a to-go menu that can be sent out in all to-go orders. You don’t want to go through any type of design process because you want to solve the problem now.

The result: You rush to create a touchpoint that isn’t consistent with your other touchpoints, which ruins your own consistency in the eyes of your customer. Because the touchpoint isn't consistent, it also fails to move the customer to the next step in supporting your brand.

Just think for a moment about the brands you know or admire. What do they have in common? They’re very consistent.

Scenario 2: Form without function

You’ve created an event flyer for your brand and it looks amazing. It even looks similar to your other brand touchpoints. You decide to send it to print and receive 100 flyers.

You soon find that the QR code you put on the flyer isn’t working, thus people can’t register for your event as easily as you wanted them to. Now they need to type in your web address, and navigate to the correct page for registration (which you know isn’t likely.)

The result: You spent all of your time thinking about aesthetics and didn’t stop to test your design to ensure it would be functional. You not only wasted the money from the first print round, but you also missed out on all the event revenue that you could've received had the process been simpler.

Conclusion

Always remember, in the world of branding, design, and marketing.. haste makes waste. Take the time to understand your brand and your customers, then make things that properly represent both.

What makes a great website?

Your website should be consistent with your brand

Before you begin work on a website, it’s important that you understand your business at a deep level. Ideally, you should move through some type of brand strategy so that you can figure out key details like:

• Why does your business exist and why should anyone care?

• If you think of your brand like a person, what personality does it have?

• Who is your target audience, and what are their needs?

These key details are necessary to inform the design of the identity elements that help identify your business to your audience. Examples of these elements are your logo, typography, color palettes, etc.

When it’s time to design your website you’ll already have a logo designed, fonts picked out, color palettes defined, and other guidelines in place. This makes the web design process much more seamless, it also ensures your website resembles your brand and is consistent with your other brand touchpoints.

Your website should help your business or organization achieve its objectives

Your objectives will be defined by the type of business you’re in. You might be a restaurant that wants to encourage users to order online. To increase the likelihood that people order online it might make sense to place the option to order online in numerous places throughout the site, i.e. in the banner area of the home page, after blog posts, on its own dedicated page, etc.

You might also be an e-commerce brand that sells their products online. You want people to visit your website to shop, so you should make it as frictionless as possible for them to do that. You might notice that popular e-commerce websites such as Apple, Amazon, and Kroger, as well as smaller (yet successful) niche brands like NOBULL and Gymshark all optimize their websites to make it simple for users to purchase their products.

Remove the obstacles that make it harder for your users to accomplish the objectives you want them to accomplish.

A website should be made in a way that considers the behavior and needs of your users

Here are some scenarios:

The pain point:

You’re a restaurant and you’ve heard your target audience complain about how many clicks it takes to get what they want while they’re on competitor’s website. In this case they’re trying to order food.

The solution:

You solve your users' problem immediately and make it simple for them to order online.

Take a look at how we handled this for one of our clients, Blacksmith Grill.

I understood that the majority of users who visit their website are there for 1 reason, to order food. So we removed the fluff and presented the option they're looking for immediately with the Order Online button in the banner area, and the Order Online button in the navigation area. Then I optimized the website to provide secondary options for users who need to see the menu, or learn about events.

Conclusion

Why should you care about the needs of your users? Because giving users what they want will drastically increase the conversion rate of your website, and keep people coming back for more.

Why is it necessary to build a brand?

You could be the nicest person, your product could be the best, or you might be the best at what you do - but it’s not enough if your customers can’t differentiate you from your competitors. This is why building a brand is so important. But first let’s clear up the question, “what is branding?”

What it's not

The words 'brand' and 'logo' are often used synonymously, but this is a misconception. While logo design is an important part of a branding, building a brand goes so much deeper.

What is branding?

A brand is a reputation, or rather, a perception. Your brand is your audience’s gut feeling about your business. Branding is the ongoing effort to reshape your audience's perception so that it’s in line with how your brand describes itself.

Now that we know what branding is, we can talk about why it’s necessary to build a brand for your business.

Summary

Building a brand helps to establish your business’s identity and differentiates it from your competitors. A strong brand increases customer loyalty and trust, which can lead to higher sales and long-term success.

Identity

One of the benefits of building a brand for your business is that it helps to establish your identity. A well-designed logo (and other brand elements) can convey your values and mission - which makes it easier for customers to understand what you, or your business stands for.

This makes it easier for customers to connect with and trust your business.

Differentiation

A strong and well-established brand will differentiate your business from its competitors, which is especially necessary in the crowded marketplace we deal with today.

Ask yourself the question: “If other businesses do something that’s similar to our business, what would make potential customers choose us over them?”

Everything you think of to answer this question won’t matter unless people commonly think of you the way you think of you.

Loyalty

When customers feel a strong connection to a brand they’ll be more likely to return to the business and recommend it to others. This leads to increased sales and long-term success.

Attraction

A great brand creates awareness and interest for your business, which leads to more people learning about your business, which increases the chance that new people become your customers.

Conclusion

Building a brand is an essential part of any business strategy. I’ve said it before: “In a business, brand strategy is the left side of the brain, and business strategy is the right side.”

Building a brand helps to establish your business’s identity, differentiate your business from its competitors, increase your customer’s loyalty and trust, and attract new customers.

Be warned - branding is not a short-term play and it's not for the faint of heart. Building a brand requires the investment of time and resources to set your business up for long-term success.

What is design thinking?

Design Thinking is simply using design to solve real business problems, to think of the root cause of the issues businesses are facing. It's also part of the reason clients trust certain designers as experts to think outside the box in searching for better solutions.

I think of design as this: to devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.

Design thinking requires that we look at all problems as being interconnected systems. Often enough the problems our clients face go much deeper than the surface level.

Why Design Thinking?

It puts people first

The closer you stay to a person and their stories, the better the solutions you provide will be. Creative elements are often used to target certain audiences of people, so it's important that we're putting them first.

Repeatable success

Design Thinking is a systematic process used to uncover information; it can be applied to solve many different types of issues.

Gets to the root

Design Thinking helps to find the root cause of issues. It takes us beyond the surface and beyond self-diagnosis to find the real solution.

---

Let's talk about an example where design thinking was used in real life at the Washington Monument.

The team that maintains the Washington Monument noticed that the monument itself was starting to chip & crumble. The maintenance team thought that this might be because of the cleaning chemicals they use to keep the monument clean. So they thought about changing or reducing their use of said chemicals. (Notice how the team jumped to solving this issue at the surface.)

Luckily, a Design Thinker asked the question: “Why do you need to clean it so often with those chemicals?”

The maintenance team replied: “It’s because of the pigeon poop.”

The Design Thinker responded: “Why are the pigeons there? There’s not really anywhere for them to sit on the monument.”

The maintenance team replied: “They like to eat the spiders around the monument.”

The Design Thinker responded: “Why are the spiders there? There’s lots of foot traffic, it doesn’t seem like a great place for spiders to congregate.”

The maintenance team replied: “The spiders are there to eat the moths.”

The Design Thinker responded: “Why are the moths there?”

The maintenance team replied: “The moths are there because of the massive lights pointed at the monument, they come on just before dusk.”

The Design Thinker responded: “Why not just turn off the lights?”

The maintenance team took the analysis and tested the theory; after 3 weeks of not turning the lights on there was an 85% reduction in moths, which lead to less spiders, which lead to less pigeons, which lead to less pigeon poop, which lead to there being less of a need to clean and use harsh cleaning chemicals, which lead to slowing the damage on the Washington Monument.

The outcomes: Less money spent cleaning, and less damage to the monument.

Conclusion

Design Thinking, and Design Thinkers themselves go beyond the surface by asking the right questions. By doing this they uncover novel solutions that everyone else missed.