Build a Strong Brand Identity: Tips & Tricks from an OBM

Your brand as an interior designer is one of the most important aspects of your business. It's what clients see first, and what pulls them into your project process, onboarding journey, and client experience. As an OBM, I see a lot of brands and help designers define their mission to make their business stand out in the industry.

What Is Your Brand?

Your brand is the visual and emotional representation of you as a designer, seen across every platform, from your process to your project management software to your marketing. The first principle: your brand should match your design style and specialty.

Start With Words

Branding often starts with your mission statement, brand words, and values. A 1–3 sentence mission statement that summarizes your goals, values, and purpose centers your business for both you and your clients. Gather brand words, craft your mission statement, establish a tagline, and pick five words to use consistently across every platform.

Choose Your Images

Images should match your design style. Humans are intuitive and emotionally driven, imagery that suggests the opposite of who you are will feel misleading. Browse Pinterest or stock photo sites for your brand words and curate a look to guide the photos and graphics you use across your website, social media, and client-facing documents.

Colors, Fonts, & Consistency

Nothing is more jarring than a huge variety of fonts thrown at a viewer. A consistent color palette keeps potential clients in the universe of your brand from first glance to final thank-you card, and signals that you're confident in your identity and can be trusted to guide the design process.

Brand Board

Once you have images, brand words, mission, color palette, and fonts, pull them together into a brand board in Canva or Pinterest. Keep it all in one place so it can be referenced or sent to professionals for logo inspiration, social graphics, or media kits.

Flexibility

Your brand should adapt to different platforms and grow alongside you. A well-established brand identity will only need small tweaks over time, not major overhauls.

A Final Note

Keep it simple. Find things you really like and use them as a starting point, authenticity is king. A brand identity is only useful if you can practically implement it, so starting from a place of overwhelm will only lead to heartache.