Lean Branding

Chapter 11. Brand Redesign

Brands get haircuts. As with people, sometimes these makeovers are a hit and sometimes a miss. Sometimes they’re uncalled for, like shaving your beard or cutting your hair in the dead of winter. In many cases, failure can be prevented when we inform our redesign decisions with data from real customers (as we learned in Chapter 8). Warning: sometimes failure is inevitable and sticks around like a really bad haircut. That’s when you repeat this to yourself:

Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose learn.

This book isn’t here to make you look pretty, though you probably will.

—John C. Maxwell

When I was in business school, I would run frantically from a Managerial Accounting final to a Typography 101 critique—portfolio in hand and everything. I faced people from all walks of business who fully disregarded design (though they were completely influenced by it). I also met fine artists who drowned in their own work and the dense creative universe in their minds.

Then I met designers. And instantly fell in love. Let me tell you why.

Designers are familiar with critiques. They not only tolerate them but actively look out for them. They honestly believe in iterations and learn to edit down their work. They embrace simplicity and create beauty based on requirements other than their own. Design education teaches you to run away from assumptions and to have the stomach to scrap your work often.

I’m bringing this up because it’s time to bridge the gap between design and business. ...