Rabbit Cardamom Stew and the Prospect of Change

Picture this: a wistful client comes to us with the task of revolutionizing his company’s brand identity and narrates a dream scenario whereby he wishes to move radically away from the solemn branding choices of his forefathers, which his company has leaned on for the past forty years, in favor of developing a bold, fresh look. As designers, we are delighted at the prospect of taking on this type of challenge—moving a brand out from under the weight of a fusty font or a logo with a heavy dose of detail. We are just the women for this job, we say, with vines and stars in our eyes. We can help usher you into a new era.

Cut to a sad scenario, twenty-seven meetings later, as we systematically undo each element of our bold new design concept until we find ourselves back at square one: with the same safe design aesthetic the client had previously eschewed. Brilliant, the client will say, after we change the Ivy Presto Display font we presented back to Calibri. Unparalleled he’ll whisper when we dial back the acid green of an eye-popping color palette into the safe harbor of a pensive blue.

Our takeaway from experiences like this is that sometimes clients claim to want change. They may even believe deep down in their pancreas that a complete brand refresh is integral to the success of their small business. But when faced with the prospect of change, the truth is that it can be frightening.

Many Chefs, Ingredients Aloft

In addition to a company’s hesitancy to alter a brand that’s been working successfully for years, a branding refresh often requires buy-in from all levels of an organization. For us, this can mean a lot of chefs in the pantry simultaneously bringing us wild ingredients and telling us to cook our hearts out. We watch in horror as the chefs storm out of the pantry one by one with their weird components aloft: Cardamom? Rabbit? Veggie Broth? Work your magic they’ll say, delighted with the presentation of their favorite ingredients. And we will. We take all their wild elements and simmer them into a satisfying, delicious whole. Then, when we present our Rabbit Cardamom Stew in the German Style, we’ll be asked demurely to pare back each ingredient in turn until we’re left with a simple, colorless, joyless soup, hold the rabbit. 

We sometimes receive different (and competing) design directives from each stakeholder in a company. We have found ourselves in meetings where many disparate ideas or references are being rapidly discharged. Disputes among the stakeholders may abound, but no final vision is determined, leaving us to put together an off-beat Frankenstein brand that lacks cohesion and endeavors to appeal to each stakeholder in turn.

This lacks cohesion, we’ll be told at the next design meeting.

The Take Away

Perhaps the best way to handle these scenarios—the difficulty of change and the juggling of many design requests from several key stakeholders—is by being transparent from the beginning and creating a framework that gives weight to the notion that change is difficult and requires a certain amount of conversation and vulnerability. Talking this through with clients before we even begin the design phase can help them move out of the comfort zone of their longstanding brand. Being prepared to work quickly and efficiently through our design process is another way to keep up morale and harness the momentum and excitement of the rebrand. The more time that elapses between design rounds, the more the project languishes, and the more time the client has to overthink the direction and their decisions. Mold and anxieties can grow in the dark spaces between client meetings.

By requesting that an official speaker be elected from the project team—so that the stakeholders can hash out their personal preferences off screen—we can avoid being the arbiters of our clients’ internal politics. Also, keeping projects moving at a steady clip and describing an intention for each design element will make the project feel purposeful and keep the client involved while allowing us to pilot the project thoughtfully.