Six years down and over 100 brand and website design clients in, it was time to take myself through my own brand design process. If you’ve known me at all in the past six years, you’ll have known my brand as Your Ampersand Studio.

Just as we change and update our homes, interests and wardrobe in tandem with our maturing personalities, I was ready for a brand refresh. So, I decided to take myself through my own brand design process and share my experience behind the scenes with you!

My process begins with a simple but powerful exercise designed to tap into the deeper purpose behind my clients’ businesses. Today I’m sharing that exercise with you as I take myself through the activity.

Introducing Dawn & Delight, a Brand and Website Design Company!

The biggest development, as well as my biggest challenge, was choosing a new business name. This was difficult, moving away from Your Ampersand Studio, because I love ampersands!

I love and value what ampersands stand for - connection. Connection is my biggest core value, and the ampersand is a beautiful visual to showcase it. But, I began to notice issues with people not understanding what the term stood for, how to say it or how to spell it. And of course, if you have to pause and explain the name of your business it loses its efficacy.

The exercise I break down later in this post provided a huge stepping stone to my new name, Dawn & Delight, and I highly recommend it if you’re developing a business, course, product or program name as well!

The First Step in My Brand Design Process

The first step in my branding design process is digging into the heart, the “why,” and the purpose that fuels the business. The foundation of my approach to the brand design process I learned from Hey Sweet Pea’s My Own Irresistible Brand | Branding School of which I am an alum.

I learned just how important it is to start with the business owner first when beginning the design process. The branding process itself is meant to develop a framework that ensures our communications, marketing, strategy and business development all flow from a consistent identity.

Why is this important? It makes sure the business is built in alignment with its values - from the kind of clients we attract, to the team we build, to the image we convey online, and the community we nurture.

Without a strong and effective brand foundation, the rest of the pieces we build our businesses with are inconsistent and we end up building a house of cards. The best way to build a strong and effective brand is to begin with our own identity.

What is an Identity-Led Brand Design Process, and What is Identity-Led Branding?

If the concept of branding is not new to you, you may have learned the traditional approach which begins with identifying your ideal client first.

Most branding strategists begin with the client at the forefront, digging into who you are helping and what they need from you first. While that’s a big piece of the puzzle, beginning with the client forces us to skip a crucially foundational step - deep diving into our own values.

Starting the branding process by focusing on ourselves, our identity, and defining our value system first is called identity-led branding, and this is the Dawn & Delight approach to the brand design process.

When your brand starts with your values and a deep connection to your own identity, then all you create from that foundation will be in alignment for you personally, allowing you to do work you love, in ways you love, infusing all you do with clarity, integrity, and magic.

Following identity-led branding I lead my clients (and myself!) to deep dive into our values, who we are and how we want to show up so we can achieve the most potent and effective brand identity.

The Five “Whys” - the One Powerful Exercise to Explode Your Brand’s Potential

How do we even begin to define our identity? We begin with my favorite exercise, also learned from Hey, Sweet Pea! This exercise is incredibly potent and effective, but it’s not new - it’s actually an interrogative coaching technique that has been around for decades. It’s a powerful tool you can use in many aspects of your life, and in branding it facilitates the unearthing of the core values that shape your business.

The Five Whys exercise encourages you to figure out the “why behind the why.” It helps me get grounded in my purpose and it’s one of my favorite things to do with my clients so they can begin to articulate the foundational reasons why they are in business.

The First Why

The first step in the exercise is to simply ask, “why am I in business?” Personally, my vision and dream is to help female entrepreneurs beat the odds and stake their claim in the market and in life.

Ask yourself, “why am I here? Why did I start this business? What is my purpose here?”

The Second Why

The next step is simple, just keep taking it one step deeper by asking, “why?” For example, why is it important for me to help female entrepreneurs succeed?

Even though the number of businesses owned and started by women is growing, almost 90% of them never generate over $100,000 in a year. With those numbers on my heart, I want to do all I can using my skills and knowledge to help alter those statistics.

The Third Why

Why? Why do I want to do all I can to help change those numbers for the better? Because, the success of any female entrepreneur who starts a business is also my success. We are the first generation of women to do this, to experience the freedom and autonomy to start businesses like this.

This financial freedom and livelihood autonomy is what our mothers and grandmothers fought and strived for us to experience. We owe it to the generations of women before us, as well as ourselves and those coming after us to step fully into our dreams so we can do things differently.

It’s an honor for me to use my skill sets, ideas and the things I’ve learned about brand and website design to help women build businesses in a way that’s functional, impactful and beautiful.

The Fourth Why

Why is it important for me to help women build businesses in a way that’s functional, impactful and beautiful? Because, now I get to support women as they navigate uncertain, pivotal moments in their lives when they take a new road available to them and pave new terrain so that they can build a legacy.

The Fifth Why

And, finally, why is legacy so important to me? Because, it’s my deepest desire to make connections that truly matter, to make an impact in the lives and businesses of other female entrepreneurs because their success is my success, and it’s my ultimate goal in life to be of service with and beyond the services I offer.

Identity-Led Design is the Dawn & Delight Experience

These are my deepest motivations and why I have this business. No matter how or where you interact with me and my brand, Dawn & Delight - whether on zoom, on social, or as a client - it is my greatest hope you feel the connection and support identity-led design fosters.

My goal is to inspire you, motivate you and give you the best tools to help you along your business journey. In the blog posts to come I’ll be giving more behind-the-scenes peeks into my design process as I share my own brand and website design journey.