I’ve had a couple of interesting conversations over the past weeks about autonomous brands. Brands that can be spun up in a moment’s notice and then virtually run on their own. AI finds a market niche, AI spins up product mockups, AI churns out landing pages at vast numbers, AI iterates on ad creative, AI tailors hundreds of different e-com experiences.

Essentially, brands could be run with much less overhead and could be launched much quicker.

An abundance of slop, a scarcity of substance.

My first reaction was: ehmmm, no thanks. Is that what we need? An abundance of brands? Don’t we already feel like there are a million brands selling us the same thing? We are not short on brands, if anything we are short on original, high-quality ones.

Don’t we need less, more considered brands? Brands with a great founder story, people behind it that believe in the products? Brands that make you feel and connect. That’s why I most enjoy working with founders that are patient zero, solving their own problem. True authenticity.

Launching a brand and making it run is a mammoth task, and automation will and already has a role to play. But here is a difference between automating to save on manpower and automating to cut on creativity.

To automate, or not to automate. That is the question.

There is a real, unglamorous problem that AI automation of course solves: manpower. Big brands have the resources to iterate constantly; dedicated teams for each department, focused on their fraction of the enterprise. Small teams don’t have that luxury. For a solo founder, or a 5-10 person team, automation is a major unlock.

A personal use case I can share: For one of my clients we now automate monthly email design. We build a huge database in Figma of past designs, modules, product specific imagery, etc. Now AI saves us about 20 hours of tedious, repetitive design work each month. That is unlocking time we can spend on originality, ideation and planning for the brand.

Not all automation is bad, I’d argue that there is a line between incredibly useful and opportunistic. e.g. Just because I can have AI come up with a brand for me to launch, doesn’t mean I should.

AI should automate monotonous work. Anything that makes a brand run (such as reformatting ads or designing out AB tests).

AI should not automate creativity and define what a brand is (such as brand concept, visual identity or tone of voice).

The more the world gets flooded with slop brands, that people launched 95% with AI, the more consumers will find meaning in the opposite: real, considered brands. Brands that feel crafted not automated.

The brands who will keep winning are the ones doubling down on brand now; investing in creatives that know how to use the tools and establishing what should be automated and what definitely shouldn’t.

As always I want to hear from you: Likes, dislikes, insights, comments shoot me an email. Cheers

Things I’m looking at

🗓️ Like everyone, obsessed with Smith & Dictions rebrand for Calendly.

🛡️ Just spent some time in Siena, loved all the signage and emblem designs of the Contrade.

💜 Launching a new brand soon, keep an eye out here.

Your scope should be your sales strategy.

Most clients seem absolutely lovely in the first meeting (actually no, there are definitley ones that feel off from the get-go). But for purposes of this post we will focus on the ones that turn out to be a headache after you’ve agreed to work with them.

No one tells you when working independently that the “design work” is actually not always the hardest part, scoping projects correctly and telling a difficult client “that’s out of scope” is sometimes much more difficult. In short: client management.

What I’ve run into time and time again, is that clients want to “trim the fat” on a proposal to save on costs. What most designers get wrong, is that a reduced scope doesn’t necessarily mean less money. If your scope is clearly defined, a smaller engagement can lead to a bigger bottom line than your original proposal.

A rock solid scope of work at kick-off is the holy grail of independent work - something I’ve had to learn the hard way myself. So here is how I approach it now to avoid getting myself into hot water with clients.

Out of scope is an upsell, not a fight.

Take the time to outline a detailed scope (what’s included and what’s not). Work doesn’t happen without a quote or a contract that is signed off. The phrase "does not include" shows up in all of my quotes.

An example:
3 Web Page Designs (Home, About, Case Study).
Each delivered for Desktop and Mobile Figma (not Tablet).
Does not include: Web development, graphics or visuals, motion or animation work, identity work (all fonts and colors are supplied by the client).

That “Does not include” line protects and opens up the possibility of upselling the project. Because here is the rub: Setting a clear scope and having a client wanting to go outside it is actually a huge opportunity to bill more work.

You want to add Ai visuals? 💥 Lovely, that will cost extra.
You want to add animation to graphics? 💥 Amazing, I’ll add it to the next invoice.
You’d like to explore a new logo that fits the new site better? 💥 Fantastic, let me get an additional quote ready.

You already have the foot in the door. They've already said yes to working with you once. Most clients are ecstatic they’ve found a designer who know’s what they are doing and happy to pay-up for add-ons as long as you stick around to work with them. Suddenly a client wanting to go outside of scope feels 🤩 instead of 🫨.

Of course all this doesn't negate that you can have terribly annoying clients. Ones that won't pay up unless you tack on extras. At that point I’ve found it easiest to pitch an “amicable separation” and giving the client a deduction of the outstanding fee (so worth it, to safe myself the headache). “We might not be the right fit at this moment, I'm happy to reduce the last invoice by X amount to cover the work done and I'd be happy to recommend some other designers to reach out to.”

And now the best part: Scoping Ai design work.

Selling your POV and expertise as an Ai Art Director or Designer who can operate Ai models correctly (+ knows which freaking tool to use when) is the real sell.

Clients often have a hard time grasping what could be possible with Ai for their brand. Telling them isn’t enough, they need to see it. I’ve found that creating a little “teaser” often get’s the client on board. Using the example from above, I’d maybe layout one of the sections of the site with Ai imagery. If they love the direction, it becomes a pitch for an imagery package.

I scope all my generative work with a fixed number of output assets. Generative work can feel infinite from the outside, one more prompt, one more pass. It’s not. Especially for Ai scope is very important. A fixed output count does the same job as "does not include".

Depending on the client, I’d hand off a tutorial including prompts and models used. More complex projects could get a node-based workflow at handoff. But I’ve honestly seen very little appetite for that level of documentation. Most client’s prefer to keep you working the assets and shipping them final output - they realize fairly quickly they wouldn’t be able to replicate the output themselves, or they simply don't want to spend the time trying (they have another job). Ai imagery is what they hired you for.

Pitching and selling Ai assets and generative work is still shifting and evolving,(this will probably feel out of date in 3 months). But for now, teasing an example output has been the winning strategy for me.

As always I want to hear from you: Likes, dislikes, insights, comments shoot me an email. Cheers

Note: I know proper spelling is AI, but I think Ai looks better 😜

Things I’m looking at

📘 Reading the New Yorker article on AI blanding.

🧮 Stumbled upon Anna Lucia’s code drawings as inspo for a new client - love.

💿 Acquired’s new homepage ATF is perfection.

My stack, as it stands today

My goal when starting Raising Brand was to be a real source of information. The amount of rage bait around Ai and design out there at the moment is astronomical. Everything below is actually in-use and applies to real client work.

People ask me all the time what’s in my Ai toolkit, so here it is, unfiltered: what I reach for, what it’s good at, and where it still falls short.

Midjourney is still the aesthetic king of the space, hands down. I use it for macro ingredient visuals for almost every client, and it’s the best way to test visual styles before committing to one. Every single Raising Brand hero image has been a Midjourney creation. Nothing else (that I’ve tried) matches it on pure aesthetic output. Pretty decent as animating between a starting and editing frame as well. Not great for much else, the editing tool is 🗑️ in my opinion, I take things into Flora or Photoshop for that.

Kive joined the stack last year and I was floored by how well it’s built specifically for product renderings. It’s become my go-to for product visuals, and for test-running packaging and in-situ ideas while a brand is still being ideated. If you’re doing packaging work and haven’t tried it, you’re behind. Huge caveat: a good product rendering to feed into the platform is essential to get a decent output.

Flora has been with me a full year now. There are other node-based tools out there, I just haven’t needed to leave this one. They keep expanding the model stack, and the sheer variety at this point is huge. What keeps me coming back is how fast I can iterate, building full multi-step flows for batch output, and moving between text, image, and video nodes without friction. I usually bring in a Midjourney or Kive reference before I start building in Flora tho, because an aesthetic starting point is usually helpful to avoid the “AI-look” here.

ChatGPT is still in rotation, but in all honestly I’m in the middle of replacing it with Claude. (I’m using the image GPT models in Flora still). I usually setup a folder per client or project, feed it brand wikis and decks, and get placeholder copy for early design explores or web design, or to refine portfolio copy (I’m a designer, not a brilliant copywriter) - Claude helped write this Substack with input and refinement from me (this sentence isn’t Claude 😜).

Claude Code is the one I’m leaning into more at the moment. Right now it’s running an automated task that helps me with content ideas and posts for Twitter and this Substack (yes, the one you are reading now). The bigger project: I’m trying to figuring out a workflow to automate monthly email campaigns for clients. Once I figure that out, it would become a real pillar of the stack. Just getting this setup though, made me feel like I needed a degree in computer sciences — so yeah, not for the faint of heart.

Photoshop is the old friend I can’t retire. Generative Expand gets used multiple times a day, people will never know how much time we used to burn trying to expand a background before that existed. It’s also still where I go to refine and perfect Midjourney or Kive output, adding the human-touch, re-plugging-in labels, adding an old-school-photoshop pass that makes it actually usable for my clients.

Figma Agents, especially Figma Motion, are some newer additions as well. Still playing around, but I expect this to become a bigger part of the stack for previewing web motion and adding small animations to projects.

Honorary Mentions (not AI, but essential daily rotation for my design practice): Illustrator (I can’t see anyone doing packaging or logo design without this), Figma (still the ultimate workhorse of my day) and a couple of others.

How to use Ai to your advantage

I came across a good breakdown recently on what designing with Ai actually means: it doesn’t mean asking it to do everything for you. The idea, the direction, the feeling, still has to come from the designer. Ai is there to help execute.

None of the tools above know my client’s brand unless I tell them, or the specific vibe I’m trying to hit for the cover of this Substack for example. None of them can look at five renders and spin you up an “original” and convincing product visual (operative word being original). None of them have an opinion, and an opinion is the whole job. That part is still entirely mine, and every designer I know running an Ai-heavy workflow would say the same.

An “Ai stack” is really just a set of tools that clear out the parts of the job that never needed a designer’s brain in the first place. It makes certain parts of the job quicker and easier (which is awesome), but to use it “well” and to your advantage as a designer you’ll still need your taste and creative chops.

Note: I know proper spelling is AI, but I think Ai looks better 😜

As always I want to hear from you: Likes, dislikes, insights, comments shoot me an email. Cheers

Things I’m looking at

👾 Playing around with the new Paper Design tool.

✂️ The Pica app has changing my design process forever.

🎧 Listening to Fast Hours Podcast episode with Salma Aboukarr, the X Ai queen.

Ai can automate output, not taste

It’s 2026, and yes — we can now reskin almost an entire product line using Ai. Almost. I recently worked with one of my supplement clients to re-merchandise their full gummy line-up. We approached it with a clear understanding of where Ai could meaningfully accelerate our work, and where human decision-making was still essential to get it right.

“We want to revamp our entire packaging for all 14 products in 4 weeks.” Words that would have send me into a minor panic attack just a year ago. Not in 2026.

We started by handling the fundamentals the traditional way: packaging design and core renders were done manually (using Blender, Photoshop and Illustrator). That foundation mattered, we needed crisp “correct” renderings to feed Ai. From there, we used a combination of Ai tools to generate gummy assets and product imagery (mostly Midjourney for texture and gummies and Kive for product in-situ).

Then we still needed to go back to Photoshop, fix lighting, typos and elements that Ai had “messed up” or made look “off brand”. Ai allowed us to create a wide range of visuals without the need for a full photoshoot. Generative iteration gave us speed, flexibility, and room to explore variations of product imagery that would have been budget-impossibles even a year ago.

Hit me with a fast turn-around

That said, Ai still couldn’t do the most important parts of the job for us. It couldn’t reskin every PDP asset in a way that felt coherent. It couldn’t establish a clearer merchandising system for the consumer. And it certainly couldn’t decide what needed simplifying or emphasizing — only we could do that, because we understood the business, the product range, and had learned along the way where customers were getting confused and how we wanted the new product to show up online.

Aesthetically, generative outputs required careful, manual refinement to feel intentional and on-brand. Without a creative team to “direct” creative Ai tools, they are close to useless, if not “dangerous” because quick outputs can be completely off brand and quickly dilute a brand from within.

What Ai did enable was a faster, more agile way of testing and ideating. We could explore directions, stress-test ideas, and iterate without heavy production overhead. For brands, this is where the real shift is happening. Not in replacing craft or strategy, but in compressing the distance between idea and evaluation. Knowing how — and when — to use Ai to your advantage is quickly becoming part of and designers job.

As always I want to hear from you: Likes, dislikes, insights, comments shoot me an email. Cheers

Things I’m looking at

👾 Digital brand guidelines like Compsych

🗂️ We redesigned Rayse Creatives portfolio

🌤️ Our work on Rise Plasma is finally live, and already made it onto LapaNinja

🚗 Olauto makes the very unsexy car air freshener, really sexy.

The “lego” agency

Last year the Fast Company wrote about the “the rise of the ‘Goldilocks’ design company”, and while this remains a trend in the industry, another agency model has arrived. Just this year I’ve had the opportunity to work with multiple of these new type of creative agencies, I’d dub the “lego box agency” or “creative agency 3.0”.

This new model works by hiring all their talent on a project by project basis. Giving the agency the flexibility to mix & match the creatives to projects, just like lego pieces picked out from a box. Unlike the “traditional” agency that had the same full-time team of creatives working on every project. This concept is inherently appealing to all involved: the agency has no fixed costs on creatives, the creatives can pick & choose which projects to be part of, the client still gets top-tier output.

Is this the new era of creative work? And is this an appealing model for freelancers?

More creatives, more problems?

Of course working in a larger team also creates more challenges. Working on a larger team that doesn’t know each other or hasn’t worked together before even more so. Being the sole creative for a project, streamlines workflows and outputs. Once there are more cooks in the kitchen there is a need for more project management to keep on track and all creatives need to be pulled together into one final creative direction.

This new agency model also gets challenging when finding the “right” creative for every project isn’t as easy. Sometimes a creative gets added to a project simply out of necessity and availability or budget constraint rather than true fit.

More importantly this new lego agency model, is not necessarily more lucrative for the freelance designer. Projects often take longer, require an almost full-time commitment, without the full-time payout. What makes these agencies attractive none the less, is the creative-cross-pollination, which goes missing in solo freelance work as well as the steady-stream of new project leads without much effort.

Just like in nature, where pollination sparks new growth, the exchange of ideas between creatives brings about unexpected combinations and fresh approaches. These lego agencies give the solo freelancers the opportunity to share creative inputs and inspirations, pushing the collective and the individual further. Working in a lego team, doesn’t just generate great design; it elevates everyone involved, pushing them beyond their own aesthetic and design habits.

Working with a this new type of agency can be incredibly rewarding to a creative. However, it’s important for freelancers to be clear about what they’re gaining from working with these agencies—whether that’s exposure, steady work, or creative growth. Making them a more dynamic creator even when working on something “solo” again.

As always I want to hear from you: Likes, dislikes, insights, comments shoot me an email. Cheers

Things I’m looking at

🪂 Obsessed with Air Rebrand by Richard Turley: “Simplicity takes work”

🎪 Peaking behind the creative curtain: Smith & Diction Contra Figma

🚀 Just ordered Build to Sell

Faster, cheaper … and not on brand

Time and again the past few months I’ve heard clients say “can’t we do that with Ai” or “is there a way to make this workflow more efficient with Ai?” and who can blame them? The dominant narrative around Ai is all about speed—instant answers, instant images, instant results. Just look at some of the language creative Ai tools are using “Build Apps with AI in Minutes” (Base44), “Generate product visuals in 2 minutes” (Omi), “Your ideas go in. Your site comes out.” (Wix).

Leaving aside that, fundamentally, good creative work doesn’t happen in the blink of an eye, these platforms are simply over-promising. Clients are imagining that a prompt like “turmeric paste” will return them an on-brand image. It doesn’t. A prompt like this does “a top-down macro shot of a small, isolated mound of fresh turmeric paste, swiped from left to right with a small spatula (spatula not visible), with a noticeably uneven, bumpy surface and coarse texture, tiny visible granules and irregular clumps, ridges and folds flowing in one direction, edges slightly lifted on the right side, moist vibrant light-orange color, isolated on a pure dark blue background, minimal shadows, ultra-realistic food photography”. That takes time to get right.

What if it’s just another piece of technology?

Earlier this year I wrote about, how Ai is not a foe but a friend to a designer, and I stand by that. More and more it is starting to feel more like another piece of technology than a seismic-shift to creative work.

The parts of my workflow that I currently use Ai for, my clients could not do themselves. It takes time to learn how to prompt, move between applications and adjust so Ai understands what you are looking for. It’s something to get good at, just like any other technology.

Ai is still evolving, it will undoubtedly get better. But as things stand right now, I can’t select a design for a homepage and tell Ai to stick to the brand guidelines and churn me out a product page. I’ve tried, and it doesn’t work, yet.

They gotta see it, to believe it.

I’ve found it hard to combat these unrealistic expectations, but pulling back the curtain helps. I’ve started to walk my clients through my Ai workflow, to show them what a multi-layered process generating really is.

For example: I start with generating an image (Midjourney for example), that takes anywhere from 5-20 prompt adjustments to get what I imagined. Then I move it over to Photoshop and use generative fill for expanding the image, adjust coloring or add brand elements. Then I import it back into Midjourney or Flora to make scene adjustments and animate it, again this take 5-10 rounds of prompts until I get what I’m looking for. This isn’t quick work. It’s amazing what one can produce with Ai, but quick it is not. If the output is supposed to adhere to a brand aesthetic, not look like Ai, and maintain consistency, it still takes time.

As always I want to hear from you: Likes, dislikes, insights, comments shoot me an email. Cheers

Things I’m looking at

🇺🇸 National Design Studio website and American by Design, lead by AirBnB co-founder Joe Gebbia.

🪴 Been playing around with Flora Ai all summer, finally a tool to combine them all & an amazing workflow interface.

📻 Emre Kayganaci’s portfolio of product designs, is soooo soooothing.

Hitting the refresh button

When brands decide to refresh their visual identities, it is often met with a overwhelming about of disapproval. After all, what can a rebrand really do? The brand already exits and works, why bother and possibly create confusion with a rebrand.

But a rebrand isn’t just a new look, it’s the moment you signal a new level of maturity and ambition to your consumer and the market. Upgrading a brands identity also means: We are about to kick into a higher gear.

There is even an argument to be made to delay investing in a high-end branding until you have grown into yourself, become the brand you are and have defined your position more clearly. Most brands I’ve worked with need time to figure out what’s working, where they are gaining traction, and who their true consumer is. At which point they might realize their branding isn’t working or they’ve simply outgrown it.

That isn’t to say that a top-tier branding from the start isn’t immensely helpful. It eliminates the need to tediously switch out all brand assets and more. But transforming a brand is part of the “brand experience”, no brand is ever perfectly “done” and can stand-still indefinitely.

Advance to the next level: with a 2.0 identity

Spending money, time and effort on a rebrand can be the catalyst for growth: Great branding and design builds trust, signals credibility, and set a high standard of perception.

I’m about to start work on a rebrand for a client that has realized, their true market fit is B2B. Their brand now requires more legitimacy and a sharpened visual language as they head into a new phase of their evolution.

We’ll make sure to update key brand elements to appeal to the new target audience, build a design system that’s rooted in authority and clarity and delivers the brand message from point-zero of client interaction, thus giving the brand an identity to build years of growth on.

As always I want to hear from you: Likes, dislikes, insights, comments shoot me an email. Cheers

Things I’m looking at

👩‍💻 Watching Kevin Twohy’s keynote from Config “I’m not a designer, but…”

📝 Need real feedback on your design portfolio? Look no further than SuperHi.cv

🎄 Might be very early, but just bough this holiday card set by Luxembourg based designer Sarah Mafféïs

Is the design industry losing touch?

As brand designers we pride ourselves on building new and interesting visual lands for each brand we work on. But where is the line between being avant-garde and commercial?

Lots of brands, big and small, are being designed and managed in metropolitan areas, by people in their metropolitan bubble, which bear little resemblance to most American lives. The simplest definition of the design and marketing industry’s job is: sell. If we are to facilitate selling products and services and ignore half the consumer base, design isn’t doing it’s job anymore.

The result are brands that feel “detached” and overly “trendy” to half the public, which they are supposed to be selling to. Case in point, the very badly received Jaguar rebrand last year.

DTC vs Retail

I’ve been working on a big rebrand project. The brand is retail-first, primarily Costco. A brand that thinks shelf first, and digital second, has different priorities.

We needed to listen more to our buying partners input on packaging than I have on DTC projects, they know their consumer in their stores. When the consumer learns about your brand in-store first, the entire experience needs to be different, and yes, maybe less avant-garde and more user-friendly.

Inevitably I believe it comes down to a balancing act. We need new trends and impulses to form creative ideas, however designers would do well to remember that the fast-majority of consumers isn’t living in the same aesthetic land as them. To create a brand with real staying-power and growth potential we need to look beyond our own bubble.

As always I want to hear from you: Likes, dislikes, insights, comments shoot me an email. Cheers

Things I’m looking at

🌹 Boy Smells rebranded their perfume bottles, the internet hates it, I love it.

Ⓜ️ Displaay Type’s new typeface Perfektta is the right kinda of “edgy”.

🕵️ I Spy’s are back, can’t wait to pitch it to a client.

Is Ai a sledgehammer for designers?

We’ve hear it all one too many times over the last years: AI is going to take all our jobs. And design is no exception. No one can tell the future but the reality right now is this: AI is not your foe, it’s like a magic wand for designers.

If your current job as a designer consists of a client telling you “use this photo, this headline and this format, then export it” then yes, your job will be replaced by AI. Sorry to break it to you.

Case in point: I’ve worked on projects where non-designers thought they can “do it themselves” with AI … the results weren’t pretty. The value of designers is moving away from being able to operate software like Photoshop to knowing what to make. We need designers to ask the right questions, develop concept and shape visual narratives.

No creative will ever again have to say to a client “Imagine this…”. You can just show your client, because you can create a demo/preview/mock with AI. It’s making concepts easier to pitch, approve, execute, in short: bring creative visions to life.

Don’t resist, lean in

Most clients, especially start ups are always going to have budget constraints. I’ve seen an amazing increase in capabilities and creative output for my clients since I’ve started using generated visuals to support my work. AI has been come part of my daily work flow. Daily, yes.

My advice: Lean in now, learn how to make these new tools work for you, and become a designer that is needed beyond formatting. Lastly, there are so many players already: Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, Runway, Dalle. Personally I mostly use Midjourney, at the moment it’s the aesthetic hero of the entire line up in my opinion.

I can’t help feeling excited about how these platforms might change how we work as designers. Enjoy some recent creations for clients below. *of course not all AI is helpful, great and fun, this is just one perspective to consider

As always I want to hear from you: Likes, dislikes, insights, comments shoot me an email. Cheers

Things I’m looking at

☀️ New packaging for Vacation Sunscreen, a masterclass in staying on-brand.

🐵 Do we feel like we need to join the hype and get a UserFaces profile avatar?

🆓 Follow @pietrobaudin if you want great free font inspiration daily.

Client ≠ good client

Last week I had an eye-opening conversion about attracting the “right” type of client. A fellow designer wanted more branding projects but instead kept getting hired for web design. Not surprisingly: all he showcased was web design.

A lot of designers throw everything they’ve ever worked on into their portfolio. I’m here to argue that this is the wrong approach: Clients don’t hire generalist, they hire specialists. You get hired for what you showcase.

Post and show the work you want to attract more of, even if the work is self-initiated. If you got hired to design 3 ads, make 15 more to stick in your portfolio. If you want to do branding work, design and post a branding project for a made-up brand. Choosing a niche and stating it very clearly is what sets designers apart.

You’ll have to start saying “No”

Once you define your focus you’ll need to be more selective when you’re considering new clients and projects. This will most likely trigger a transition period where you’ll have to turn down projects. Learning to say “This is out of my current focus” or “I’m at capacity for this type of project” can be really challenging. But it is also absolutely necessary if one doesn’t want to sink into the sea-of-sameness of designers on Fiverr or Upwork.

When considering a new project ask yourself:

• Will the project push you creatively?

• Are they hiring you to do the work you are trying to do more of?

• Are the people behind the brand great connections for future projects?

Don't just consider the budget and your capacity, consider your design trajectory and make informed decisions on who you want to work with. Even a designers career needs to be curated. Focus on being seen and hired for one thing, and carve out the rest.

*Reminder: Sometimes there is work that pays well and we all need to keep the lights on, but that work doesn’t have to make it into your portfolio 😉

As always I want to hear from you: Likes, dislikes, insights, comments shoot me an email. Cheers

Things I’m looking at

💎 The Sims are turning 25 and it’s kinda making me want to get back into it.

🎧 I listened to the Agency Darlings podcast on attracting the right clients as freelancers which was super actionable & well worth a listen.

🎲 Get yourself a Pocket Emoji Dice for difficult decisions.

Why mass appeal is the wrong strategy

2025 is well underway and I’m thinking through my goals and objectives with my clients. I’m going into the year with one big motto: Please don’t try to be for everyone.

Often founders or brand stakeholders feel that not gearing their brand and marketing towards “everyone” will feel exclusionary towards a lot of customers. This simply isn’t true.

When your brand speaks to everyone, it actually speaks to no one. Without a clear point of view, values and characteristics, your brand will appeal to no one, because no audience group will feel directly addressed by your messaging. It’s so much more impactful to have your brand resonate deeply with one specific audience that becomes your core brand base and eventually creates a ripple effect.

Don’t start without a niche

One of the biggest ⁠⁠considerations I take into account when onboarding a new client is whether or not they are locked-in on their audience, and not living in the “everyone-and-their-grandmother” dreamland.

For example, a client of mine, Divergently, launched earlier this week. From the outset the brand was focused solely on 40+ late diagnosed neurodivergent women. Talk about a niche target audience. Eventually, we might expand to other target groups, but not yet.

First, we need to focus on our core audience and make sure we evangelize them to the brand. This will make it a brand with staying power and true believers. You can run this experiment with lots of successful brands out there: Hims then Hers. Into the Gloss then Glossier. Peloton Bike now Peloton Treadmill. The list goes on.

This is less important for larger, established brands. But at the inception stage and when you are still growing into yourself it is paramount to have a core audience that will obsess over you. This will crystalize your messaging, simplify your marketing decisions and make your brand one with convictions real people can resonate with. Be for someone, not for everyone.

Likes, dislikes, insights, or comments - shoot me an email. Cheers

Things I’m looking at

🗓️ Studio Fidèle is a small risograph printing house out of Paris, I just ordered their 2025 calendar, it’s gorge.

🎨 Felipe Bedoya creates the most intricate and delicate paintings, they are simply beautiful to look at.

🎥 I just watched the docufilm E.1027 about Eileen Gray’s iconic house with Le Corbusier, it’s absolutely stunning & a must watch for any designer.

Hi, Welcome to Edition #1 of Raising Brand

Building a brand is much like raising a child or nurturing a plant (no offense to parents and plant peoples, this is supposed to be a metaphor). Brand building is more than just a great visual identity, sadly that’s not enough for magic to start happening, it’s not going to make your brand successful, because now the real works only begins.

Raising Brand is a project to explore what it takes to make a brand come to life and become successful through the lens of an independent designer. I want to share my experiences working directly with founders, what I’ve learned along the way and what I’m still picking up.

What you can expect from Raising Brand and what I work on with most of my clients post-branding:

• Visual identities: How to standout from a crowd of competitors

• We’ve found our ideal customer: Now how do we find more of them?

• Tiny team, huge workload: Start up design needs

• New launches: How to keep them effective and on-brand

Sadly brands don’t eventually go off to college, and start doing things by themselves. They will continue to need us, but then again, that’s their charm and Raising Brand is here to talk about all their growing pains.

Candid Insights & Learnings

Raising Brand will also act as a BTS catalog to follow along as I “raise” my independent design practice and brand building shop, Rayse Creative.

In large part I started this Substack to make room in my calendar to contemplate inspiration, articulate my thoughts and refine my process without being bogged down by client work and making little time for exploration.

One more thing: I hate long newsletters (might be my millennial attention span) so I will keep these posts short & sweet drops to your inbox with insightful learnings, interesting links and visual inspiration. Cheers

Things I’m looking at

✏️ Actual Source has some amazing merch, their Construction Pencil is on my list.

📟 AI is giving rise to some funky product design and I’m here for it. Terra AI is giving Tamagotchi meets Moon Juice.

😴 Cuddle Sleep launched a couple weeks ago and their e-com design is simply superior, kudos.