In the fifth episode of our Building a Brand series, Ben and Matthew take a trip to Rancho Cucamonga, where they present the brand identity stylescapes to Josh and Crysten of Hamilton Family Brewery.

They hope to get approval on one of the directions so they can regroup with the design team and start designing for the Hamilton rebrand.

Both Ben and Matthew demonstrate a better way to present ideas to clients through the use of brand identity stylescapes and pitching techniques.

Do’s and Don’t’s to Presenting

There is such a thing as having too many options. Before presenting your ideas to clients, make sure to narrow down and simplify what you plan to present to avoid overwhelming the client.

When presenting your ideas, it helps to equip yourself with a strong visual vocabulary to help the images on the stylescape pop out just a little bit more. We’ve put together a free downloadable resource to help you strengthen your visual vocabulary, which you can download here.

Name the Stylescape

In this episode, Ben and Matthew have come up with a name for each individual stylescape to bring everything on the page together. Naming the stylescape summarizes the entire look and feel into one digestible title that helps bring the idea home.

Presenting the Stylescape

It’s important to make it clear that nothing’s been designed yet; this point in the process is solely meant to get aligned on how to proceed.

Stylescapes are essentially conversation starters. Sometimes clients need to see something in order to react to it. While Josh and Crysten gave a list of words to define their brand’s attributes, pairing the words with images helps the design team figure out what they actually mean.

If you want to learn more about Stylescapes, click here.

Pitching Ideas to Clients

A common misconception of presenting ideas to clients is thinking that you have to know everything, or have the best ideas.

Both Ben and Matthew share from their experience with pitching that you don’t need to know everything. In fact, it actually works in your favor to not know everything.

See, clients want to be involved through each step of the project. This doesn’t meant they get to sit in the studio with you and watch you sketch variations of the logo. It just means they like to be in the loop.

If you were to break from the discovery session, disappear for a few weeks, and come back with a handful of deliverables, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll be sent back to the drawing board.

It’s important that you hear your clients out and listen to their ideas, too. Their feedback is essential to making sure your deliverables hit the mark.