Responding to a Request for Proposal (RFP) is a unique and challenging creative process that parallels many of the stages in executing the project itself. It requires not only a clear understanding of the client’s goals and requirements but also the ability to distill those objectives into a compelling and well-structured response that stands out from the competition. My role in RFP responses goes beyond just assembling documents—it’s about creating a vision, a brand, and a strategy that resonates with the client.
Embracing the challenge of simplicity
Adapting Eva-Lotta Lamm’s Yoga Notes book into an app presented unique opportunities and challenges. The book itself provided a rich foundation with clear visuals, step-by-step guidance, and charming illustrations. However, transitioning this content into an interactive digital format required rethinking its flow and functionality while ensuring the final product stayed true to the essence of the original work.
From the start, I approached the project with humility and curiosity. I understood that even seemingly simple projects come with their complexities, and assumptions can lead to missteps. This mentality has become a cornerstone of my design philosophy.
The app design process
1. Understanding the vision
Before starting any designs, I worked to fully grasp the project’s scope, goals, and challenges. Yoga Notes, while sweet and straightforward on the surface, required careful attention to tone, audience, and functionality. I delved into the book’s backstory—why it was created, who it was for, and how it could better serve its audience as an app. This stage also involved defining the user base: a mix of yoga practitioners and instructors seeking clarity and simplicity.
2. Research and User Insights
User research was vital. I conducted surveys and usability tests with target audiences to learn their preferences, habits, and pain points. Observing how users interacted with similar yoga apps helped identify opportunities for improvement. For example, users appreciated clear navigation and visual aids but often felt overwhelmed by cluttered designs or redundant features.
3. Analysis: Crafting personas and Mapping
The insights from research were distilled into detailed user personas. These personas guided every design decision, ensuring the app aligned with the needs and goals of its audience. Additionally, I created navigation maps to establish a clear flow for the app’s interface.
4. Design: From sketches to prototypes
Armed with insights and plans, I moved to the design phase, starting with pencil-and-paper sketches. Early-stage concepts were shared with the client for feedback, allowing for adjustments before progressing to digital prototypes. This iterative process saved time and ensured alignment with the client’s vision.
Using Adobe XD, I built the interactive prototype, ensuring that every screen—from the home page to detailed pose instructions—was user-friendly and visually engaging. Key features, such as simple navigation and charming yoga illustrations, were designed to reflect the book’s approachable tone.
5. Tesing and refinement
Throughout the project, I prioritized user feedback. Multiple rounds of usability testing with prototypes revealed potential pain points, which I addressed before finalizing the app’s design. This iterative approach allowed for continuous improvement and alignment with user expectations.
6. Launch and post-analysis
The final prototype was handed over to developers, and I remained closely involved to ensure the design’s integrity during the build. After launch, I analyzed user feedback and considered future updates to improve the app further. The Yoga Notes app became a practical and charming digital companion for its audience, staying true to Eva-Lotta Lamm’s original vision.
Reflections
Looking back, the Yoga Notes app is a reminder that no project is “too small” to teach meaningful lessons. This experience taught me the importance of research, iteration, and collaboration—principles that continue to guide my work today. While my capabilities have grown exponentially since this project, the Yoga Notes app remains a proud example of thoughtful design that marries form and function.
If you’d like to explore how I can bring this process to your next project, let’s start a conversation!
When many people think of logo design, they think aesthetics are the prime goal. It makes sense. After all logo design is what gets many designers’ blood pumping. In fact, it’s one of the most common reasons designers cite for getting them interested in design in the first place. But like all other areas of design, the real key to creating a successful and, yes, aesthetically appealing logo capturing a company’s essence and values in a single visual. And that starts with (drumroll) Understanding, a common theme on this site, you’ll find.
To get there, I started with a series of key questions:
What personality did they want their brand to convey?
Did they view themselves as serious, light-hearted, or somewhere in between?
What made them unique in their field?
Were there any strong preferences for or against particular shapes, colors, or styles?
The answers painted a clear picture: HiveHub wanted to communicate confidence, technical expertise, and creativity while maintaining an approachable and slightly light-hearted tone. They also wanted their logo to emphasize their role as a central hub for innovative digital solutions.
The design process
The logo mark
For HiveHub, the name itself sparked immediate inspiration. The hexagonal structure of a beehive felt like an obvious starting point, but I knew I needed to push beyond the cliché. The hex shape was a natural symbol of structure and connectivity, but I wanted to give it a unique twist to reflect their identity.
From the outset, I visualized incorporating the concept of a hub, extending elements from the hexagon to represent the company’s role as a central point of innovation. I sketched three concepts: one highly stylized, one slightly abstract, and one straightforward. To my surprise, they opted for the simplest design. In hindsight, their choice perfectly aligned with their brand’s straightforward confidence.
Color choice
The color palette was an easy decision. A honey-inspired golden hue was essential to maintain the integrity of the hive metaphor while still feeling modern and professional. While this choice carried a slight risk of being overly literal, it was the best way to ensure the logo’s meaning was immediately clear.
Colors have distinct connotations across industries, and subtle shifts could easily change the logo’s interpretation:
Blue: Healthcare or technology
Gray: Networking or infrastructure
Green: Environmental or chemical themes
Pink: Toys or playful branding
While those colors might work for other industries, the golden hue worked perfectly to convey HiveHub’s balance of sophistication and warmth.
Typography experimentation
Typography is often the unsung hero of logo design. For HiveHub, I initially experimented with integrating hexagonal shapes into the text itself. For example, I tried mirroring the “V” in “Hive” to create a hexagonal element. None of these attempts felt cohesive or balanced.
Eventually, I landed on the clean and versatile Brother 1816, tweaking the letter spacing to harmonize with the logo mark. After several iterations, I subtly adjusted the width of the “V” to balance the design visually. The result was clean, modern, and complementary to the logo mark.
The finished logo
The final HiveHub logo came together with remarkable clarity. The directness of its design reflects the company’s mission: a central hub for creativity, collaboration, and innovation in game and app development.
What this project taught me
Every design project is an opportunity to learn. Even after as many corporate identities as I had created, the HiveHub branding project again reinforced the importance of listening to clients and staying open to their input, even when it challenges your initial vision. While I originally envisioned a more complex design, the simplicity of the final logo proved that sometimes less is more when it comes to corporate identity.
HiveHub’s logo exemplifies how design can be a strategic tool, not just an aesthetic exercise. By aligning visuals with a brand’s goals and values, designers can create something that resonates with both clients and audiences alike.
Trust me with your brand
Whether you’re building a new company from the ground up or refreshing your current identity, I bring the same level of care and consideration to every project. HiveHub’s journey is just one example of how thoughtful design can transform ideas into impactful visual identities.
With nearly 100 corporate identity projects under my belt, I’ve helped shape the branding of startups, established companies, enterprise-level organizations, and even game studios. From healthcare providers and SaaS platforms to creative agencies and video game developers, I have built brands that resonate with their audiences and stand the test of time. Whether creating a logo for a new company, evolving an outdated design, or scaling a corporate identity across digital, print, and interactive platforms, I bring years of experience and an eye for detail to ensure that your brand not only meets its goals but exceeds them.
Corporate identity is more than a logo. It’s your company’s personality. It’s the first impression you leave on clients, partners, investors, and users—a handshake that should inspire confidence and trust. My mission is to craft corporate identities that reflect your vision, resonate with your audience, and stand out in a crowded market.
What is corporate identity?
Your organization’s first impression
Corporate identity is the visual and emotional embodiment of your brand’s essence. It’s how you communicate your organization’s story and values at a glance. A strong corporate identity is cohesive, professional, and impactful—leaving a lasting impression on your audience. On the other hand, an outdated, inconsistent, or amateurish identity can undermine even the best products and services.
I work to ensure your branding reflects not just where your company is today but where you want it to be in five, ten, or fifteen years. Whether you’re a startup looking to punch above your weight or an established company seeking to refresh its image, your brand should communicate your message cleanly, clearly, and confidently.
My approach isn’t about imposing a personal design style; it’s about uncovering your company’s unique personality and expressing it in a way that resonates with your target audience. Whether the aim is to appear like a Fortune 500 company or a personable small business, I tailor every element of the design to fit your vision.
Corporate identity examples
Logo & Stationery
IP Secure
Logo & Website
Prime Bodywork & Massage
Mailer
Half Moon Power Yoga
Trade show booth, print collateral, infographics
updox
Your organization's lasting impression
Defending the brand
Once your corporate identity is created, consistency is key to maintaining its impact. Whether it’s a logo, business card, website, or digital ad, every application of your brand must adhere to the same standards to preserve its integrity.
I not only create corporate identities but also ensure they are applied correctly across all touchpoints. This includes developing corporate identity guidelines that define logo usage, color schemes, typography, and more. These guidelines act as a playbook for internal and external collaborators, ensuring your brand looks cohesive and professional no matter where it appears.
From ensuring your logo appears correctly in a magazine ad to overseeing the production of promotional materials, I act as an advocate for your brand, protecting it from inconsistencies and ensuring it always shines.
Your organization's evolving brand
While consistency is essential, your brand must also grow with your organization. Over time, markets shift, audiences evolve, and companies expand into new industries. A skilled designer understands how to adapt a corporate identity to reflect these changes without losing the core essence of the brand.
Whether it’s refreshing an aging logo, adding new design elements for digital platforms, or scaling the brand for a broader audience, I approach every update with care. Gradual, strategic adjustments ensure your brand evolves seamlessly, maintaining its professionalism and impact.
Tailoring corporate identity to your needs
Branding packages
Corporate identity encompasses a diverse range of products and services, making it challenging for many clients to clearly define and communicate their branding needs to a designer—whether they require a single element or a comprehensive suite of solutions. I’ve found that these are the common groupings.
Logo OnlyFor startups or individuals on a tight budget, a logo can serve as the foundation of their brand. While simple, it’s a powerful first step.
Basic Includes a logo, business cards, letterhead, and other essentials. Often, additional elements like presentation templates or notepads are added based on the client’s needs.
Marketing Package A comprehensive set of materials that includes marketing-focused assets like sales sheets, white papers, ads, and infographics. These are designed to reflect the brand’s identity across both print and digital platforms.
Special Projects From trade show displays to vehicle wraps, these one-off projects require seamless integration with the existing brand.
Branding stages
Many clients find it beneficial to start with a basic corporate identity and add new elements as their needs evolve. This approach ensures that each piece is created with purpose, avoiding wasted effort on assets that may never be used. It also allows the brand to grow naturally, adapting to new opportunities and challenges.
Let's build your brand!
Your corporate identity is the cornerstone of your organization’s success. Whether you’re starting from scratch, refreshing an outdated brand, or scaling an existing identity, I bring the expertise, creativity, and dedication to make your vision a reality.
Your corporate logo is your company’s first impression to prospective clients and customers. First impressions are hard to overcome, and most of the time you won’t be there to try.
It is crucial that a seasoned pro with tons of branding experience leads you through the process. And that’s where I come in.
With more than 60 companies of all sizes branded and rebranded from the corporate logo design to everything that comes afterwards, you can trust that I know the pitfalls and opportunities presented in this very important time in a company’s evolution.
Contents
EVALUATING YOUR CURRENT CORPORATE LOGO
The first step is to detach as much as possible from any personal feelings or other connections you may have with your current corporate logo design, to look at it with new eyes, to look at it as much as possible like your clients and customers will be looking at it. If you’re unable to, try to ask a handful of strangers, people who don’t know you or the company, what their impressions are of the company that this logo represetnts.
Don’t lead them. Ask them things like, “How big do you think this company is?” “How long do you think this company has been in business?” “Is this a foreign or a domestic company?” “What business do you think this company is in?” and “Is this company still in business?” Some or all of their answers might shock you. Just try to go in expecting the worst, because most company logos can use improvement. You’re not alone.
Not all of the logos below in my design portfolio tell specifically what each business does, but all of them tell a client or customer that there is a certain level of sophistication. They all impart a clear mood or tone of the company’s business. They all indicate that the companies are probably current, not decades old. And they all communicate a certain proficiency and confidence in what they do.
So now you’ve either seen it or seen it through strangers’ eyes and you understand it’s time for a change. But how can you transition your company into the next phase without that logo that’s meant so much to you?
Maybe you scratched it out on a napkin during a special, inspired moment when you were first starting out. Maybe your favorite niece was an artists and you were proud to let her create it. Maybe initially you didn’t have any money to do it right. Whatever the reason, you owe it to yourself to hold that old logo in your memory, but to move on. You, your employees, and your company’s success depends on it more than you can imagine.
YOUR CORPORATE LOGO’S REACH
In addition to being your company’s first impression, your corporate logo design has a wider reach than you might imagine.
Every design decision you will every make for your company, must relate in some way to the corporate logo, from the color of your trade show booth, to the orientation of your logo on vertical banners, how small it can appear at low resolution. It informs what your business cards look like, your sales sheets, your brick and mortar signage, your website, your app, your company vehicles, and a never-ending continuing list.
Additionally, your new corporate logo has the power to create whatever image in your clients’ or customers’ minds. If you’re a 10-person shop, an improved corporate logo can suggest that you could be a 100-person operation. What I try to do when creating a corporate logo is identify what the perfect business in your area of expertise would look like, what tone they would set, what reaction they are trying to elicit, and work from there.
Now Is Always time to evaluate your CORPORATE LOGO
So again, decouple your emotions from your current corporate logo. I’ll help you right your ship, using the wisdom and guidance I’ve gained over my years as a a professional designer who has done this hugely important work successfully dozens of times before.
Graphic design for UX/UI, Websites, Print, and Digital
From a technical perspective, print and digital design are differentiated by units, resolutions, and types of output. Print is designed in points and picas, sometimes inches and millimeters: web is designed in pixels. Print output has always fallen in the 100-600 pixels per inch (ppi), depending upon the need, where digital output is wholly dependent upon the size of the screen on which it is being viewed—72 to nearly 600 ppi as of this post. Print is mostly PDFs with the occasional exception, while digital is wide open with a plethora of vector to raster file types. From a client/partner’s perspective it’s all about how the end user will view and/or use the designed product. Will the customer be holding it or will he/she be viewing it from 1000 feet away? Will they need to be prompted to call/email or will they be clicking it, etc. [See Related Services on this page for a breakdown of the types of work associated with each of these design categories, including links to portfolios showcasing some of the work Company Man Design has done.]
Print vs Digital
Whether considering print design and digital design jobs, the distinction between the two is largely irrelevant. A designer either has or doesn’t have enough experience to be confident designing certain rare or complicated types of work. In the end, good design is good design.
Good Graphic Design Is Good Graphic Design
The check list of design is fairly, almost surprisingly, small:
There’s a design space (even if that design space is flexible as with responsive websites)
There are client/partner goals and requirements—target demographic, message and tone, branding elements, and text and imagery
There is a clear call-to-action (or multiple ones)
And there are vendor, publication, and/or other output considerations—screen, print, and (in the case of copy and scripting) broadcast
But, again, it’s all design. The designer takes all the requirements (and recognizes and alerts you to to any that may be missing) and creates an effective piece, meaning one that is well-designed, is strongly-messaged, and that is presented to the correct target demographic at the right time and in the most accessible and user-friendly medium to ensure a business-positive action on their part.
Sounds simple, right?
Eggs and Baskets
Though we’ve established that it’s not a competition between print and digital, that’s not to say that one is better than the other FOR YOU. Even then, the choice usually isn’t a stark one of one or the other; rather, it’s a matter of how much marketing emphasis should be assigned at a particular time. Some clients may gain more general benefit from print or vice versa, but usually the distribution of resources is on a case-by-case or campaign-by-campaign basis. Over the last six years of our relationship with one of our longest-standing clients, there are been phases where we focused nearly 100% of our efforts on print. At other times, that same client’s focus was split 50/50 between print and digital efforts. They upped their digital game leading up to trade shows and other events, when they were in the midst of relocating their home office, and each time they have expanded into new markets. All the while, print has proceeded at the same pace.
Company Man Design has experience designing nearly all types of work all channels: print, digital, and web. Additionally, we are uniquely experienced to aid your organization in making these important choices is how to most wisely distribute your marketing resources.
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