From Freelancer to Full-Blown Studio

Meet Nicole!

Nicole came to us as a freelance designer who, like many creatives, had started her business, grown it, and now needed to step back to get clarity on her brand. Up until then, Nicole hadn't done anything to strategically grow her business or reach her goals, so growth had levelled out, but now was the time to change that. Nicole's audience, services, voice, and positioning were all in need of a strategic approach that would make her dreams a reality, and she was looking for an outside perspective that would help her do that.

So we jumped in!

"Brand strategy is a really good way to understand your business offer, your audience from another lens. A lot of the time we are so stuck and inside, we can't collate the simple things, weather that be what our services are, who we are, what vibe we want to give off to our customers. It really helped me dive deep into a brand strategy with support the whole way through!" – Nicole

In-person understanding

While most of our workshops are done online, Nicole being in the same city as Hollie meant we were able to meet up in person! After a 60-minute kick-off call to understand Nicole's business, goals, and struggles, we tailor-made a workshop that would help us get to the core of her brand. We then met up for 3 hours (with snacks to fuel us of course!) and workshopped Nicole's brand together.

The workshop included conversations about Nicole's current positioning, where she wanted to go, who she wanted to work with, how she wanted to serve her clients, who she wanted to be, and more.

"I loved the workshop. It allowed myself and Hollie to really understand what I wanted to achieve. So this gave me heaps of confidence moving forward in the process. I gained a lot of trust there." – Nicole

A new name for a new direction

In the workshop, we discussed Nicole's goals to become a boutique design studio with around 5–8 employees in the next 5–10 years. But in order to reach that goal, her positioning needed to change. At the time, Nicole was known as a freelance designer, was using her own name, and was positioning herself as a one-person operation. To become known as a studio, it was important that we shifted this so Nicole could build her reputation as the boutique studio of her dreams.

This meant a name change that would support a position change, so that Nicole could start owning her studio status and building her reputation! So after collaboratively coming up with concepts, themes, words, and ideas, we pitched Studio True as the new name for Nicole's business.

And thankfully, she loved it!

"WOW. I'm actually so in love with the strategy! I'm really happy with the name, like really happy with it – feels so right! And it's very justified and usable!" – Nicole

We loved how applicable the name could be through copy too, with words like true, truly, truth, truthful, etc, and suggested these throughout the strategy. Nicole has since applied these snippets of copy that we wrote across things like her website, Instagram page and more.

Brand strategy in action

Once the strategy was delivered, it was time to implement. (With our support of course!)

The strategy that we worked on gave the biz 
its new name, and outlined Studio True’s personality, voice, visual direction, and more.

When Nicole sent through the designs & content she’d created for Studio True using the strategy we put together, there were audible gasps!

Nicole used the guidance on her brand’s personality, voice, visual direction, and more, to put together Studio True’s:

⭐️ visual identity
⭐️ imagery
⭐️ printed materials
⭐️ social profiles
⭐️ content strategy
⭐️ website
⭐️ and more!

Thanks to her brand strategy, Nicole had everything she needed to make sure the assets and content she was creating were aligned with her brand, consistent with her vision, and moving Studio True closer to their goals.

The support doesn't stop there

And she had Hollie on her side the whole way, providing feedback, advice, support, and cheerleading through Slack as she was implementing her brand strategy. We helped with the website design, content plan, launch strategy, and more.

“It was really awesome having Hollie there to talk to throughout the whole process. The on-going support after receiving the strategy was really beneficial for me so that's probably my favourite part! I'm so grateful I had Hollie by my side throughout the whole process! Her support is unmatched!!” – Nicole

What's next?

Since working together, Nicole has continued to apply her brand across her business, and share content that reaches her ideal audience. We can't wait to see what the future has in store for Studio True!

"Hollie helped me articulate my business' brand strategy, which i've never been able to do before! I have so much clarity on my new branding, messaging, offerings and audience." – Nicole