How do you balance creativity with client branding?

If you want to understand the client's brand ask client's customers what they think about it, what experience they had with the product. Because sometimes brainstorming sessions in conference rooms may not always reflect the reality of the brand's perception.

Be careful of suggesting competitive brands if the client doesn't. They may not appreciate the comparison and might not want to think they're copying their competition.

Brand(ing) surrounds us and impacts our decisions I investigate the organization's branding project. It helps me see if there's a - thorough research into the product or service market - what challenges they are facing - opportunities they have This mapping exercise reveals - branding stage (just started, somewhat developed or well-established) Find requirements for the new engagement and plan where to go.

Clarify inportant working details up front including defining who will be involved with the project and how (on both teams), a reasonable amount of revisions to reduce back and forth, and a clear timeline for work and delivery for both sides.

I have experimented with “Spectrum of the design direction” On the left 👈 side Design concepts that are close to what the client has been doing. On the right ▶️ side What it could be - inspiration from design fiction exercise. But I am keeping it in the context of current needs. In the middle It could be a mix of (30:70, 60:40) Client Review sessions focused on improving the UX have better business outcomes. Educating clients on aligning UX designs and business outcomes through the feedback cycle 🔄 improves the design team’s value proposition.

Also consider what best practices mean for the client since theirs may defy general rules but work very well for their business. Testing should be part of the process anyway so you'll be able to see what actually works best. Use best practices, but keep an open mind.

I stress about assets driven approach to building a digital experience. Assets Library - brand guidelines - content (tone, and brand’s promise) - design system - component libraries - plugins Top 3 Benefits - reusability - increased engineering velocity - pervasive user experience Decreased cost - for subsequent branding projects - for iterations - because of a systems approach

The personal touch is my favorite 🔖 part of the project. Keep in mind Brand’s Personality is a mix of - name - how it's delivered - pricing strategy - communication style - line of business For example A cloud-based security 🔐 company brings up images of - Networks - devices - infrastructure - information - cloud - connected - alert dog 🐕 Bring your personal touch with the context of the industry.

Quantify work using - Epics > Features > User stories > tasks Benefits are - divide epics by priority and time-box in the sprints - frequently release and build > test > iterate - identify epics with maximum business impact In some cases, I have also recommended running bi-model sprints. - innovation sprint - run the business sprint It helps in creating new ways of addressing the customer needs. Once tested with the actual users - queue them to run the business for production release

As aligned with the last step of the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle), maintenance tasks such as open-source regular updates, monitoring, analytics, and reliability, continuous improvements cycles can be created by feedback. Adaptability generated by feedback adjusts with the consumer's needs and requirements, increases satisfaction, and provides value in our product.