In this episode of The One Life Podcast, we’re kicking off part 1 of a 3-part series with the amazing Anna Douglas—brand designer, creative community builder, and former fashion freelancer.
In this conversation you will discover the power of effective branding for coaches, course creators, solopreneurs and freelancers. Anna really knows how to turn ideas into visual IMPACT!
She breaks down the essentials of brand strategy and visual identity and gives valuable tips for service-based businesses you can use today. If you’re a solopreneur or creative who wants your brand to connect authentically, build trust, and make your business unforgettable then this episode is a must-listen!
💡Episode Highlights:
- The #1 branding mistake that could be stalling your business—and how to sidestep it
- Step-by-step guidance for building a brand identity that helps clients feel seen and valued
- The game-changing tool Anna swears by for DIY branding consistency—and why it’s her go-to
- Practical, no-fluff tips on making your brand a true reflection of your mission
🤔We’d love to hear your top takeaways from this episode! What’s one thing that you will do differently to enhance your brand? And don’t miss Part 2 next week, where Anna shares how she’s blown her own mind by stepping out of her comfort zone to create something extraordinary.
Transcript – (please note this has kindly been produced by the fabulous ChatGPT and has not been checked for accuracy!)
Ali: I am delighted to welcome Anna Douglas to the podcast today. Anna is a brand designer, a creative community builder, and a former fashion freelancer—which, as it turns out, is a bit of a tongue twister! She is an inspirational woman who decides what she wants to do and then makes it happen. And most importantly, she is a dear friend of mine. So welcome, Anna. Thank you so much for coming today.
Anna: Thank you! I’m so excited to be on this podcast.
Ali: Yes, so let’s get straight into it because your forte and specialism is all about branding. And I feel like that’s one of those words where I kind of know what it means, but also kind of not too sure. Like, if you were to ask me to describe it, it would become clear that I wouldn’t really know what it means. So can you explain what branding is and why it is important for businesses?
Anna: Yeah, I think a lot of people don’t really know what it is. A lot of people that aren’t in the branding world think it’s just one thing—like a logo. But I like to think of it as two different parts: there’s brand strategy and brand identity. The brand strategy is really important and usually comes before the brand identity. I always do it before because it’s basically the big “why” and the reason behind your business. It’s the vision, the mission, all your values, what you as a business owner bring to the brand, everything from ideal clients to competitors. It’s a huge bit of work to do, but if you do a really good job, then you’re going to get really good branding.
After this comes the visual identity, which is putting all of these words into actual images and logos and brand patterns, colors, typography—everything like that. So every brand identity decision is based off the brand strategy. It’s quite complicated to explain.
Ali: No, I think I understand what you’re saying there. Actually, the brand strategy is almost the fundamentals of the business. I guess the thing that I struggle with is the identity and the visual bit. I feel like I’m much more of a word person, and I can be like, “Oh yeah, I know my ideal customers,” and I can do this. But when it comes to translating that into an actual thing that is visual, that’s where I personally really struggle.
Anna: Yeah, and I think if you have a clear brand strategy, you’ll be able to design better. For example, if someone’s business is all about empowerment and being really confident and bold, you might have bolder graphics on social media posts. Whereas if it’s more about being calm, like a yoga studio or meditation studio, you might have more of a minimal vibe. So it just helps with those decisions when you’re designing.
Ali: That’s true. And as soon as you said yoga, it brought to mind loads of different yoga Instagrams and how they all have that lovely, flowy vibe. Whereas if it were me, I’d just be like, “Well, I like orange and pink, so let’s just do orange and pink.” So I see why it is important because it actually communicates something about your business to the customer. So how come you got into brand design in the first place?
Anna: Well, like you said at the start, I was a fashion freelancer. I was a fashion designer for about eight or nine years. And it was while I was freelancing that I realized I just didn’t enjoy it. I was getting clients, and instead of being excited, I was like, “Oh, I’ve got this to do,” and stuff like that. I wondered why I was feeling like this. I don’t know how old I was—maybe 26 or 28, something like that. I realized it just wasn’t creative; it didn’t give me the creative outlet that I wanted. It was very much like a client would come to me and say, “Can you design a T-shirt similar to this?” There was hardly any creativity in it.
So I’d done a bit of graphic design and branding by myself before, so I tried to go into that by creating a portfolio of what I had done and going for interviews, but I wasn’t getting any leads—no one was emailing me back or anything like that. So then I decided I probably needed to retrain as a brand designer. So I did a very intense three-month course at an education platform called Shillington, which was really, really fun. I really enjoyed it, and it was there where I realized I absolutely loved design and it was something that I really wanted to do and was good at as well.
Ali: Awesome. That’s so cool. So it was an intensive course. What were the next steps? Were you just like, “Right, I’m going to market myself as a brand designer now”?
Anna: I decided to get a job—a full-time graphic design job—which I really loved. It was really fun, and I wanted to get a job so I knew what it was like in the industry. It was a startup, so when I started, there were like 20 people there, and when I left, there were about a hundred. So I got to do a wide range of stuff. But now I’m freelance, and I love being freelance.
Ali: What are some common branding myths or misconceptions that you see?
Anna: The biggest one is probably people who think they just need a logo and that branding is literally just your logo. The amount of people who say, “Oh no, I don’t want that. I just want a logo,” is quite high. But the logo is a very small part of your brand. If you have a good logo but don’t have a good message or supporting graphics like your website, brand patterns, and everything like that, then your logo isn’t going to do anything. It’s not going to get you the clients that you want. So you really do need a brand strategy to help build your brand.
Another thing is that people come to me and say, “Oh, I’ve got a logo idea. I really like this leaf that I’ve seen on Pinterest,” or something like that. And if it doesn’t relate to your ideal clients or your brand strategy, then it’s not going to help you at all.
Ali: That’s like me: “Make it pink and orange. This is really pretty, and I saw it and it’s really nice.” Thank you.
Anna: Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t. I always take into consideration what the client wants as well. A lot of designers won’t. I’m working with a woman at the moment, and she said she wants this specific thing, but I’ve kind of turned it around and made it more her own. If you’re a client and you’re like, “Oh, I want this,” and the designer is like, “No, you’re not having that,” then you’re not going to love the brand. You need to have something that you love. But it’s just about tweaking it and making it your own instead of just being like, “Okay, yeah, leaf,” or whatever it is.
Ali: I can see that’s a real skill there—still taking the essence of what the business owner wants and then making it into something that’s cohesive and makes sense. Okay, then what makes a good brand? What kind of things do you think about when you’re like, “Yeah, this is what I’m aiming for,” or “This is what I see in other brands”?
Anna: I think a good brand really thinks about their customer and how their customer feels, and how they can connect with their customer all the way through the customer journey. For example, with you, you might think a customer might come to you right at the start and be really frustrated because they’re not productive or they’re trying to get their head around this mindset issue, and they’re really frustrated. They want to come to you and feel understood. So you might be like, “Oh, I really understand the frustration. This is how I felt,” and stuff like that. If they came to you and straight away you were like, “My mindset’s perfect,” they’re going to feel not connected because that’s unachievable for them. But if they came to you and you were like, “Look, I understand how you feel,” then as they work through the journey, your message will match their emotions. So by the end, you’ll be like, “My mindset’s amazing,” or whatever it is.
Ali: Just say that again—your message will match…?
Anna: Your message will match your customer’s emotions.
Ali: Right.
Anna: So at the start of your customer’s journey, they’re going to be very frustrated because their mind is not in a good place. For example, if they’re anxious about their business, they’re going to be very frustrated. Whereas if you’re straight away like, “Oh, your mindset needs to be amazing,” they’re going to feel a disconnection. Whereas if you’re like, “Look, I understand. I’ve been there. This is my experience, but this is how I’ve turned it around,” they’re going to feel more of a connection because they’ll think, “Ali’s been in that place.” And then as they get to—if they hire you as a coach—you can then change your message to be like, “Oh, you’re taking the steps, well done,” and stuff like that, increasing the emotion as the journey progresses.
Ali: I see. So it’s very much more responsive almost to the client’s needs. Okay.
Anna: And at the end, their mindset will have changed, and you can be like, “Yay!”
Ali: Okay, I feel like I went deeper in my brain there. You saw me thinking, trying to understand.
Anna: Basically, a good brand has a huge understanding of their customer.
Ali: Interesting. I guess there are some similarities with coaching then, because I’m not trying to understand you; I guess I’m helping you understand your situation. I imagine there are similar skills that come with branding. So in addition to all the design things, I’m guessing you’re a really good listener, able to take what people are saying and really reflect that back to them—but instead of what I would do as a coach in words, you’d reflect it back in visuals. Oh, that’s really cool.
Anna: Exactly.
Ali: Ah, that definitely made me think. So in terms of women-based service businesses, are there any challenges that you think they face specifically when it comes to branding? Because I think that’s something that you niche into, isn’t it? Kind of women’s services. So yeah, what are the challenges around that?
Anna: I don’t know about all women, but the majority of women that I work with don’t feel confident with their branding. They don’t feel excited about their branding or in love with their branding, which has more of an effect than you’d realize. If you have branding that you’re a bit like, “Oh, it’s all right, it’s not the best,” you’re not going to be as confident when you’re showing up as if you had branding that you absolutely loved. You’d want to show it off; you’d want to post about it and post about your business all the time. So it does have a huge effect having branding that you love in comparison to branding that is just okay for you.
Ali: That’s so true, and I definitely resonate with some of that because I haven’t worked with a brand designer. I haven’t worked with you, unfortunately, Anna. So my branding has been very much self-exploration via Canva. And there are some times that you make things, and it’s just not at all how you want it to be; it’s not cohesive. And there’s definitely that reluctance to put yourself out there because you’re not proud of it, and it’s frustrating as well because you then think it reflects poorly on yourself as a business. There’s almost that proxy that someone uses: if something looks really good, well, then they also must be really professional and really competent.
Anna: Yeah, I get what you mean.
Ali: Yeah, clearly I should be booking in a branding strategy session now! So I know you said a little bit before about going deep into talking to your client and understanding them, but can you just go a bit deeper into how you would start your process in working with a client? How you would translate their ideas into visuals, into a brand?
Anna: So yeah, I start with brand strategy. I always want to make my client feel really involved in the process so there is that connection there. So first of all, I’d send them a questionnaire just to get them to think about what their business is about. There are a few questions in that. And then once they’ve done that, I would have a call with them and workshop a bit more into that. I might ask them a few questions that would really unlock more answers about what it is I need to know about their brand.
Towards the end, once this has happened, I usually end up feeling like I’m part of their business, which is really fun. I love it when that happens. And then after that, I would go away and figure out their brand strategy and put it all into words that really relate to them and build that connection. So I would look at their ideal clients, their competitors, all the answers that they’ve given me, and build this big brand strategy presentation, which I then present to them. They would either say they love it or there’d be some things they want to change. I always love it when people change stuff because it makes me realize that they really know their brand and that they feel more connected to it. Whereas if people are like, “Oh yeah, I love it, it’s fine,” I’d be like, “Yeah, but is it really what you want?”
So after that’s completely done, I then use that to design the visual identity. I love sketching out first instead of just going straight to the computer, which is really fun. I have a sketchbook full of random sketches. I start with the logo, go with the typography, the color palettes, stuff like that. And once everything’s done, I would then again send that over in a presentation, see if they have any comments or changes and stuff. And then eventually it would be finished, and everything would be sent over, and I’d send a little “how to use your brand” guide so everyone is on the same page.
Ali: So it’s a really participative, back-and-forth process. And I can see as well that it’s something that isn’t just a one-time thing; the business would then carry it with them through, I’m guessing, their social media, through any communications and stuff that they’re doing.
Anna: Yes. So it’s really important to have this “how to use your brand” guideline thing at the end, because if they hire a social media manager or a presentation designer or something, they already know how to use their brand. So it is very cohesive across everything, no matter who does it.
Ali: And then for people who are not very visually branding-oriented, what’s one tip that you would say to someone like myself to help improve their brand cohesiveness and brand design, other than, of course, hiring yourself? But yeah, what’s one thing you would say would be helpful?
Anna: So a lot of designers won’t like this, but I absolutely love Canva. I use it all the time for my clients and stuff because I love something that makes my clients’ lives easier. So if I can say, “You can actually design this template in Canva,” then that’s fine. I would say don’t use it for logos because there’s a lot of issues with copyright and people might have similar logos and stuff like that. Unless you’ve completely designed it yourself in Canva. Is that right? Or have you used a template for yours?
Ali: For our logo?
Anna: Mm-hmm.
Ali: It’s self-designed, I think with a bit of help there. I don’t even know. It definitely needs an update. It’s just some text with some orange, like I say.
Anna: I mean, it is fine, but I would use it more for templates. Once you have your brand identity that you love, then put that into Canva. And I wouldn’t really go for the templates that are already there. I would use them as starting points but then really change it to make it your own. Because half the time I’m scrolling Instagram and I’m like, “Oh, that’s that template from Canva, that’s that template.” I’ve seen them all before. So really make it your own, but you can create your own templates so you don’t have to redesign all the time. But yeah, it is a good tool to keep consistent and stuff like that.
Ali: That is a top tip. Thank you. Okay, so last question in terms of branding: Is there a business that you would love to rebrand and why?
Anna: There’s not a specific business, but I love to work with brands that I have an interest in. I would love to work with health and wellness brands because I get very involved. So I always love doing stuff that I have an interest in. So yeah, health and wellness brands, yoga brands. I would love to work with pet brands. I’d love to rebrand a café, actually.
Ali: Ah, okay.
Anna: Yeah, that would be really fun.
Ali: Yes, I think that would be a challenge. For some reason, all I’m thinking of is sometimes you have cafés and it’s like that proper WordArt with a little cup of coffee WordArt thing from Word, and you’re just like, I’m not really sure that is quite the vibe that you might be going for. But yeah, okay, fab. Well, thank you very much. That’s really, really helpful to get some of those expert tips and knowledge.
