Why I Love the One-Concept Approach for Branding Design
What is the One-Concept Approach?
The one-concept approach is a streamlined, focused design process where I deliver a single, thoughtfully crafted brand identity that’s perfectly aligned with your vision, goals, and target audience. The one-concept approach removes the guesswork of choosing between multiple options and allows for more time to be spent fully developing the best concept - ensuring a cohesive, authentic design that’s rooted in strategy.
Only one design? Shouldn’t I get more?
Actually, you are getting more. More focus. More strategy. More depth.
Instead of spending the bulk of the time designing and refining multiple ideas, the one-concept approach means that more energy is put into the project up front - learning about your background, goals, and values, identifying your target audience, and doing industry research to create a solid brand strategy and creative direction that will guide every design decision.
Instead of showing you three or four logos on a blank page and asking you to choose between them, you’ll see a fully realized brand identity—complete with a color palette, fonts, and logo variations that are all anchored in the brand strategy we worked together to create. You’ll see how each design choice reflects the strategy, as well as how your brand identity will look in real-world applications to help you envision the possibilities for how it can be used.
Here are 4 Reasons I Love the One-Concept Approach
#1 Collaboration
From the start, we’ll work together to build a solid foundation that clearly outlines your vision, goals, target audience, and position in the industry. Combining your insights with my research will help clarify what makes your brand unique and help us decide upon a clear creative direction. With this groundwork set, I’ll present one carefully polished concept, and if further refinements are needed we’ll work together to discuss how they might be incorporated to best reflect the brand strategy.
#2: A More Focused Design Process
In the past, designing multiple concepts often meant I’d have a clear favorite—the one I felt was the strongest. But then I’d be crossing my fingers, hoping the client would choose it, which didn’t always happen!
Now, with the one-concept approach, we invest more time upfront, carefully laying the groundwork and deciding on a clear strategy before I even start sketching. This process leads to a more focused design phase, resulting in a single, refined direction that truly reflects your brand.
#3: No Overwhelming Choices
Have you ever opened Netflix and spent so long scrolling that you didn’t end up watching anything at all? Having too many choices can be overwhelming.
It’s the same with design: when you’re presented with 3 or 4 different concepts, it can be really hard to decide which one is right for your brand. You might be drawn to the design that grabs your attention first or that your friends and family like best, but really, the choice should be based on how well the design resonates with your target audience and and how it reflects your goals and values.
In fact, I feel like it’s unfair to put that choice entirely on the client’s plate. It can be challenging to step back from personal preferences and be objective. It makes much more sense for me as the designer to use my experience and expertise to narrow down the options ahead of time and present one solid, carefully-crafted design that best aligns with your brand’s creative direction and strategy.
#4: No Frankenstein Designs
If you’ve ever worked with a graphic designer before, you may have been shown multiple designs and asked to choose between them. But what if you like elements of each? Suddenly, the designer shifts from creative director to pixel pusher, piecing together a Frankenstein-ed design that lacks both focus and direction.
When a design is stitched together with bits from various concepts, it loses the cohesive vision that should anchor your brand. Instead, you end up with a mismatched patchwork that feels confusing and watered down. This usually leads to more revisions and wasted time that could’ve been spent further developing the full brand identity system.
With the one-concept approach, I present a single idea and refine it if needed. This way, the result is an intentional and authentic reflection of your brand, and not a scary, mix-and-match compromise.
To Sum it Up: A Focused Process that Leads to Meaningful Results
I love the one-concept approach to branding because it’s all about focusing in on an intentional design that truly reflects who you are and what your brand stands for. By collaborating upfront and setting a clear creative direction, we can avoid the overwhelm of choosing between multiple options and instead concentrate on one design that’s authentic and rooted in strategy. With this approach, you end up with a brand identity that’s not only beautiful but also designed to connect with your audience in a meaningful way.
