Find the best branding agency in Los Angeles, CA (LA) for your startup, B2B, SMB, enterprise or SaaS project.
UPDATED: September 1, 2020
Designing brands is very complex and multidisciplinary skill. It is related to visual expression, brand personality, and many other aspects that eventually help to create a great first impression and experience with the brand. It works for both growing tech startups or established brands. They need to have a clear image to stand out and grow. To make it right, a business owner should clearly define a goal and choose the right partner who can help achieve it.
1. Ramotion
Ramotion is a design firm focused on marketing websites and branding.
? ramotion.com
?Los Angeles, CA
? Top clientsMozilla, Cellebrite, MYKI
Online portfolio? Dribbble ?? B?hance ? Github
Social networks? Instagram ? Twitter ? Facebook
2. The Naming Group
The Naming Group is a leading global brand naming agency based in Los Angeles that works primarily with large corporations to develop brand-wide naming strategies and the names that drive them.
? thenaminggroup.com
?Los Angeles, CA
? Top clientsCapital One, General Motors, Reebok
3. TLK Fusion
Branding agency specialize in Celebrity Alignments and is known throughout celebrity circles for their ability to generate positive attention and bring reputable products and influencers together for everyone?s benefit.
? tlkfusion.com
?Los Angeles, CA
? Top clientsLoreal, Colgate, Adidas
Social networks?Instagram ?Twitter
4. Startup Branding Agency
Design firm experienced in brand identity, brand strategy and marketing websites for growing startups.
? startup-branding
?Los Angeles, CA ??
?Top clientsVolusion, Truebill, Descript
5. Use All Five
Use All Five is a strategy-driven design and technology studio based in Los Angeles.
? useallfive.com
?Los Angeles, CA
? Top clientsGoogle, Spotify, UCLAOnline portfolio ?? B?hanceSocial networks? Instagram ? Twitter
6. Herman-Scheer
Herman-Scheer is a brand studio and launch partner ? we?re informed by research and strategy
? herman-scheer.com
?Los Angeles, CA
? Top clientsHBA, Alfred, FacileSocial networks? Instagram
To hire the right design agency, you need to know some key steps that they usually take to design a brand:
Who is your company? What drives your business? Why do, or should, your customers come to you instead of the competition? Brand identity is far more than just a logo and a signature color. It reflects the essential reason for being, the passion, the cause fueled your company into existence. When tackling a brand identity project, the process must go deeper as well. Here are the key steps to designing a true brand identity.
https://www.ogilvy.com/uploads/O18_RED_PAPER_WhatsTheBigIdeaL.pdf
Plan and Scope
Before jumping into the fun stuff, make a plan. Whether you are designing your own brand, work for a single company, or are designing for a client a clear plan that sets out expectations and a timeline will prevent surprises and keep your project on track.
What to Do
- Interview your client (internal, external, or just yourself) to learn what they want to accomplish and who they are as a business.
- Discuss what you?ll be delivering with your client. What are their expectations related to assets and goals in general?
- Logos, Iconography, other Graphics
- Colors and Mood
- Fonts and Typography
- Guides, libraries, and standards
What to Create
- Write down the agreed deliverables
- Timeline of tasks, deliverables, and checkpoints
Get Inspired
Armed with input from your client, you can start your research. You are looking for inspiration that will help you paint a portrait of the brand essence. One way to do this is through associations ? if it were a place, food, animal, fabric, profession what would it be. Then think about what elements evoke the same emotion as these common things. You should end up with a list of descriptors; For a luxury brand, this might be things like rich, sumptuous, and decadent. For an outdoor brand, it might be something more like rugged, tough, and durable. The service or product purpose should be at the heart of this exercise. It should speak to customers and evoke an immediate image of what the brand is and does.
What to Do
- Interview your client again and again as needed.
- Check out the competition, look for things that work and can be leveraged and things that could be used as differentiators.
- Browse sites like Dribble and Pinterest for mood boards and design projects that relate.
- Interview existing customers or review social media posts to see what they are saying about the brand already.
- Set up a checkpoint at the end of the phase to review deliverables and options with the client to narrow the direction for future steps.
What to Create
- A summary of the brand identity in words, descriptors, or images
- Mood boards
- Marketing strategy if your client hasn?t provided one
Dream Big
Once you and your client have selected one or two options from the inspiration step, start ideating and creating possible approaches. Draft logos, pick color schemes, and integrate more detail into the mood boards.
What to Do
- Sketch
- Brainstorm
- Discuss
- Do more research
- Present your two best concepts with mid-level detail to the client. Get feedback to either refine or iterate the concepts.
What to Create
- Drawings and draft graphics
- Concepts
- Color schemes
- Font pairings
Dig In
Your designs should be getting pretty well refined by this point. You get all your ideas out in the previous step, and now you will begin to really flesh out the concepts. Your concepts need to be distinct from anything else on the market, flexible enough to grow with the brand, and deliver on the personality of the company, product, or service.
What to Do
- Flesh out all deliverables agreed to in your scope for 2?3 concepts.
- Conduct the primary design review with your client to select one option for production or refinement. Pad your timeline to allow for rework if necessary.
What to Create
- Final graphics
- Draft style guides and design systems
- Select or create imagery
- Finalize colors, fonts, and other assets
Wrap it Up
In this final phase you complete any and all deliverables you agreed to in your scope. This is where all production-ready assets are created and handed off to your client for use.
What to Do
- Produce the assets and deliverables agreed to in your scope.
- Conduct a final design review with your client.
- Conduct a launch with key stakeholders if required based on the agreed scope of the project.
What to Create
- Final style guides, asset libraries, and design system
- Font sets
- Finalized graphic files with all variations agreed to
- Any other deliverables from websites to icons
Summary
Following these steps will help you manage your brand identity design project, keeping your clients informed and happy with the result. Your project should provide a complete package that represents the personality of the brand and speaks to its customers on a visceral, emotional level.
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