In October 2022, I spent 7 weeks collaborating with a DTC founder who reached out to design the brand for a new (yet unnamed) idea he had: a DTC sexual lubricant product targeted specifically to men.
“Stellar! This is just what was needed to get this thing off the ground.”
-Jeremy Watson, Founder & Fellō nice guy
What I delivered for Fellō
Requirements
As communicated by the client, the objective of this engagement was:
Brand and product naming
Voice and copy
Design language
The intention behind this branding exercise is to launch a MVP for testing with audiences. We will be refining this brand in the future based on those learnings.
Deliverables
Brand name
Messaging
Brand straplines
Marketing headlines
Logo
Design language
Ad mockups
30 page brand guidelines document
Design artifacts
Curated stock library
Packaging mockups
Process
I worked collaboratively with the client to see his vision come to life. It was incredibly exciting to have been invited into this adventure before it was even named. I feel that the Fellō name and logo will be some of my proudest work as a brand champion.
Because I used Figma as our home base, the client was able to peek into the process at any point and provide feedback.
Workshopping
The first part of my branding process is workshopping with my client to quickly get on the same page.
We worked remotely through a series of discussions and activities that I lead to help the client organize their thoughts and make complex things simple to set us on the right path in our branding adventure.
The results of these activities help to form the foundation for the brand’s values, persona, and pillars.
Naming
As a brand person, I’m often invited into the process a bit later than I’d like; inviting me in before the brand was even named was a smart choice on the client’s part.
My process for naming Fellō started with a brain dump of bad names. With those out of the way, I focused on single words associated with the product, the industry, and the customer.
Fellow stood out as a front-runner to the team, so we then played with different ways to spell fellow, checked for other brands with the same name, URLs, and social media handles. The macron (line) above the ō came as a suggestion from the client in the logo design phase.
Logo
The Fellō logo was created in partnership with my design partner Duncan Millar. It’s a beautiful expression based on the chosen brand font, Poppins.
If you look close enough (which we always do), most typefaces have mistakes in them. So the Fellō logo started with Poppins and was customized to make the wordmark more bespoke and carefully designed.
The first two letters of the logo form a ligature that can be used alone as a monogram. And I love this because Fe is iron on the periodic table and Fellō is a brand for men who find strength in kindness.
The macron (line) above the ō was added for some vertical balance and elegance.
Colors
A very important part of a design language is the color palette chosen to express brand values visually.
Choices about core and secondary color palettes can be base on:
Brand values
Emotions we want to evoke
Other brands in the space
Trends
Psychology and color science
The Fellō brand colors are a first draft to be tested with audiences and then refined.
Design Artifacts
I polished the Fellō brand design language with artifacts based on organic shapes, fluid lines and a visual taste of the product in real life.
Packaging
I delivered packaging concepts for two of the future Fellō products using renders of 3oz airless pumps.
Voice
As a wordsmith myself, tone of voice and brand copy are my favorite parts of the branding process.
I formed my brand tone recommendations for Fellō starting with the brand’s values and persona, digging into how those would be expressed as personality traits and then imagining how an individual with those traits would speak to others.
Documentation
Whether you call it a book, a bible, or guidelines, the brand book is foundational collateral that will be referred to for the life of a business.
I pulled all of the work together into a 30 page document that canonizes the Fellō brand and exists to help people align in the future.
While these documents existing is a great start, they can either collect dust or be used to evolve the brand further. This will really depend on the person entrusted to be the brand champion or curator.
