'Just make it look nice' is one of the hardest briefs for any designer to work with — not because nice designs are hard to make, but because 'nice' means something different for every brand. Deciding your brand basics first makes every later design decision faster and more consistent.
Start with 2-3 words that describe your shop
Playful and affordable? Premium and minimal? Warm and family-run? These few words guide every visual decision that follows — a 'premium and minimal' brand and a 'playful and affordable' brand should look nothing alike, even selling the same product category.
Lock in 2-3 brand colors
A consistent, limited color palette used everywhere — packaging, social posts, website — builds recognition over time. Changing colors every few months resets that recognition back to zero.
A simple, legible logo
A logo doesn't need to be elaborate — it needs to be recognizable at a small size (a favicon, a social profile picture) and legible even in one color. Complex logos with fine detail often break down at these smaller sizes.
Skipping this step doesn't save time — it just moves the same decisions later into the website design phase, where changing your mind costs more.
If you don't have brand basics locked in yet, we help sort this out as the first step of any design project — before a single mockup is drawn.