During my last fall quarter of college, I developed a personal brand called 'JustCasper Consulting' where I can showcase my skills and creativity as a marketer. The first step of this process was creating a creative brief filled with my brand's purpose, values, objectives, and other various brand elements. The best part of the creative brief was designing all my brand elements. I got to look at color palettes, pick between fonts, design a logo, and create a tagline.
My first step in creating these elements was to choose my colors. I initially landed on many colors that reflect my personality: green, a couple of blues, a tan, and a coffee brown.
Then, after designing with those colors for a while, I decided that I wasn't using the green very much, so I decided to scrap it. Changing things to something else wasn't challenging, as Canva allowed me to change everything from green to another color with one simple click. Once I got rid of the darker green, I realized that my colors still weren't quite right, so I decided to switch my brown to a cooler brown that fits better with my remaining colors.
After figuring out my colors, I moved on to my fonts, where I had many different options, and I decided on Lato for my headings and Montserrat for my smaller text. I was happy with this for a long time until I became more aware of it online and noticed it everywhere. I wanted something a little bolder, and not my school's font. This is how I got to where I am now with League Spartan as my big font, and then I found a font that looks similar to a font from a video game that I like called "Animal Crossing" for my body font.
Next Up is the biggest thing to a brand: my logo! I have been waiting for this since I started designing my brand. Since it started, I knew I wanted to incorporate Casper the Ghost into my brand. I come from a family of small business owners; my mother and grandfather both started companies, including Casper in the logo, so I knew I had to follow tradition and create my version.
My design started rocky. It took me many tries to get it to where it is today, trying to keep tradition while making it my own. I couldn't find the right combination of elements, and I was ready to give up until I made random drawings on napkins and found the one you see today.
If you have not noticed by now, there is a pattern to all this. Your first try won't be perfect, but as long as you don't make your first try your last try, that's okay. Stick with it and keep tweaking things until you find what you like. If your first try is just a shitty first draft, that's what a first draft is meant to be. Don't hold everything else up trying to make it perfect. Go back and tweak what you have when you think of a new idea. Most of my inspiration came from working on the rest of my brand. It would have never gotten to where it is now if I had stopped and sat there until I had made it perfect. Deliver value early and often don't wait for perfection; it will come when the time is right.
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