Re-branding Inspire UK
I’ve recently had the privilege of helping my business mentor and a dear friend of mine, Nikki Tapley, to bring her unique vision for her rebrand of Inspire UK (one of her businesses), to life, through my design business, Amanya Design. It’s been an epic project!
Nikki has been my mentor for several years now and having her input to develop my businesses has been absolutely invaluable. She excels where I struggle and having her advice, expertise and support has been the difference between me sinking or swimming. And she has been working hard to refine the brand of Inspire UK to align with her vision to help women in business in the UK – whether they are business owners, nonprofit founders, or professional working women – to increase their impact and income. You’ll find in Inspire a real blend of female entrepreneurs, founders and leaders, from all sorts of backgrounds, coming together in the supportive, friendly, like-minded membership communities, with masterminding, mentoring and networking opportunities. I have been part of the Inspire community for years and found it so amazing. Working life does not need to be lonely when you have people around you who get it, and you can help each other along the way.
You can check out my work and see the newly launched Inspire UK website here: www.inspireuk.org
And join the free Facebook community here: https://www.facebook.com/weareinspireuk
The Illustration Process
As a designer, I have done some illustrations over the years, but this was a big stretch to help create bespoke illustrations that explained all Nikki wanted to say and reflected her values and the importance of being inclusive for women of all ages and stages in their career journeys. We developed new logos, characters, icons, settings, imagery, and a totally new “hand drawn” brand look and feel, all designed to help explain all that Nikki wanted to share and reflecting the unique and personal nature of the support given to those who join Inspire. Despite it being a professionally organised and delivered membership, run by a professional woman, it’s the informality, fun and friendship that makes it special, so the illustrations are designed to reflect this.
Designed by hand using a Wacom tablet and Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, we developed the brand to share all of Nikki’s vision agreeing on the colours, fonts, style, mood and overall brand look and feel. Nikki and I developed how we were working together to the point where I knew what she would and wouldn’t like when discussing the website pages with website designer, and I was empowered to liaise directly with them during the project, due to that trust.
After a lot of hard work for all involved, the new branding has been launched, the new website is live, and the rebrand project is complete! We are all delighted with it, and the feedback has been excellent.
What do you think? Feel free to send me your comments if you’ve any feedback for us!
Intellectual Property Considerations
Sometimes issues come up with questions and queries after you have been working with someone that can be challenging if not addressed and clarified at the start. However, both Nikki and I are experienced in leading on branding and creative projects so this wasn’t an issue in this project!
Nikki is an experienced marketer (former in-house Head of Marketing, employed agency-side prior to that as well as in a consultant capacity, and also previously ran her own marketing agency). I am an IP specialist and experienced designer, having worked on lots of projects for many different clients. So we have both worked with many clients in different capacities over the decades.
Thanks to our insights, we were able to carefully address any potential areas needing clarification in our early discussions about the work, and ensured these were reflected contractually at the start, to make sure we each knew where we were. This has made the journey much clearer as a result.
Working with Nikki we made sure we got the foundations of our working agreement all sorted out from the beginning. This included:
1. The Intellectual Property ownership of the drawings, and how I could (and could not) share them after launching
2. Applying my working knowledge of IP to the project when actually creating the brand designs; I like to find images to inspire me online and in my creative process, and for this project I produced a high volume of custom brand illustrations, especially for the website. However I was very conscious to be mindful of which images I used, to ensure I did not infringe other’s work by doing so. I made sure I was using artwork that I was allowed to use as inspiration and use commercially too.
Want IP insights?
The IP knowledge that I share in my talks, courses, as well as in my work as a professional designer, is so valuable to business owners and creatives. It’s why I love to share it and am passionate about helping people protect their IP as well as ensuring they don’t accidentally get into trouble by infringing others IP rights.
Do give my socials a follow if you’d like to see more about Intellectual Property over at:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/amanya/
https://www.instagram.com/amanyaip/
or get in touch if you’d like my help! Want to know more about Inspire and check out the branding? If you are looking for a supportive community that you would like to be part of or you know of ladies that do, please take a look to see all that Inspire UK has to offer at www.inspireuk.org and who knows, maybe I’ll see you in the community!
Til next time,
Love Anna
You can see more about Amanya at my websites:
www.amanyaipcourses.com and www.amanyadesign.com.
For tips, advice and to get a peek into the adventures, be sure to hit the follow button!
