Hi, I’m Bonita.
Over the past 15 years, I’ve worked across design agencies, in-house for global companies, and as the sole brand designer in startups companies. As a result of my varied experience, I inherently know what makes a brand guidelines useful in practice for all design applications.
It’s so important that your brand has an identity that appeals to your customers AND a design system that works for brand and product design teams.
I aim to balance brand strategy with a collaborative creative approach - allowing me to produce robust outcomes, speedily. I love to work with brand strategy as a basis for my design thinking and concepts. Plus, everyone can access my live working document from day 1 – I’m happy to share daily updates, so we all go on the design journey together.
Previously
Creative Lead at Front of the Pack
Creative Lead at Paws
Digital Marketing Design Manager at Farfetch
Senior CRM Designer at ASOS
Skills
Branding
Brand Identities
Art + Video Direction
Illustration Direction
Brand Books
Investor Decks
Digital
Web Design
UX Design
Email
Digital Marketing
Display
Affiliates
Paid Social
Retargeting
Advertising
Events
Merchandise
Print
2D Materials
Packaging
Years of working within brand guidelines and designing them myself, has helped me understand the needs of both marketing and product design teams.
Let’s dive in.
Do any of these apply to you…?
Your brand was designed by a design agency. It looks great on paper, but your marketing & product design teams struggle applying it practically, for different reasons.
This happens all the time… Brand guidelines should be created in collaboration with the team using them, to make sure they are seamless to implement. The only way to be sure that a design system works, is to test it out on the trickiest examples, not just novelty visuals like homepages and bus stop ads. And most shockingly, a lot of brand guidelines don’t include a design system for the product design team.
Your brand is undergoing a fundamental shift in offering. None of your in-house designers are senior enough or don’t have the time to take on a complete brand refresh.
It can be daunting for designers who are entrenched in the everyday running of the business, to turn their hand on a full-on branding project. Having a new and objective design perspective is always helpful to a redesign process, and with my experience managing teams of designers, I enjoy getting the design team excited and hear their thoughts on the project too.
You’re a startup in the process of creating your brand. How thrilling! You need a brand that can evolve with you, as you’re not sure where the business will be in a year’s time.
Even if you can afford to get a design agency onboard, I’d say it’s most likely not worth it at the early stages of your brand. My time spent working in startups showed me how fast-paced the environment is, and being able to change things quickly was essential. You don’t want to tie yourself down to a brand you’re evolving day-to-day.
I once worked with an agency guidelines at the early stages of a startup, and it wasn’t useable so we completely changed it all. And the brand continued to evolve over the course of a year.
My approach
Getting the strategy right upfront makes the visual elements so much quicker to establish and a lot more successful in that it’s insights-led and customer-focused.
A collaborative approach always leads to a useful brand guidelines for all the teams using it, and a much more enjoyable process for all parties involved.
Brand Strategy
I relish working with brand managers to define the brand strategy, and would ideally be heavily involved in this process from the start of the project, if possible. If I’ve joined a project at a later stage, I usually spend a bit of time upfront getting to understand the brand as it is now, and where it wants to go next. I value all the details I can get with regards to customers, market insights, and really pinpointing what sets your brand apart from everyone else.
It’s good to have these areas nailed before starting any design work:
Vision
Purpose
Positioning structure
Personality
Tone of Voice
I thoroughly enjoy working closely with copywriters and I believe that copy should never be treated as separate to the design - they are equally important in getting the overall brand message across. A lot of my design ideas are routed in playing with words, and I usually contribute to the copywriter’s brief when I can.
Visual Guidelines
My design process is very collaborative and more of a personal journey for you and your team - it makes it much easier for you to get behind a brand that you’ve been heavily involved in creating.
These are the deliverables I usually include in a brand design or refresh, all communicated through the use of Figma (so you are involved the whole way and the files are developer-ready when handed over):
Brand strategy (preferably with a brand strategist)
Tone of voice (preferably with a brand strategist & copywriter)
Logo (design or redesign)
Colour system
Typography & CTAs
Icons
Illustration concepts and direction
Photography concepts and direction
Practical mockups - website, digital marketing, social, email, print, packaging
A Brand Book including all of the above produced in Canva.
All design systems and UX/UI design are produced in Figma so they are ready to be handed over to developers for coding.
What I Offer
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You don’t have a brand just yet, and want to start something from the ground up.
I can create design systems for design teams to roll with, or design and implement the rollout of your brand myself.
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You are undergoing a change in strategy or just want to refresh what you already have.
I can tweak what you already have or suggest totally new ways of approaching your brand and/or design system.
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You want to do some work on your brand but don’t want to be left with a brand guidelines that’s full of example photography and illustration.
I can offer access to the network of trusted contractors I have built over the years - such as brand strategists, photographers and illustrators.
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You just need a short-term solution to get the ball rolling.
I occasionally take on projects that include just one aspect of the branding package e.g. a stand-alone logo.
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You’re finding it challenging to get the most out of your creative teams.
I’ve worked in small teams, I’ve worked in big teams. I’ve hired teams, managed teams, coached designers, and worked cross-functionally with all sorts of design teams. That said, I can propose processes or advice to help create a thriving creative environment.
