Way back in January, I started on the brand identity for Creative, She Wrote and it's come such a long way since. I'm so thrilled with how it's evolved and this one definitely has a special place in my heart as one of my first projects while out on my own. I'm ready to dig deep into the process here, but first let's talk about how collaboration took this one the extra mile. 

If you follow me just about anywhere on the internet, you're probably aware that I'm heading to Creative South later this week. This will be my first design conference so I'm pumped beyond belief and can't help mentioning it any chance I get. Knowing that I'll be meeting a lot of internet friends and cool creatives there, I wanted to create some brand swag for them to remember me by.

I started by designing some seriously spiffy business cards (more on those soon), but I wanted to make something else with more widespread appeal. I knew people wouldn't be so interested in plastering something with my name all over their possessions, so I chose to make something awesome and channel my brand into this swag in a more subtle way.

More Than a Promo

When you're creating brand swag, it's important to step out of your own shoes for a minute. Forget about your own opinions and consider what would really strike a chord with your audience. What would they find useful or cool?

Personally, I had 4 goals for my brand swag, which you can apply when you're creating a new piece of collateral for your own brand.