You can spend a surprisingly long time looking at other people’s businesses when you’re trying to work out how to present your own.
A little competitor research. A few saved websites. A Pinterest board that was supposed to provide direction and now contains six entirely different personalities.
Somewhere along the way, you start noticing what everybody else is doing. The colours that seem popular in your industry. The photography. The language. The particular style of website that apparently comes with the job.
And without quite meaning to, you begin treating those things as requirements.
If everyone established looks like that, perhaps you should too?
Well. Perhaps we should have a conversation before you order the beige.
Familiar can be useful. Interchangeable is less helpful.
There are sensible reasons businesses within the same industry share certain characteristics. Your audience needs to understand what you do, and familiar language or visual cues can help them find their bearings.
But there’s a point where looking appropriate becomes looking remarkably similar.
You could swap the names on three websites and barely notice. Everyone promises the same experience, uses the same phrases and seems to have selected their photographs from the same very peaceful afternoon.
Nothing is particularly wrong. There’s simply very little to remember.
That becomes a problem when you want someone to understand why they might choose you. If your presentation gives them few meaningful differences to work with, you’re leaving a lot for the introductory call to explain.
Assuming they book one.
The interesting details are often already there
When I’m designing a brand, I’m interested in the things another business couldn’t simply borrow and claim as its own.
That might be something in the founder’s background. A particular attitude towards their work. The experience they want clients to have, or a combination of qualities that doesn’t fit neatly into the usual industry description.
In the identity I created for celebrant Caron Warner, her South African roots gave us a personal reference through the protea. Alongside the lettering, monogram and colour palette, it became part of a visual identity with a clear connection to the person behind the business.
That’s the kind of detail I enjoy working with. There’s a reason for it to be there, and it gives the design something specific to build on.
You don’t need a dramatic life story to find those details, either. Often, something you consider quite ordinary about your business is precisely what someone else would value.
You’ve just been too close to it to notice.
Take a look here…
Personality needs a little judgement
Of course, having a personality doesn’t mean putting every part of yours into the brand.
Your clients probably don’t need a visual reference to your favourite holiday, your childhood pet and your strong feelings about supermarket self-checkouts. Some things can remain between you and the group chat.
The useful question is what a detail helps someone understand.
Does it communicate warmth? Precision? Independence? A sense of occasion? Does it support the kind of work you want to attract and the experience you intend to deliver?
That’s where judgement comes in. You choose what deserves emphasis, what can sit quietly in the background and what doesn’t need to appear at all.
A personal brand can still have boundaries. A distinctive business can still show restraint.
You’re allowed more than one quality
One of the quickest ways to flatten a brand is to decide it can only be one thing.
Professional, so nothing too expressive. Feminine, so everything must be delicate. Premium, so apparently we’re removing all evidence of warmth.
People are more interesting than that, and businesses can be too.
You can be thoughtful and direct. Elegant and confident. Highly experienced and easy to talk to. The combination is often where the character lives.
For Caron’s identity, the softer colours sit alongside deeper shades with more presence. That balance matters. It gives the design room to express different aspects of the business while still feeling connected.
The same applies to your words. You can explain something properly and still sound like a person. You can have an opinion without turning every caption into a confrontation.
There is quite a lot of room between corporate brochure and shouting on the internet.
Give people something they can recognise again
A distinctive identity becomes useful when you can carry it into the places your business actually appears.
Your website, proposals, social content and printed materials should give you opportunities to build recognition over time. That takes a set of design choices with enough range to work across different formats.
A logo alone has rather a lot of work to do if everything around it changes every week.
This is also why I’m careful about following trends too closely. Something can feel exciting because you’ve just discovered it, while already appearing across hundreds of other businesses.
Before adopting it, ask whether it suits you well enough to keep using once the novelty wears off.
Look for what you’ve been editing out
If your brand feels a little anonymous, have a look at the decisions you’ve made in the name of appearing professional.
Have you removed the language you’d naturally use? Chosen something safe because it felt easier to justify? Dismissed a direction you loved because nobody else in your industry was doing it?
There may have been good reasons. But those decisions deserve another look, particularly if they’ve left you with a business that feels strangely absent from its own marketing.
You’ve put too much into building it for the most memorable thing about it to be how closely it resembles somebody else’s.
If you’re ready for an identity with more of your business running through it, get in touch. I’d love to hear what you’re building.
Here’s how I could help you:
Online Presence
Or if you just have some questions, head over to contact form, and send me a message. I’m always happy to chat through where you’re at with your business, and advise on your best next steps to get your business to where you want it to be…
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