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How to brand an overnight success

Alison came to us weighing two ideas for a business. One scared her to death because she wanted it so much. The other seemed like a practical way to get the bills paid. Then she got lucky; she landed her first client. A big one. The kind that brings you ten more, and some of those are just as big or bigger.

That made the decision for her, and we never mentioned that practical idea again. But having seen what she’s done since, Alison would have made that choice anyway. Risk may scare her a bit – and that’s smart – but she isn’t afraid to take it on.

A lot of start-ups approach us for help with their identities. How they approach us says a lot about their take on risk and likely indicates what they’ll invest in themselves. Too many of them say something like: “But I need you to build the website first. That way I can start making money so I can pay you.”

If you are asking someone to shoulder your risk for you, you have nothing at stake.

That is not how Alison approached us. She wanted an identity for her company, Blue Flower Arts, that would give life to her vision of a cultural organization that fostered spoken word events, with a strong emphasis on poetry as a powerful oral medium.

I’ll admit to picking up poetry books that I put right back down without understanding a word. But thanks to Alison, I’ve also heard those same poets read those works aloud and found myself so riveted that I didn’t move in my seat – and neither did the other people around me.

Alison recognized that effect. It permeated how she wanted to be known. There was something of the Romantic-Era salon in it, an Algonquin Roundtable sophistication, an Allen Ginsberg knowing nod through a smoke filled room. It was vintage chic, a little weathered and against the grain. We referenced turn of the 19th Century book designers, played with rich velvet tones, and developed something we’ve been calling Alison’s metro-Victorian look (examples of Blue Flower identity work can be seen here, her logo can be seen here, and her website design here).

From the beginning she had a clear vision. Clients like her make it easy to create an identity, even when they reject a lot of the initial work you do. Their confidence in doing that and their faith in their vision gives you direction. It helps you establish your boundaries and go deeper within a defined space. That is where you find your creativity.

Alison gave us an opportunity, much like Thomas J. Watson, Jr. gave Paul Rand an opportunity (admittedly on a much smaller scale, and Alison herself barely crests 5’0”). Rand didn’t create IBM’s success. He wasn’t the source of the company’s drive or its vision or focus. What he did was take the opportunity to create an identity system that helped define what was great about it. Then he established it through everything IBM did in a way that its people embraced that identity as who and what they were. Only then could that identity start to become a brand that meant something to the world outside.

Alison embraced Blue Flower’s identity in the same way, and has been dogged in extending that identity through everything the company does. We have watched her grow, in a short, short time, from a tiny operation with stacks of papers and contracts on her living room floor to an international agency that has represented the four most recent US poets laureate, Great Britain’s poet laureate, Push author Sapphire and actress-author Debra Winger.

We just made the system. Alison is the force behind the brand. And that is what you need for start-up success.