How to bring your brand to life through collateral design
Your brand is built. The logo is on the website, the fonts are installed, and the rest of the files are sitting in a folder that gets opened maybe twice more, ever.
Collateral is how the brand leaves the folder.
What brand collateral is
The pieces your business hands to people, physical and digital, that live outside your website:
The email signature under every message you send
The one-pager you attach before a consult call
The card you pass to another practitioner at a training
The gift certificate at the front desk in December
The sign at the edge of an active job site
The treatment card that goes home in someone's bag
This is the cheapest part of your brand to get right and the most visible when it is wrong. A new brand paired with a business card you designed yourself in 2021 does not read as mid-refresh. It reads as inconsistent.
The question we get most here is what to do about the 200 old cards still in the box. That one is your call. We just never recommend holding a brand back because of money already spent.
Two ways to do this
Collateral Bundle. Choose a few pieces from a set list. Brand applied, print-ready files, and a link to the master template so you can update it later yourself. Options include:
PRINT OPTIONS:
1-page PDF
Business card
Thank you card
Treatment card
Gift certificate
Postcard
1-sided lawn sign
DIGITAL OPTIONS:
HTML email signature
Facebook cover
LinkedIn cover
BRAND COLLATERAL EXAMPLES
What we suggest, by industry
Interior design
Email signature
Business card
Thank you card
Mental health and therapy
Business card
Email signature
1-page PDF
Wellness clinics
Business card
Email signature
Gift certificate
Coaching
Email signature
1-page PDF
LinkedIn cover
Medical aesthetics and medspa
Treatment card
Gift certificate
Business card
Real estate
Business card
Thank you card
1-page PDF
Pick based on where your clients meet you most, not on what looks best in a mockup.
When the piece you need is not on the list
A set list covers most businesses. The pieces that end up mattering most are often the ones nobody thought to put on one.
A medical aesthetics clinic came to us having spent real money on their space, and it had been photographed properly, team included. So we designed a coffee table book. It sits in the waiting room, which means every client sitting there for ten minutes is being sold to and nobody has to say a word.
A therapist wanted something to give clients at the end of a session, so we designed a branded journal she hands out with her name on it.
Other custom work we have designed:
Packaging stickers
Window and door decals
Interior signage
Coffee table books
Clothing
Journals
If you have something specific in mind, it can be designed and quoted on its own.
CUSTOM COLLATERAL EXAMPLES:
A note on social templates
Social templates are a separate service, not part of the Collateral Bundle.
The reason they are split: collateral is designed once and printed, while social templates are built for you to keep editing. Different files, different setup, different job.
If your grid is where your brand slips first, and for most businesses it is, that is the conversation to have. Around month four, at nine at night, with a post that has to go up, the font gets picked from whatever Canva suggests first. Pre-built templates mean the brand stops being something you have to remember.
Ask and we will send the details.
