I don't really know how to work with a Graphic Designer.

You've probably come across a Graphic Designer when you had a "job" but it was all corporate ways of doing things, so it feels totally out of reach for your business now.

You're looking at your brand thinking “I really need some help.” But Graphic Designers are big scary corporate people who talk about juxtaposition, touch points, brand ecosystems - aren't they?

And it isn't just the thought of a jargony, complicated discussion that's putting you off. It's the fear of being made generic. "They won't get me. They won't understand my brand. They won't want to hear this whacky idea I had."

So you look at your branding, think "I need help, but I don't want a corporate brand," and decide a Graphic Designer isn't for you.

You keep pushing forward with the brand you DIYed to start with. It was fine at first, while you were figuring all this business stuff out. But now, when you look at it, you feel that disconnect between you and the "you" your brand is showing.

It isn't shouting "hey world, this is me" any more. It's confusing, and the right people aren't finding their way to you.

You feel it every time you add an image to a post, you scrunch your face up, look at it with one eye, and say "it'll do for now." You've got ideas for lead magnets and workshops that you know would be genuinely useful for people, but you're scared they won't land because the branding isn't there to back them up.

It's not really the jargon that's stopping you. It's that somewhere along the way, you started believing "professional" and "personal" can't sit in the same sentence. So you've only ever had two options in your head: DIY-quirky, or corporate-generic. Nobody's ever shown you there's a middle ground, a brand that's polished and unmistakably you. So instead of looking for that, you've just… stopped looking. You've decided "good enough" is the ceiling.

And that belief is costing you more than you think. Every time you hesitate to launch that lead magnet, that's a warm lead going nowhere. Every time someone says "send me your website" and you feel that little cringe - that's a referral that might not convert, simply because what they land on doesn't match the person they just spoke to in real life. Every "it'll do for now" is you quietly agreeing to stay smaller than you actually are.

Here's a quick way to check where you're really at: show your brand to someone who's never met you - your website, your last five posts, whatever's public - and ask them to guess three words to describe your business. If what comes back doesn't match the three words you'd use, that's not a "maybe I'll fix it one day" problem. That's your brand actively working against you, right now, today.

So, I'm not some big corporate Graphic Designer. I'm like you, running a small business. This is partly why I call myself a "colourer innerer." It makes people chuckle, it sounds a lot less scary than Graphic Designer, and honestly, colouring in is my favourite part.

There aren't jargony words you have to google to understand what I've said. There's a lot of getting to know you, your business, where you started, how far you've grown, how excited you are about where it's going. It's talking through all those whacky ideas (and I do love a whacky idea, or seven). It's digging into the things that have been bugging you, the things you want to change, and helping you find a way to represent yourself visually that actually shouts "hey world, this is me." Built through listening and research, no forced design ideas you didn't ask for.

There's work for you to do too - mostly answering questions about your business and your ideas. It's conversation and collaboration.

If you'd love to pinpoint what's not working for your brand, and how working together could look, book an informal chat with me here.

PS. If a chat feels like a big first step, start smaller will this work for me and how long does a brand design actually take are a good place to poke around and find out more about how working with me could look