What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
First, the fact that we went through the very arduous process of getting these things trademarked, which is not easy to do is the first significant result for us. If what ikon produced was not unique, that would have caused difficulties in the trademark process, but we didn’t have any of those.
We play in two very busy, high-traffic spaces: software as a service and leadership development. Everything they produced for us needed to pop and not look like everybody else’s in the industry, especially because there are colors you see most leadership development companies use. Alex helped us to understand those industry patterns.
People are, quite frankly, blown away by the quality of our website design. It pops because of the beautiful brand, its look and feel, its graphic elements, the combination of colors, and the richness of the data we put out there. What I love most is that we use so many different graphic elements: photography, custom graphics, a pencil drawing. They were able to weave it all together so you can look at our website and know that it wasn’t done with a standard website creation tool.
How did ikon | Boutique Branding Agency perform from a project management standpoint?
They were clear up-front about understanding what our deadlines were. They also asked really good questions about how we liked to work and how we liked to keep track of things, meaning they worked inside of our parameters, which I really appreciated. We held onto our deadline, our meeting structures, our collaboration sites, and they molded to us. That was the first thing I noticed about them. They molded to us.
We’d never been through this kind of branding thing before, so even though this was hard work, it was fun. There were moments throughout the process—whenever he saw us going in a direction he might've been concerned about—where he pushed us to think beyond what we knew and helped get us to a very different place. He did it so gracefully, not saying we had to follow him because he was an expert, but just kindly point out different ideas and inform us about things.
We’re based on two different continents and three time zones, so we worked in regularly scheduled calls and email, but we also established two other things that were really easy. One was WhatsApp, which we used for quick informal, water-cooler-type conversations. We’d create a thread to have short pieces of information passed around. There were also impromptu phone calls. Finally, we did have some regularly scheduled meetings.
What did you find most impressive about them?
We had another company that did the backend implementation, but one of the pieces of feedback I have for ikon is that they worked incredibly well as a trio of people trying to get this accomplished. There was us, there was ikon, who was our branding design team, and then we had a technical team and they worked very, very well in that environment. And they built a great partnership with our technical team.
We went through this process and it was, it was so much hard work. I had never done this particular piece before so it was a lot, a lot of hard work, but Alex made the process enjoyable. We had a blast actually putting it together.
Are there any areas they could improve?
To be honest with you, I can't think of anything meaningful that I would want them to work on
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
The first thing would be to be open, to be really open to not having all the answers. This firm is going to take you to places you never thought you could go, and you've got to be open to that.
Using pitch decks from ikon, the client has been able to secure multiple advantageous partnerships. The team's collaborative approach makes for a seamless workflow and a fruitful engagement. Their adaptability, coupled with the superior quality of their work, sets them apart from other providers.