Work in Process
The Swail Studio Blog about Branding,
visual identity, magic, and the void.

Looking like a leader ≠ looking "polished"
You own your bigness. Own your weirdness. Own your mastery. Own your legacy. Own your voice.
Looking like a leader doesn’t necessarily mean polish — it means looking different from what else is out there.

No, you don’t have to post photos of yourself.
You don’t need a huge professional photoshoot in order to create a fully “branded” website or post. Do professional photoshoots help? Absolutely. Do these methods perfectly replace them? No. But can you keep up a consistent brand aesthetic without fancy photos? Yes.

I won’t convince you that you need to rebrand.
My clients already value branding, and already have a budget for it. Their big decision is choosing the right designer or agency to make it happen.
When they find me, they often tell me that they immediately knew I would get them, and they are ready to go.

Brand design emergencies don't exist.
Not only will rushing the process not help anything, but you'll get the best result by designing for the future — not right now.

So you’re done with the whole black-on-beige femme-script-font “soulpreneur” look... now what?
If you’re not a traditional business owner, the traditional “branding package” won’t necessarily be a great fit for you.
These are the specific needs I identified over 10+ years helping weirdos honor their truest selves in their visual brand.

Would you still wear retail when you can afford couture?
A question for the coaches and other kinda weird business owners who “didn’t need pretty branding” to succeed:
If you’ve already mastered marketing, sales, strategy, content, copy, energetics all the way to ~$1M…
Why would you NOT want to bring the aesthetics of your business up to match them for like $10-20k?
If you can afford couture, you wouldn’t show up to a red carpet in the same thing you wore to your first ever networking event years ago. So why is sticking with your old make-do branding ok with you???

how to strategically half-ass things
Dispatch from my Mars return in Cancer 🦀
Especially when it comes to business, absolutely none of the Mars in Cancer advice matches up with conventional “get shit done” motivational advice.
After 5 years of selling stuff on the internet, I understand how I have to approach business better than ever, and it’s frankly not generally recommended.

WARM SOPHISTICATED SIMPLICITY 🏠🪴🖍️🛋️
Meet the new visual identity and website for Brooklyn Speech Therapy!
Taylor is the founder, and her unconventional approach hinges on working with clients in their own homes — so her brand needed to feel just as inviting, cozy, and clean as the home of a Brooklyn professional (given that there will always be coffee mugs out, stickers on walls, and art on the fridge).

MEET FIREBRAND ❤️🔥
FIREBRAND is the rebrand for unconventional business owners that honors your weirdness, so you can show up as your full self and call in your deepest-dream clients at a price point that truly reflects your expertise.

I was hired based on the color of my resume paper.
I had no idea that this was how it went down until my art director told me the story over lunch six months later...