7 Essential Templates for Running a Brand Workshop

Workshops (or brand discovery sessions) are the perfect way to kick off a brand strategy project. They're an opportunity for the design team and the client to get together and map out the goals, company values, ideal customers and competitors in a collaborative environment. Traditionally, workshops are filled with sticky notes and whiteboard scribbles that need to be transcribed after the meeting. Milanote lets you document everything visually in one place, without the rework.

Create an inspiring logo design brief

A good brief is the foundation to every successful brand strategy project. It's the perfect place to start your client workshops. This template is filled with questions that will help you get everything you need out of your clients head. It's where you define the goals, background, target audience and more that provide the design team with all the ingredients to do their best creative work.

Logo Design Brief Template

Map out your competitors

The Brand Positioning Map template (or Competitive Landscape) will help you identify your opportunity in the market. It's a simple way to ensure your brand will stand out against your competitors. This template gives you a quick way to gather everyone's input on the competitive landscape, whether in-person or working remotely.

Brand Positioning Map Template

Paint a picture of your ideal customer

When creating a new brand or re-branding a company, it's crucial to have a crystal clear picture of the customer. Building a customer persona helps your design team understand the people they're designing for. Use this template to map out your customer's goals, background and pain-points so you can design a brand that naturally appeals to them.

Customer Persona Template

Identify what's working and where to improve

It's important to know what's working with your current brand and what's not. The SWOT analysis template is the perfect way to analyse your brand in its current form. A SWOT framework helps you uncover your internal Strengths and Weaknesses plus external Opportunities and Threats.

Brand SWOT Analysis Template

Describe your brand as if it was a character.

Is your brand cheeky and bold? Or rational and mature? This is where you define the personality of your brand—as if it was a character. Your brand personality is a set of adjectives that describes how you want to be viewed by your audience. It will help you answer questions like; does this color palette fit with our brand personality? Or, is this tone-of-voice too quirky for our brand?

Brand Personality Template

A framework to help you create a unique name

Creating a brand name from scratch can feel like a daunting task. You're required to pick one or two words that perfectly represent a company and appeal to its target audience. No pressure! Luckily, there's a process (and a template) that brand strategists use to come up with unique, creative names. Whether you're naming a company or a new product line, the steps involved are the same.

Brand Naming Template

Set the visual direction for your logo design

Before you begin designing your new brand, it's important that everyone involved agrees on the visual style. A moodboard lets you explore different directions in minutes. This template contains placeholders for images, video, color swatches and notes. Just drag and drop your content onto the board to create a beautiful, sharable moodboard and save hours once you get into the design phase.