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A lot of people think branding comes after the website.
We do the opposite.
Before opening Figma, we spend time understanding the business, who it's for, what makes it different, and what message it should leave with visitors.
That process helps us make better design decisions instead of just making things "look nice."
When the branding is clear, everything else becomes easier:
• Better messaging
• More consistent visuals
• Stronger user experience
• Higher conversions
A website isn't the brand, it's a reflection of it.
So true. When the strategy is clear the actual design becomes way easier because you know exactly who you are building for. How do you handle clients who just want a quick website and don't realize they need the brand work first?
We usually have an honest conversation with the client and explain how branding can make the website much more effective. If they're on a tight timeline or budget, we're happy to build the website first and revisit the branding later when the time is right.
The network for creativity
Join 1.25M professional creatives like you
Connect with clients, get discovered, and run your business 100% commission-free
Creatives on Contra have earned over $150M and we are just getting started
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Can't believe this was already a year ago — finally organized it properly.
This was a full brand identity for a food-focused creative agency, Soul & Pepper, built from scratch. It's since been paused, which might not look like a "success," but it's still one of my favorite projects from last year. So I went a bit deeper on the process and details — hopefully it shows what we built together and keeps it alive, at least on this page. The ending of the case study even got a little personal, because I was so genuinely involved in this one and it meant a lot to me in all kinds of ways. And that's kind of why I wanted to share it.
Check it out 💁♀️
This looks clean and well thought out. How long did it take you to bring everything together?
Brand identity created for a Riga based dental clinic. The goal was to develop a clean, contemporary visual identity that reflects professionalism, precision, and patient trust. The project included logo design, full brand system, and supporting visual assets, creating a distinctive identity with a consistent presence across both digital and print applications.
That deep green and the AK monogram feel premium without tipping into cold or clinical, hard balance to strike for healthcare branding. Did the clinic have existing brand equity you had to work around, or was this a clean slate?
For this challenge, I built Hydrated: a fictional summer soft drink — carbonated, ice-cold, citrus-sharp — with a visual identity built entirely around temperature. The can runs a gradient from pale ice to deep navy, top to bottom, so the design itself feels like it's getting colder the longer you look at it. Tagline: "Stay Cool. Be Cool."
Using Envato as my toolkit, I sourced the typefaces, built the can label in Affinity Designer, and composited it onto a photorealistic mockup in Photoshop. I then used Envato's AI Video Generator — with a custom Start Frame and End Frame built from my own can mockups — to generate the hero shot: the can dropping into an ice bucket, splashing, sinking, and settling cold. Claude helped draft the ingredient list and nutrition copy, and I built a companion landing page in HTML/CSS so the brand exists somewhere real, not just in a video.
Target audience: Teens and young adults, roughly 10–28 — people who live for summer and want a drink that matches the mood: crisp, cold, a little bit of attitude.
Human by Design moment: The AI video. The first generation rotated the can in a way that mangled the label, and it took several rejected takes before one actually held up. Deciding which take was right, and which word was right, was human work from start to finish.
Thank you to Envato and Contra for putting this challenge together — for the toolkit, and for the push to make something real out of an idea instead of just thinking about it.
Stay cool. Be cool.
The Project Includes:
- The Logo
- The Can Design
- The Video
- The Website
- The BTS Video
#envato #HumanByDesign #Envato
envatochallengeCreative Design Creative DirectionCreative StrategistAdobe PhotoshopAffinity DesignerEnvato
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