Hey Systems: Brand Identity for Substack

Amy from Hey Systems was migrating her community to Substack and needed a brand that would work in that new context. Her previous design no longer fit. She helps women 50+ set up their business systems and processes with AI, and wanted something bold, clean, and minimal.

Amy had strong ideas but they kept evolving. The first direction I presented was very bold — too bold for her audience. She pivoted toward something calmer, almost spa-like. But that didn't quite land either. The real challenge was finding the sweet spot between "systems and structure" and "calm, approachable, and warm" for an audience of non-techie women business owners.

This project took 3 iterations and multiple strategy conversations:

Round 1: Bold, high-contrast direction. Amy felt it was too aggressive for her audience.

Round 2: Calmer, more vintage, pastel palette. Closer, but still not capturing the right feeling.

Round 3: I dug deeper. We talked about how her readers should feel when they land on her Substack — the story of the business, the emotional journey. This time I nailed it.

The final brand uses calm, grounded colors with abstract icons representing her 4 content categories (Articles, Epic Guides, Resource Library, Newsletters). Each category gets its own highlight color for instant visual identification across posts. I delivered:

Simple, clean logo

One-page brand guidelines

4 category-specific Canva templates (per her request) for easy post creation

Color system with 4 highlighter colors for category identification

Abstract iconography for each content pillar

Amy loves the brand and is actively using it across her Substack. The templates give her independence to publish consistently without needing a designer for every post. The category color system makes her content instantly scannable for subscribers.