A start-up asks you to create its whole brand identity from scratch. How do you plan and deliver the project?
What the interviewer wants to hear
- Strategy first: positioning, audience, values, personality
- Agree direction through research and moodboards
- Design core system: logo, colour, type, imagery, graphic elements
- Apply to key touchpoints to test the system
- Deliver guidelines, assets and templates; plan rollout
Model answer
I begin with strategy, because an identity expresses something. Through workshops with the founders I clarify positioning, audience, competitors, values and the brand personality, and we agree a short brand statement. Then I create moodboards to align on direction before designing. The identity itself is a system, not just a logo: a logo suite with variations, a colour palette with values for every medium, a typography system, an image and illustration style, and graphic elements like patterns or icons. I test this system early by applying it to real touchpoints such as the website, app icon, social posts, pitch deck and packaging, since weaknesses show up in use. Finally I deliver guidelines, a complete asset library and editable templates, and help plan the launch so the team uses the brand correctly from day one.
Can you answer it under time pressure?
Take a timed hard round and get scored on every answer.
More hard Graphic Designer questions
- You presented three logo concepts and the client rejected all of them. What do you do next?
- A well-known local brand wants to modernise its look without losing existing customers. How would you approach it?
- How do you show the business value of your design work?
- Your manager wants a big campaign delivered in half the usual time. How do you protect quality?
- You strongly disagree with your art director about the direction of a campaign. What do you do?
- As a freelance designer, how do you price projects and protect yourself against scope creep?
- You are asked to design a campaign for an audience from a culture you do not know well. How do you make sure the work is respectful and effective?
- A company has 300 employees creating presentations, social posts and flyers without designers, and the brand looks inconsistent. How do you fix this at scale?
- Ten thousand brochures have been printed and delivered, and the client finds a wrong phone number that was in your final file. What do you do?