Brand Consulting
Positioning, voice, and visual systems that outlast a redesign cycle.
Overview
How I approach this work
I have built and operated brands at both extremes: Squish Biscuit — a pet content brand built around my dog Captain, with roughly 1.3M followers across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube — and Trent Digital, a solo digital consultancy running 145+ branded sites off a shared design system. That range informs how I approach brand work: positioning first, visual identity second, systems always.
Brand engagements I take on usually fall into three categories. The first is early-stage positioning: translating a rough business idea into a defensible differentiator, a name system, and voice guidelines specific enough that someone else could write in that voice. The second is design system work: turning a visual identity into OKLCH color tokens, fluid typography, and a component library that can be reused across properties without drift. I run a 54+ component library on a token pipeline that hits WCAG AAA contrast by default. The third is brand audits on existing operations — looking for drift between stated positioning and what ships, and tightening the loop. I do not do brand work without a practical handoff at the end.
Deliverables
What a typical engagement produces
Concrete artifacts from this kind of work.
- Positioning brief
- Written positioning with a stated audience, differentiator, and voice — short enough to be memorized, specific enough to guide writing and product decisions.
- Token-based design system
- OKLCH color tokens, fluid typography scale, spacing system, and component library with WCAG-compliant contrast defaults. Portable across sites and frameworks.
- Brand guidelines document
- A practical guide covering logo usage, color system, typography, voice, and example applications — written so it can actually be followed by non-designers.
- Years on design systems
- 4+
- Component library size
- 54+ components
- Color science
- OKLCH, WCAG AAA
Related areas
Other parts of my practice that overlap with this one.
Content Consulting
Editorial systems, automated production, and programmatic SEO at scale.
Agency Advisory
Helping operators evaluate, structure, and manage agency relationships.