Posts tagged Visual Identity
Lessons From an Award-Winning Brand Identity

Oh Flossy Skincare retail posters

Six years ago, I had the privilege of creating the brand identity for Oh Flossy. This week, that work was recognised with the Brand Identity Excellence Award from SHE.COM.

And let me tell you, there's something incredibly special about seeing a brand you've nurtured from the very beginning receive industry recognition.

When Vanessa approached me after purchasing Oh Flossy, she had a clear vision. She wanted to create a brand that felt playful, safe and full of personality.

Fast forward six years, and Oh Flossy has grown into one of Australia's leading children's brands, with a strong presence across retail, e-commerce and social media, as well as multiple industry awards recognising its products.

We wanted to create a brand that felt fun, colourful, safe and completely unique to us. Every detail was considered, from the colours and packaging to the illustrations, website, trade shows and everything in between.
— VANESSA, Founder & Director, Oh Flossy

While receiving an award is a wonderful milestone, it also reminded me of something I've seen time and time again throughout my career: great brands aren't created because someone designed a beautiful logo, they're built through thoughtful strategy, clarity and consistency.

Oh Flossy product catalogue

Brave clients build better brands

This is one of the biggest lessons I've learnt after working with hundreds of businesses.

The projects that go the furthest aren't always the ones with the biggest budgets—they're the ones where the client is willing to trust the process, ask questions and do something a little different.

Oh Flossy did exactly that. We wanted to build a brand that people would instantly recognise and genuinely connect with.

Looking back, I realised that the same principles that create memorable brands are often the ones recognised by awards.

Here are a few of the biggest lessons this project reinforced for me:

1. Strategy comes before design

People often think branding starts with sketching logos.

It doesn't.

The first part of every branding project is asking lots of questions:

Who are we speaking to?

What makes this business different?

How do we want people to feel?

Once we know those answers, the design becomes much easier because every creative decision has a purpose.

For Oh Flossy, we weren't just designing kids’ makeup, we were building trust with parents while creating excitement for children.

2. Authenticity beats trends

Design trends come and go. Authentic brands last because they're built around a genuine personality.

Finding and shaping that brand personality was the first step to achieve a playful, energetic identity that felt unmistakably Oh Flossy.

Looking at the brand today, you’ll notice that everything has been designed to express the brand's personality.

3. Consistency builds recognition

Every detail tells the same story. Award-winning brands feel cohesive because everything works together: logo, typography, colours, illustrations, photography, packaging, tone of voice, etc. Nothing feels accidental.

As the Oh Flossy range expanded from makeup to skincare and accessories, the challenge wasn't creating new designs, it was making every new product feel unmistakably Oh Flossy.

4. Design for your audience

The best identity isn't the one designers or business owners like most. It's the one customers immediately understand, remember and connect with.

Throughout this project, we spent time thinking about both audiences:

  • Children needed to feel excitement, curiosity and joy.

  • Parents needed to feel trust, confidence and reassurance.

Finding that balance became one of the defining characteristics of the brand.

5. Emotion creates loyalty

People rarely buy because a logo is pretty. They buy because a brand makes them feel something, whether is trust, joy, confidence, nostalgia, excitement.

Great branding creates emotional shortcuts.

For Oh Flossy, the goal wasn't simply colourful packaging. It was creating the excitement children feel opening something magical, while giving parents confidence that the products inside were gentle, safe and thoughtfully created.

What I love most is how the Oh Flossy world now feels so recognisable. It is playful and full of heart, but also thoughtful, purposeful and consistent.
— VANESSA, Founder & Director, Oh Flossy

Over six years, Oh Flossy has launched new products, entered new retailers and continued to grow. The brand has evolved too, but the heart of the brand has remained exactly the same.

To me, that's one of the clearest signs of a successful brand identity.

That's what good branding should do: it gives a business room to grow without losing what made people fall in love with it in the first place.

The real reward

Awards are wonderful milestones, but they're never achieved by designers alone. They happen when passionate business owners trust the process, embrace strategy and stay committed to building something meaningful.

Winning this award is something I'll always be proud of. But if I'm honest, the real reward isn't the trophy.

It's walking into a store and seeing children instantly recognise the brand.

It's watching a business grow with confidence because its brand has grown with it.

And it's knowing that a project that started with a simple conversation six years ago has become something that brings joy to families every day.

That's why I love what I do.

Want to see more? Check out my portfolio pages with some Behind The Scenes of Oh Flossy branding and final results.

Oh Flossy girl with glitter on her face

BTS: Oh Flossy Brand Identity

Oh Flossy rebranded and launched the new brand identity in 2021, fulled with creativity, colour and fun. The new brand identity, designed by Grafika Studio, showed their most gentle and caring side to introduce the first natural kids’ makeup collection.

Oh Flossy girls with skincare bottles

BTS: Oh Flossy Skincare

Grafika Studio designed the packaging for Oh Flossy new skincare collection for tweens and teens with a fresh look & feel that was trustworthy to parents, but also exciting and aspirational to a young audience.

Five Simple Tips To Build A Unique Brand

Your brand is the soul of your business. It's what identifies and differentiates your business from others. It's what makes you unique and special. Branding a business is not just about creating a logo, it's about creating perceptions in people's minds and love in customer's hearts.

A brand is represented by the branding, that is, all those visual elements that allow people to identify a product or a company. This can include the logo, colour scheme, typeface and other elements, and can be formalised in a document called style guide. Below is an example of my style guide.

Grafika-Studio-Style-guide.jpg

It's difficult to describe the entire process to build a brand. It starts with soul searching: find your strengths, your passions your vision and your personal style. Then set a sole goal: to get paid for doing what you love. And finally come up with a step-by-step plan to make it real. Start small but dream big.

Here are my five tips to build a unique, memorable, and timeless brand that reflects your style and represents you and your business for years to come:

 

1. Find Your Own Unique Brand Style

There are no two identical businesses, so you must explore and find what makes you different. Understanding your own distinctness is the first step to build memorable brands. Once you find it, write down your brand statement, that is a short sentence that states your uniqueness.

I found my own distinctness in the concepts of beauty, simplicity and style. They define what I do and how I do it, and I have summarised this in my brand statement: beautiful brands, stylist websites.

 

2. Deliver a Consistent Message

Letterheads, invoices, business cards, everything talks about you and the way in which you deliver your work. It's important that all your brand elements are well-coordinated across every channel and that message is clear and consistent. The style guide helps you achieve that consistency.

 

3. Build Brand Name Recognition

People must know who you are and what you stand for before becoming customers. Just delivering a consistent message won't be enough, make sure everyone "gets it". In a world that’s overloaded with information, only creative, unique and special brands can stand out and be easily recognised and remembered.

 

4. Invest In Brand Quality

Quality is a reflection of your business personality and how much you care about every project, every product and every client. Make sure your brand also reflexes your quality standards. Invest in professional photos, print in high-quality paper and proofread everything that you write, even if it's on your blog or social media pages. 

 

5. Communicate your brand and brand your communications

Take your brand online and communicate with your people, ask and answer questions, and participate in conversations that help you build the emotional connection with everyone in your market