Step Four in Our Branding Process: Deliver

The last three entries in this series have focused on our process for making successful work. Step 1 focused on DISCOVERY, Step 2 focused on DEVELOP, and mostly recently I wrote about Step 3’s subject DESIGN. The final step in our process is DELIVER.

Step 4: DELIVER

1. Bring to a destination, make a delivery
2. Deliver (a speech, oration, or idea)
3. Free from harm or evil
4. Carry out or perform
5. Cause to be born

The Post Office and UPS deliver packages. A doctor helps deliver a baby. A kid can promise to get an A in science and deliver it. Politicians love to deliver speeches. Just don’t ask them about delivering on campaign promises. And religious people often ask to be delivered to or from something. In every case, deliver refers to something positive that’s being completed, fulfilled or carried out.

In our case, it’s delivering awesome design and creative work, the final step in our process.

designRoom Creative has delivered nearly 10,000 projects in 20 + years to more than 100 companies. I think we are on job number 9,857. Our firm is set up as a project to project run firm. We are constantly opening new projects. Typically a firm will deliver to a client company around 5 years. We’ve had clients for as many as nine years.

Deliverables include discovery reports, logos, whole new brands, brochures, websites, advertising, annual reports, display graphics, videos, marketing campaigns, signage, books, product packaging and anything else a company may need to help them position themselves, market and communicate.

Delivery is the most detailed of all the parts of the process, and deliverables are clearly spelled out from the beginning, because everything we do is custom made for the client. Quantities, colors, sizes, exact words, proofreading, press proofing, images, image retouching are all part of delivery.

One of the scariest, and most interesting, projects to deliver is a Discovery. When we talk through the final report and see our client react to the findings, it’s an eye-opener. Even though the findings may affirm what they think they know about their positioning and perceptions in the market, there is always some finding or two that totally surprises them.

We try to deliver perfection every time. But in 20+years, you learn from mistakes. One of my biggest pet peeves is finding a typo on a delivered project. It kills me when this happens, but it does on occasion. Sometimes is does not matter how many times you look at something. So we build in as many layers of proofing and checking as we possibly can.

My next biggest pet peeve is a lack of print quality. After all these years, we’re perfectionists. The quality, color, clarity, vibrancy and consistency must be as promised. Or we start again. We still take the time to have a professional designer press proof every job. In fact, I was “on press” checking a client job at 4:00 a.m. just the other day.

The real value in delivering impeccable, quality creative and design work is the value it brings to our clients. Because, at the end of the day, results are what matter. Does the work do what it’s supposed to do? That’s the true benefit of all four steps of our process. And the subject for my next blog!