The Brand Outlaw was conceived as a way of helping business owners succeed, pushing them to reject the status quo. True success doesn’t come by blending in. With this YouTube channel, we offer straight talk advice on branding, design, video, and most importantly, workplace culture.
In our brand workshop, we identified our target audience, clarified the pain points we could help them solve, and determined The Maverick as our brand archetype. I then used these insights to develop visual branding—primary and secondary logos, color palette, typefaces—with a gritty vibe influenced by both old Westerns and punk rock.
With those elements in place, I designed a brand guide and used that as a basis for the website’s aesthetic and copy. I carried this brand consistency through the channel’s subsequent visuals such as video thumbnails and Instagram images.
When it came time to write and film my videos, I kept the Brand Outlaw persona in mind. Rather than dive into design minutia, I wrote scripts that addressed business owners, always remaining helpful while throwing in touches of fun and sarcasm. This approach informed videos such as “Why Design Contests Are Bad for Business,” “Things You Should Never Say to a Graphic Designer,” and “What Brands Can Learn from Stone Cold Steve Austin.”
