HOW DO YOU EVEN CREATE A BRAND?
It’s a rewarding process that isn’t for the faint of heart. As a brand specialist, you have to be resilient enough to be told your ideas suck more than once. And a brand is a big, complex idea to just scrap at a glance and be told to start over. You also think about the embodiment of the brand you created, sometimes for the duration of the brand’s long or short life. Imagine creating a brand for a restaurant that never opens, or a cover for a book that was never published. Oh, what could have been!!! In the public sector, which is where I have spent the majority of my marketing life, the “what could have been” moments are usually proposals and interviews that don’t win. You labored heart and soul over this beautiful thing and there’s no time to mourn, you’re on to the next one. Stay creative, people, stay focused! you hear your inner voice say. It’s definitely tough to stay refreshed and hydrated on the creative track when in a design career, there is no finish line.
1| INCORPORATE WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY
After college, my graphic design and marketing skills helped to develop relationships with mentors and peers who were living inspirational lives. I got to lend a helping hand in creating awesome marketing materials, and their causes flourished. It felt great to be a part of good deeds with non-profit organizations. Eventually, I grew to not have a spare minute between volunteering my graphic design services and generating career design opportunities.
Most of my clients and even past employers have coincidentally focused exclusively on construction in the public sector, so my experience in pursuing school district and government building contracts, combined with the extensive time involved in their non-profit initiatives, led to this hybrid expertise that John Delano offers.
2| FIGURE OUT THE REAL YOU
I wish I could tell you that there was a stroke of genius that created John Delano. I was not naturally inspired to open this business. When I was looking for inspiration to start my own company, I kept having visions of cactus. At the grocery store, I’d walk by the wood shelves holding the ceramic bowl succulents and have this overwhelming feeling of empathy. Like…I get you, man. It’s hard out here! We are barely given the creative nutrients we need, we have to protect ourselves at all odds, and it seems like I’m surrounded by rocks sometimes. So I searched for some cactus pictures, wrote some content, and just could not connect my persona with this spiny plant I loved so much. Even the fluffy kind with flowers just wasn’t connecting visually with what I was trying to convey. I decided random images would be best. BUT, I kept the color scheme!
3| JUST THE NAME CAN SAY SO MUCH
So here I am with a timeliness to name my company, and this cactus brand I just threw away. My clients have no idea I’m going through an existential, cactus-riddled crisis. So I look around my home and literally see nothing but my children. How could I not have KNOWN from day one that they are my highest inspiration! I turned into the scene from Nightmare Before Christmas when Jack was up all night hatching a crazed plan, then I showed my favorite logo to my oldest son who quickly approved. It sounded to me like a mysteriously successful man, who is extremely creative, and never tires of marketing, like the Most Interesting Man never tires of women and beer. He was my alter-ego, made of fearlessness of the man-saturated world of construction contracting. And he was made of my two sons’ names, John and Delano.
AND JUST LIKE THAT, JOHN DELANO WAS BORN!
This brand will continue to take shape and gain strength with each and every accomplishment, event, and identity brought to life. I am so excited to take this journey and include my children in the fun. This brand achieves what we encourage every client to seek, a thoughtful story that is a true representation of your spirit.
