Why I rebranded my business after 16 years

If you own and operate your own business like I do chances are you went through some kind of branding phase when deciding on your logo, fonts, or colour palette.

You may have hired a brand designer, or came up with your logo on your own. When I started BE3Designs in 2010 I did the latter and very quickly threw together a text-based logo. This wordmark served me well for a time, until it didn’t.

I finally decided to rebrand my business leading into my 16-year anniversary of sole-proprietorship, freelancing, and running BE3Designs. Here’s how my rebrand played out:

My DIY logo origin story

If The Conqueror app counted the kilometres I ran inside my own head, turning ideas over and over, I would have earned my distance medal already.

In the early days of starting my business I experienced the well-known struggle of the web designer who could never be happy with their own design. 

When it came to a logo I was at a loss; Being a web designer didn’t automatically make me an illustrator, graphic, or brand designer. I remember making some doodles and playing around with graphical ideas, but in the end I selected a bold font, wrote out my business name, made the ‘3’ transparent and dropped my favourite colour behind it.

17+ web design revisions later, I reluctantly launched the first iteration of my website with the help of a template. Beyond using the colour that those who knew me attributed to me, there wasn’t a greater story… which meant a lack of supporting me with direction and clarity in the future.

What happens when your brand stops working for you?

What I didn’t know then that I have learned over the years is just how important it is to have your brand, voice, and messaging in place before anything else.

The truth is, I never would’ve found myself running in circles doing 17 versions of my web design if I had completed a brand strategy before ever starting.

What was the real reason I was having such a hard time with my logo? It was because I myself was confused about my own solopreneur status. I didn’t know if I wanted to present myself as a business rather than an individual, or how to find a theme or story as an independent freelancer.

I eventually found myself hitting a wall and something didn’t feel right anymore.

People change and evolve over time. Well, we should, it’s healthy… and what I realized is that as a sole-proprietor I am my business, BE3Designs is me. So really, after doing this for 15 years it made sense that I/BE3Designs was ready for a change; I discovered my purpose.

Being stuck in your own head

Regardless of your industry or whatever it is that you do for a living it’s likely that you experience the same truth; Without a plan in place our work can be more difficult, take longer to complete, experience errors, or require backstepping to edit, rinse, and repeat.

A professional branding strategy stops all this from happening because the process itself requires research and problem solving that allows you to answer the type of overarching questions you’ll face during the lifetime of running your business, such as:

• Creating or selecting your website copy, imagery, and other content
• Building customer avatars for marketing and advertising efforts
• Designing print collateral and other brand assets
• Web design and development phases (Note to self)
• B2B or B2C voice, messaging, goals, and communications
• SEO and keyword planning

I don’t know about you dear reader, but I got lost in my own mind for a long while trying to piece together odds and ends to form a cohesive enough approach that would grant me the confidence to take the next step.

“I came to Jenny Henderson Studio with a concept that I had been ruminating on for some time, but inevitably needed professional help with bringing it to life… I found the discovery and review questions that Jenny asked were very helpful in navigating through my own notes, thoughts, and scribbles. We determined what direction wouldn’t work for me before we solidified what would, and it was a very educational and resourceful experience. I took more away than just a new brand identity, I have confidence, direction, and excitement in my business going into 2026!”

BREE EMMERSON, BE3Designs

Getting lost along the way

When you’re mulling over ideas alone in your mind it is so easy to get turned around and lost amongst the flow of your thoughts.

You may have started with a single concept in mind but different images or reflections passed through and now you have several conceptions and have to choose one. But how? You don’t really know what questions to ask yourself to determine the best solution.

If this back and forth goes on for too long it can start pulling your passionate energy right out of your own project. (I know because there was a time that I genuinely wasn’t sure if I was still doing what I loved anymore. Luckily, that changed!) 

So last year when I got the spark of an idea for my rebrand that I really loved, I knew that if I was serious I would need to find someone to support me with it. I simply couldn’t trust myself to take it all on alone, afterall, I had 15 years of experience to show me so!

What the rebranding process did for me

The professional rebranding process was a gamechanger for me personally. Getting my ideas out of my own head and communicating them to someone else was a helpful exercise unto itself. 

Renewed passion for my business

Through the research and conceptualization processes in a rebrand I was forced to realize and actualize instead of living with my would-be ideas and theoretical concepts.

It’s easy to forget or procrastinate when you’re on your own, but to have someone who a) knows what they’re doing because they already have a plan, b) wants nothing more than to help you realize your goals, and c) are literally just waiting for you to give them the deets – you have a little bit of pressure to actually show up and do the darn thing.

And there is beauty in that conversation that cleared up my previous confusion. Sharing my ideas and seeing my designer’s eyes light up gave me an encouraging feeling that I was on the right track. That breathing life back into my soon to be 16-year-old business wasn’t impossible.

Finding direction and clarity

What’s funny is how closely my branding designer’s project process mirrored my own with websites, and how I never thought to treat myself like a client during my past branding (or lack thereof) exercises.

I was asked about the services that I offer vs what I want to do more of, details about my average client vs ideal client, how I have been getting leads up until now, where I plan to distribute my brand, along with many more questions pertaining to voice, design-like preferences, and learning more about my previous brand and what I wanted to see changed.

Writing it all out like that sounds like common sense now, but when you’re stuck in your head the simple can seem quite complicated.

Answering all these questions for someone else actually helped me answer questions I had for myself that I was completely unaware of. It gave me a working blueprint rather than a big ole brain of what ifs.

The welcomed snowball effect

If you’ve been caught up in a hefty period of time where you haven’t produced a finished product, or your creativity has been hibernating, you’ve likely felt stuck and somewhat desperate to feel any form of forward motion or progress.

What I noticed the most for myself when working through my rebrand is the snowball effect that happened with renewed passion and reinvigoration.

This forward motion brought on more ideas to support the story behind my rebrand, which led to the pieces I needed: finding a niche and uniqueness to stand apart and showcase myself and what it’s like to work with me.

What it really means to find a ‘niche’

I heard the advice of finding your niche long before I ever officially started my business. Once upon a time I used to tell myself that this advice couldn’t possibly extend to service providing freelancers like me.

Ironic when I have an entire spiel to my website clients who also have a difficult time narrowing down their audience. Hint: the answer is never ‘everyone and anyone who would pay me’. Ask me how I know (you’re reading it!)

You may assume that by narrowing your focus on a niche audience that you’ll lose money but it really isn’t the case, nor is it about turning away work. By focusing on your ideal customers and creating a tailored journey or process that speaks to them and solves their problems, you’re doing yourself a lot of favours, like:

• Honing in on your brand messaging
• Better articulating your products and services
• Creating more influential marketing campaigns
• Gaining confidence in publishing your content
• Learning how to tell a story
• Making your audience the main character vs yourself

What is a branding strategy and package?

I’ve talked a lot about how rebranding and having a strategy has helped me in my business, but what IS a branding package? Most are known to include collateral such as:

• Logos
• Fonts and Typography
• Colour Palettes
• Bios, headlines, and templatic text
• Photography
• Design assets
• Social media or other marketing strategies
• Customer profile(s)

A branding strategy gives you an entire plan and documentation that instructs you on when and what branding collateral to use, how to use it, and what it all means when it comes together.

Well… that sure sounds like the perfect content to feature in my next blog post.

Why I rebranded my business after 16 years

I rebranded my business after 16 years because I didn’t feel that my brand was representative of me, my work, or how I interact with my clients. I have grown and evolved while running my business, it’s only natural that my brand would too.

Now, my brand helps me better prepare for new product or service offerings, where a lot of my messaging and marketing can be put together easily as my strategy is already in place.

I have all the different types of logo files that I need when integrating them with various needs, have fonts and an accessible colour palette on hand that I can implement in all my third-party tools and applications.

But most of all, I have excitement to build on my business ideas and more confidence to achieve them.