Want to get to know me a little better?

Hi! I’m Erin Ferree. Glad to see you!

And I vow to do the best I can at letting you get to know me… in this little, bitty page.

This is what my head looks like (though often my hair’s quite curly instead of swooshy-straight… I thought you should know.)

I’m the founder of BrandStyle Design. A big fan of branding that’s inviting and not icky. Because a lot of marketing “tactics” are kind of gross.

Of course, I didn’t grow up thinking that way.

I was born in Bakersfield, California. And I’m going to fast-forward to the design part of my life (I’ll tell you childhood stories another time…)

Too many ideas to be a good employee…

I graduated college as a “graphic designer”, 10 years ago. Then, I discovered that I was too big-ideaed to make a good employee in either a design firm or as  an in-house designer at a big corporation.

So I fast-tracked my post-college “five-year plan” into a one-year plan… and started my first design business. I was finally an entrepreneur! Just like my dad (who I greatly admire…)

Things went swimmingly for a couple of years. Until I realized that I wanted to do more than design “pretty things”.

See, I was working with small businesses who thought they just needed a logo to become profitable. I did my best work for them. Staggering works of design genius were created… letterhead was printed… and their profits did not magically appear.

I was crushed. I want only the best for my clients! I started to raise my eyebrow in suspicion… that there must be something deeper going on. Time to dig – into marketing, business planning, brand strategy and customer psychology.

Well, once I learned more, I became incorrigible. I started gunking up the works with strategic thinking – and discovered that my design clients didn’t really expect that from their graphic designer.

So, I stopped calling myself a designer, and became a design strategist/ branding coach/ deep-thinking troublemaker. I didn’t exactly tell my clients about this change, though – so often, they were surprised. They thought they’d hired a designer and wound up getting a business consultant.

These days, I tell people about the business coaching/ consulting part that comes with my branding and design genius from the beginning. Consider yourself warned.

I think you should know a few things about how I think up-front.

I believe that fabulous branding is full of contrast and balance, dot-connecting and gap-bridging… between:

• Business planning and brand design
• Structure and inspiration
• Strategy and creativity
• Client and business owner
• Profit and passion
• Invitation and case-making
• Left-brain and right-brain
• Rules and rulebreaking
• Universal appeal and difference-showing
• Communication and compelling
• Meaning and emotion
• Form and function

Now, I’ve worked with over 450 small service businesses to package their intangible, invisible services into understandable, desirable and purchasable brands.

I’ve been working “behind the scenes” with clients in the coaching, consulting, info-marketing and online marketing worlds for the last 8 years… making them successful.

• I coach on branding.
• I work with brilliant business owners to shore up their business plans and bring them to life through their brands.
• I help business owners who like to evolve and expand their businesses to transform their brands and take them to the next level.
• I design powerful brand identites that appeal to your ideal clients.
• I create brand strategies that invite your clients in instead of repelling them with icky marketing tactics.

If you think that sounds intriguing – that you’d like to have a creative, strategic brain on your side to get results through your brand… you should call me.

This is the part where I tell you about the rest of my life…

And, the fact of the matter is, right now… I think about branding a lot.

When I’m not designing, or fantasizing about branding, or obsessing about it a bit…

I can be found doing many things. Like throwing parties. I love throwing parties – the more detailed, the better. I once threw 6 parties in one day for a friend’s 40th birthday.

I live in lovely, tiny town of San Luis Obispo, California. My VIP clients all give it a thumbs-up.

I confess, I spend a lot of time hanging out with my boyfriend. We watch movies and TV, and we honestly enjoy shopping and even running errands.

I like cooking improvisationally and taking long walks – though not on the beach, on my treadmill.

I love to play tug-of-war with my custody-shared corgi-dog, Stanley (who’s most likely thinking about food right now).

My favorite color? That’s one of the hardest questions you can ask me, because I love color. Right now, I’d have to declare a tie between metallic aqua and light oyster, with magenta pulling a solid third-place.

I consider it my job to wear remarkable shoes as often as possible. I used to sew and like to wear dresses with really good lines.

So now you know a lot about me…

How about telling me a bit about you? It’s only fair…

I’d love to hear what you’re up to, the challenges you’re facing in your brand and your favorite color.  You’re welcome to leave it in the comments or email me privately at erin@brandstyledesign.com.