Design After Marketing: Why Your Brand Strategy Can't Stop at the Logo (with Simon Hutchings) Ep. 93

Giraffes Don't Eat Steak - for curious marketers who zig when others zag!

Design After Marketing: Why Your Brand Strategy Can't Stop at the Logo (with Simon Hutchings) Ep. 93
Your marketing is beautiful. Your logo converts. Your website is pixel-perfect. So why are clients quietly slipping away after they've signed on the dotted line?
The answer lies in what design expert Simon Hutchings calls "design after marketing" - the moment when businesses stop caring about brand consistency and start sending ugly Word document contracts, off-brand PowerPoint presentations, and generic email templates.
In this episode, Erica and Alex sit down with Simon Hutchings, Creative Director at Visualise with 25+ years in graphic design, to unpack why most businesses get brand implementation completely backwards - and how it's costing them client retention.
Chapters
0:00 Introduction & Guest Welcome
1:06 Meet Simon Hutchings - 25 Years in Design
3:25 The Collective vs Agency Model
4:36 Beyond Logos: Brand Through the Business
8:38 Design After Marketing Problem
11:44 The Office Rebrand Project Story
14:48 Personal Bias in Design Decisions
17:21 The LinkedIn Logo Feedback Problem
20:07 Templates: Blessing or Curse?
24:04 The Magpie Syndrome Trap
28:29 Apple's Visual Consistency Mastery
30:39 Energy Economics of Design
32:43 The PowerPoint Presentation Disaster
35:49 Brand Scorecard Overview
41:15 Emotional Connection in Design
43:47 Getting External Perspective
47:23 Final Advice: Audit Your Client Journey
49:32 Contact Details & Closing
This Episode Covers:
The "design after marketing" phenomenon destroying client relationships
How a single off-brand PowerPoint presentation lost a major deal
The psychology behind template usage and "magpie syndrome"
Why visual consistency is actually about reducing cognitive load
Practical strategies for maintaining brand integrity throughout the client journey
How your employees' relationship with your brand impacts client experience
Key Quote: "We're giving clients less design love as they go through the business, and we wonder why they leave."
About Simon Hutchings:
Simon is the Creative Director at Visualise, a branding and design collective. With 25 years in the industry, he specialises in creative strategy implementation - taking brand strategy and rolling it through entire businesses, from identity creation into marketing and beyond.
Resources:
Take Simon's 2-minute Brand Scorecard: designthatpays.com
Connect with Simon: LinkedIn - Simon Hutchings
Website: wearevisualise.co.uk
If you're tired of rinse-and-repeat marketing advice and want practical insights that actually work, this episode delivers the goods. Because here's the truth: your brand touchpoints don't end at conversion - they intensify.

Connect with the hosts:
Erica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erica-mackay/
Alex: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-bilney/
Get in touch with us at The Marketing Detective Agency - www.themarketingdetectiveagency.com
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