Two weeks ago, Founder and CEO of the Microwash — James Young — told us he had three days until a number of events occurred: he would have a booth at the Inside Outside Conference in Lincoln, Neb.; he would pitch his invention at 1M Cups in Omaha; and he would begin the “swarms” through his accelerator at NMotion Accelerator, a series of speed dating-style pitches for potential investors in his invention.
When he told us this, he had a logo that our team deemed needed a redesign and he had no business cards or collateral. He had a pitch deck he had created on Power Point that matched (sort of) his old logo, but was about 12 slides too long. And he was unsure how to sell his story. (He was clunky about who his client was; should he pitch to the consumer (patients) or to the end buyer (labs)?
What happened next was a whirlwind of communications conversations both in person and via Zoom, text, and email that led to a brand new communications strategy for Microwash, and a 72-hour deadline for the UNeTech Institute Communications Team.
Me, standing in front of the wipe board in my UNeTech office, after James took notes as we spoke about his communications strategy.
My colleague Ambrea and I got to work. James and I started with strategy. We worked out all the pieces he felt he needed in the next 72 hours, and all the pieces I knew we could get for him: a new logo, business cards, an executive summary, and a slide deck. All of these would need to be branded with his new logo and color story.
Ambrea created a series of new logo ideas for James. (She will write about this process in a future blog because frankly, it’s fascinating to learn how a graphic artist both creates logos and works with clients to choose the best one.)
Once the logo was selected, we could move forward with a font package and a complete color story for MicroWash. And these items meant we could order business cards. Business cards were crucial for James, especially because of the conference he would be attending. Working that booth meant the chance to meet potential investors, partners, future employees, researchers. He needed a way to get his contact info into their hands.
We were able to overnight the business cards at a FedEx Kinko’s so James could pick them up the morning he arrived in Omaha on his way to Lincoln for the conference that night. We purchased 150, knowing that eventually, he would buy more because his social media would be added as we developed content for those sites.
Next, we used the logo, the new colors, and the font package to update the MicroWash executive summary so that James would have at least one piece of collateral to hand out while he was at his table. He used this piece at the conference, but he can also send this piece out to potential funders and investors that he meets in the community or who our team introduces him to through our connections. It is now branded to match his branding story.
We also adjusted his slide deck. We moved all the slides into Canva and created a branding kit for him there. This allowed us to create template slides for him that all matched his brand with colors and fonts. We trimmed down the pitch and combined and eliminated lots of slides. We helped him focus on his story and remember who his audience is for every pitch.
We also rebranded his social media by choosing a consistent handle for all platforms — @getmicrowash — and establishing his brand on each platform: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn. Even if he is not especially active yet on each of those sites, he now owns each of them and can begin creating content when he is ready, and it matches the website we grabbed, getmicrowash.com, which is important for brand consistency.
Finally we moved him into a new email address from this new website so he is using james@getmicrowash.com, and we created an email signature for him there that includes all of the branding information from this new branding package — the new logo, the color story, the font package, and links to his new website. Once we have content for the social media sites we will add those to the email signature as well.
The most impressive part? Ambrea and I did all of this in 72 hours. Now I admit this meant I was answering texts from James while I was drinking a cocktail and eating chips and salsa on a Friday night at nearly 9pm, and that is not how everyone wants to live their life. But we got it done, and I am pretty proud of us. And James was thrilled!
This is the old version of the MicroWash logo that the Communications Team wanted to redesign. We determined that both the colors and the font were dated, and we wanted something fresher and cleaner.
This is the new logo for MicroWash featuring new colors and a more updated style.
