Tara Ladd is the kind of lady who, despite her incredibly awe-inspiring skill, still remains perfectly down to earth. She’s also the owner of Your One & Only, a brand studio without the robot customer service.
Tara gets to know her clients on a personal level and says it like it is. Kind of like that great friend you want to dawdle around the shops with – because she’ll actually tell you what looks ‘dayum girl’ good, or ‘nah, mate’ bad.
We like those friends.
After over a decade in the branding industry, Tara recalls her deliverables feeling meaningless – she hated it.
And despite working her booty off, she didn’t put in buckets of time and energy “to produce crap.”
“I wanted to create a brand that helped people communicate purposefully, with a focus on humanising the delivery.”
And, voila! Your One & Only was born, where Tara is now proud of every piece of work she delivers, contributes to a greater message and attracts dream clients based on their beautiful portfolio and reputation.
Here we chat building foundations, DIY branding and Katy Perry. Yeah, you’re in for a good one.
Where do you think most businesses go wrong when DIYing their branding?
“Not understanding each aspect that creates the brand itself. It’s easy to assume that ‘branding’ is the logo and the stationery it comes with but think of that like the letterbox to a house. It’s the identifier, not the home itself. You can change a logo and the brand but it’s values still stays the same.
Obviously, you need a strategy (your direction and plan) to even start. But in my honest opinion (and you’re going to love me saying this) it’s usually their copy [editors note: we do, wink].
People go straight to design instead of thinking about how to speak. We work really closely with copywriters on almost ALL of our jobs, without the right tone, our visuals don’t impact as much either. Knowing the brand personality and how to speak to your audience will dictate the audience you will attract. I mean you could have one design with four different verbal messages and the design will change its meaning.
As with social media, graphics are important, but without the right message paired, the delivery isn’t as strong. Think about a meme and how one image can portray multiple meanings purely by the assisting copy.”
What’s your top advice for startups not sure where to begin with branding?
“Starting a brand is hard work. You may believe in your product and values but the real issue lies in how you naturally build brand loyalty so others believe in it too. Setting up the foundation of your brand is so important, think of it like building a house (you’d think I was in the building industry with all these references).
You lay the foundations before you begin the house itself. Just like a house, you lay your brand foundations. Your purpose, strategies, goals, plan of attack, brand personality and identity, how you want people to perceive you. This ideally should all be strategised prior to going to market (*cough* social media).
If you have NFI how to do this, hook up a brand consultation chat with someone in that field that you trust. By that I mean, watch what they say, get their vibe, see if you’re on the same page and then invest in yourself.
This will be one of the best things you can do. Once you know this, you brief your designers and copywriters on the direction you’ve paved and they will build your tone and visuals around the audience you want to attract and direction you’re heading in. And there’s another thing, just because it’s your brand, doesn’t mean you should design your identity to your liking. Make sure you study your market well.”
A highlight in your career to date?
“I think having the opportunity to
design a bike for old mate KP (Katy Perry) in 2014 for her Prismatic tour was pretty cool. I mean hell, she’s riding around on a bike I designed. Paparazzi eat your heart out.”
What’s next for Your One & Only?
“Growth! We’ve been growing rapidly over the last 18 months and I’m so damn happy. That’s purely because of the support we’ve had from fellow biz pals – and bloody hard work. We don’t want to be a huge agency, that isn’t the plan. We want to stay small, maintain culture and become an exclusive studio. I’d rather keep my passion, fuel my soul, create an amazing working environment and stay small. It’s not about money, it’s about happiness, and well, we’re pretty damn happy with where we’re headed.”
Can’t get enough of Tara? Us either. Scroll through Your One & Only’s
epic portfolio, get to know
Stacey (the other half of Your One & Only) and score a new bestie on Instagram.
Liked this interview? There’s plenty more where that came from. Catch up with vegan fashion enthusiast, Drieli Roveda, hear from Shuturp
Artist, Ellie Hopley or check out an old favourite with bikini designer and founder of Moana Bikini, Karina Irby.
