Ep14_SarahSears
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Elaine Acker: Hey friends, I am excited to introduce you to Sarah Sears. Sarah is the founder and creative force behind S Design, and if you're from Oklahoma, chances are you've seen her work with maybe not even realizing it. She's helped shape the look and feel of everything from the Oklahoma City Boathouse Foundation to Myriad Gardens, and yes, even the state's own branding.
Sarah's not just a brilliant designer. She's also a strategist and a mentor, and a real community builder. She started the Oklahoma chapter of [00:01:00] A IGA and she's picked up a whole bunch of awards along the way. She's the kind of person who knows how to bring big ideas to life through design and storytelling. Now, I got to know Sarah through the B2B sales magic networking community, and I wanted to bring her in today because I've learned that she is especially good at helping businesses in transition, and it's not just design for the sake of beautiful design. I mean, it's helping businesses manage changes in their growth. So, for example, you'll notice that I just renamed and relaunched this podcast. I learned a few things that led to this switch. So it can be as simple as rebranding one aspect of your business up to maybe that full merger or acquisition situation. And outside of work, Sarah's all about good food, fine wine, outdoor adventures, and time with [00:02:00] her family, and I seriously can't wait for you to hear her take on branding, creativity, and building something that really lasts. So Sarah, welcome to the show.
Sarah Sears: Thank you. I'm so glad to be
Elaine Acker: Now you just told me what is not exactly a secret, but not many people know about it yet. So you have to tell everybody here, you had a little something to say about the Olympics.
Sarah Sears: Yeah. So, I think it's exciting for everyone in Oklahoma City right now because they announced last week officially, even though unofficially it's been announced for a while, that we're going to have a portion of the LA Olympics in Oklahoma City, at the Riverport venue, which is a previous client of mine.
And, so that's really exciting. I think it's a great example of an organization that set out years ago when there was nothing on the river and they had a vision of what that could be, and it included having an Olympic [00:03:00] training facility and being positioned for the Olympics. And then here we are this year, so, getting to do where we're gonna have the canoe slalom
event in Oklahoma City for the LA Olympics. So, it'll be fun and girls softball in Oklahoma City. But I think it's a twofold, right? Because you've got the Riversport brand, but also that changes perception of Oklahoma City's brand.
Elaine Acker: Definitely. And you had a hand in that Olympic branding, right?
Sarah Sears: Yeah. So at that time, not the Olympic branding, but the Riversport branding for sure. And it was interesting because, you can't use a brand with the Olympic logo. You have to have special permission to use it. And so when we did the announcement, when they became an Olympic training facility, maybe 2012 ish we did a big announcement and we couldn't
use the new uh, Riversport logo. So we really depended on the typography and [00:04:00] colors and all of that, because the only logo you could use was the Olympic logo.
Elaine Acker: So many rules.
Sarah Sears: interesting things. Yeah. But when you have that consistency, then when people get it in, you know, go through those experiences.
You've got that continuity of brand perception.
Elaine Acker: yeah. I love that. So let's talk about businesses that come to you. When businesses are in some kind of transition now, it could be a rebrand or a growth phase or something even bigger, like a merger. What is the first thing that you look for when you start to work with them. Talk to them.
Sarah Sears: Well, the first thing we do is we just sit down and have a chat, you know, like, what's going on? Every company's a little different. So really diving into what the situation is. Sometimes, through that discovery process, you really learn a lot more about what the problem really is that needs to be solved.
It's [00:05:00] often not exactly what you think it's gonna be when you get started. And often through that discovery process, we're able to better define what opportunities there are, what barriers there might be, and how that organization wants to approach that. And that's typically done with, leadership
discussions research, quantitative data, qualitative data, interviews, surveys with the org within the organization to get really clear around who they are. And then, after that, you know, sometimes the latter part of that is the, is a brand audit where you're really looking to see. Okay, here's what we think, but then based on everything we've discovered, that's not really actually what people think.
And a lot of times people think of brand as a logo or your messaging, but really it's the perception that's in the person's mind about who you are. And so you can only control what you can [00:06:00] control. And so some of that is how are we going to have experiences and touchpoints? Along the way from now moving forward, that are going to help people to understand better who we are or have a closer perception of who we are to what, who we think we are or who we actually are, you know,
Elaine Acker: maybe tell me what that looks like in real time, if you can. Is there a story about a recent project or something where you you set out thinking it was one thing and then you dug in and you found out more and the business evolved, or the project evolved and it was kind of something else? Can you think of a time when that you can share?
I know a lot of things are confidential, but.
Sarah Sears: I think sometimes with organizations they just don't really realize until you really start documenting all the touch points, what people are actually experiencing or asking, doing the interviews and asking [00:07:00] questions about what people actually experience.
We recently worked with a large university law school. And, they were very separate identity in a way from the university that they're part of. Because the university has a very specific brand in its larger sense. They really go after a certain type of people in entertainment and some other areas that you wouldn't necessarily align with the law school.
And so I think, you know, in a project like that, As you go through the process, you, it just becomes clear what the right thing is to do. And in that sense, what we realized was it really wasn't it. Yes, it was definitely independent in some ways, but in other ways.
You were still interacting with that university. And that can be very confusing if you were in a school where everyone thought, oh, we're just, we're just over here by ourselves doing this one thing. And you didn't realize that really the pathways and the journey that that student or that [00:08:00] donor or whatever was taking was was crossing them into all these other areas with a bigger, larger university.
And there was a lot of inconsistency. We didn't really need to change their brand. We needed to identify what their differentiator was in the market and then also align them with the standards as much as possible with the university so that those transitions felt intentional, if that makes sense.
Elaine Acker: It does make sense and I wanna highlight. One thing that I think came out in what you just said, and that is when you were looking at the university project, you were looking at this one piece of the university and how it aligned with the university as a whole. So then you're looking at that visual piece, but you are also looking at, when I hear you talk, I know that you're digging into much more than [00:09:00] just that visual piece of the branding. So talk about that a little bit, because I think that's something that's different about how you approach your projects.
Sarah Sears: my background is in corporate identity and visual communication, so that is where I came from. And people often think about brand in that way, but really because brand is your perception, right? You have all of these different experiences and you have pathways in working with different organizations that you're gonna go through.
And a lot of times people don't actually get through that pathway themselves so they don't realize, I mean, depending on who they are. And then if you think about the way that we communicate and share information, one of the reasons I think that I love looking at the whole organization from a business strategy standpoint, you know, if we are working, let's say with the university and we have that [00:10:00] school's strategic plan.
Then while we're going through and aligning purpose, vision, values, we're also aligning that to the university. Right? So you're still, even though we're saying yes, this to, we're still, we've still got that hierarchy. So, you know, it's not a total creative project in the sense of I'm just gonna do something completely different.
In a way, you have to figure out, you know, where are the differences that we're not bringing forward because everything you're gonna do in that brand is gonna drive that business strategy. It's not just about the visuals. I mean, there's visual cohesiveness, but there's also a language cohesiveness as a writer, you know, that do I sound, you know, correct.
Like, there are certain values that you want people to, live out in their expression of their job, right? So then now you've got operations in hr, like how do we do our jobs in a way that's natural in the way that we communicate, [00:11:00] that we represent the brand that we are working for, you know?
And I think this is where also in a merger and acquisition, you might realize some people are not the right fit, and that's okay as long as you have a good plan for, helping them to find the right place, I think, you know, approaching it from a human sense because what you really do want is people that fit within that organization, they're gonna show up that have the shared same shared values and things.
So a lot of what we do is help people to get clear on what those are so that they can apply them throughout the entire organization. And then really you just have a more efficient organization with more opportunity to build value for employees and clients.
Elaine Acker: And I think about what you're saying on the you know, this grand university level. And so, you know, some smaller business owners kinda like me, might be thinking, so what does this look like when you pare it down? Excuse me. So when you pare it [00:12:00] down, and I think about even just the rebrand of this podcast. So when I was at Grow 2025, I spoke to Bryan Steele and he is a podcast producer and he said. You know, I've, I've been digging into your podcast a little bit. I have a few notes for you. Do you wanna know about this? I'm like, of course,
I do. Do
Sarah Sears: Yes.
Elaine Acker: So he, and I talked for a while, and one of the things I realized was that our old title was Cover to Cover Influence, which I loved because I came up with it. It was,
something that I created and I loved the alignment with books, you know, read it, cover to cover kind of thing. But the more he and I talked and the more opportunities I saw. With doing the podcast, the more I realized I had to change the name and that felt like a real bummer.
But I think it's kind of a little [00:13:00] tiny insight into what goes on in a lot of businesses because. We have our umbrella brand, but then there are little things like podcasts and blogs and emails and things that we are branding and naming. And I think it's really easy to like building onto a house.
It's really easy to kind of lose track of some of that.
Sarah Sears: And have you ever walked through a house that hasn't been intentionally planned out? It's really uncomfortable.
Elaine Acker: And, and there's that emotional attachment to the thing you started with too, or to this, latest thing that you did. So what?
Sarah Sears: But the emotional attachment, yeah. Oh, I didn't
Elaine Acker: No, it's all right.
What do you wish more leaders understood about kind of that emotional side of branding?
Sarah Sears: Yeah, there's quite a few things there that, number one is the naming. Naming is so difficult, and especially, you know, obviously now, like there's so many names taken, and then [00:14:00] you get these ridiculous names, like some of the drag names that are on television. But the reason why is because it's just really hard to find a name that has not already been taken.
And so the trademark portion of that is a significant consideration. A lot of the work that we do comes from people that are like, oh no, now I have a cease and desist. And they just didn't take the time to go through and get things properly vetted before they launched it. And so I think that's especially, and you just never know when your business is gonna grow, right?
I mean, a lot of times this is someone coming in from out of state saying, oh, now we're coming into your state, but we have the national trademark on this and I'm sorry that you're this little bitty business which happens. For a little bitty business, redoing your signage and your naming and updating on social media is a really
big deal. To have to go through that all again. So, and the other thing I would say, when you were saying how attached you are, 'cause so many people, it's so dear to people's hearts, but I think one of the things that we have to remember [00:15:00] is that we're often not designing. I mean, we're not designing for ourselves, right?
designing for a client. And so people get very attached to the colors they like the look and feel of things that they like without considering. Okay, so if my client is the specific type of person what is their life like, what brands do they follow and based on that they're gonna make a decision.
Something happened to me this morning and it made me think about the, it's a super simple thing, but it, it was kind of funny 'cause I was standing there, I had a, a doctor's appointment and I was gonna get a cup of coffee and they have a cabinet where you can just pull out the cups and I stood there for a long time, right, trying to find the mug that felt like it was my mug.
Right. Like some of the mugs I didn't like and I was like, Ugh, I don't want that one. Just based on shape and color. It, it just, it's so interesting to me how we [00:16:00] gravitate to the things that we want. Well, your customer is doing that too,
Elaine Acker: Yep.
Sarah Sears: you want to find, if you want your brand to match for the right customer, you really need to understand your customer.
And that can be really difficult especially for small business owners but also for, mid-market companies or founder led companies that have maybe been around for a really long time. That could be a huge challenge if you're trying to update something to make it modernized and, and to sell, to let go of things it's a delicate balance, right?
How much are you known for that? And is that brand equity something you wouldn't wanna mess with? Or, you know, how much is it not a good fit for the new audience? Maybe if you're changing your strategy and going after a different market.
Elaine Acker: this is a random little rabbit trail, but you just made me think so often, you know, people ask. You know, what is, what is the science of the color? What colors should I choose? What should I do? The thing, and for me, when [00:17:00] I chose my colors, it was about, even though it should be perhaps about the customer a little bit more, it was about the fact that I had to look at them all day, every day. And I
wanted something that I liked enough to look at. So anyway, any passing thoughts on people when they're choosing logo colors? Is there any advice that you give them on colors in
Sarah Sears: Well, I would say that one question that we have, that we ask people when we're doing identity development, is it, so are there colors that you do not like? Like let's just get those off the board right now because no one's gonna approve something that is already a problem. And of course, you know, in Oklahoma.
Red and orange, you know, the Sooners and the Cowboys, I mean, so you just, you know, sometimes we present things in black and white if we know we're gonna have to do the color, because we don't wanna get, you know, we don't want the concept thrown out before we can get past the color. So, but color [00:18:00] does have meaning and especially in certain industries.
And that those, that meaning comes from culture, right? So. As a designer, you have to be careful too, like how, where is this gonna be used? Because if it's something that's international there's a lot of research that would have to be done or testing that would need to be done in other countries because they're gonna have a different they're gonna have different cultural aspects that are going to change the way that I perceive that, especially when combined with some other visual or maybe, you know, especially in identity development, animals, things, you know, different metaphors, things like that you know, that can be problematic if it's not vetted thoroughly. But these are things that a lot of times that nobody really realizes that they know. You know, we're not aware of all the subconscious stuff that goes on in our minds, but we have just, it's almost like epigenetics.
We have so many of information that informed how we react, respond to [00:19:00] color, even through plants. You know, like, this is edible, this is not. And so, you know, in modern time, you know, red can be warning, right? So, and then, you know, blue is water soothing. So you can see how these things can be applied to different brands based on those things.
And I would say sometimes, we kind of go the opposite direction too, for differentiation. So we have a client and they. I think they were called GreenWise Realty, which I thought was just terrible. And the owner's a good friend of mine now and she says that, I told her that in the first meeting her, which I don't remember, but she was pretty fond of that name and she had come up with it.
But she was really passionate about you know, doing environmentally sound. Real estate and really, you know, letting people know what they're gonna buy, what the energy costs were and all these different things. And I just thought that is a super narrow market for Oklahoma.
Elaine Acker: Yeah.
Sarah Sears: And so we created a name for her that was [00:20:00] Verbode, which meant green home.
And also it means forbidden in German, but I disclosed that to her and she was okay with that. But I also said, you know, the green thing is a, is a trend, so it's gonna, it's gonna go up and down. I mean, like, we still have those things, but then you're just gonna be in a sea of green, you know, if it gets more popular.
So, she picked, we picked Coral for their brand color, which actually stands out really beautifully on the lawn. So sometimes color it's the opposite. You're picking it for a specific reason, but it's the opposite of what you and very distinctive in the real estate market because where everything is kind of blue and red and, and those kind of things.
So there's a lot of thought that goes into color, but you know,
Elaine Acker: Well,
Sarah Sears: it to ask
Elaine Acker: yeah, and, then I think about the practical aspects of color, and because I spend so much time on the words lately, just in the last two weeks, I've been working on two wire frames for people for their websites and really working on the [00:21:00] words. And a lot of times I present those with the black and white blocks just so they understand the sections and kind of the story-based approach to why I've laid it out the way I did. But when I see them taking that and applying it, they then have someone building the page. I will see their colors and things that they think they like, but they haven't really tested it for the reader. So now it's back to the client and the reader and the customer, and how are they perceiving these things.
And I find myself going back to say, no, black on Maroon doesn't really serve you very well, because I can't read that it, you may think this looks beautiful, but I can't actually read it. So then there's those practical aspects. I, I'm assuming Yes.
Sarah Sears: thing with color.
Elaine Acker: That you are
Sarah Sears: So when you're creating a brand, you have to think through all those things before they even happen, often we'll have [00:22:00] colors within a brand that also have rules around them. You know, because accessibility would limit things so much.
So you might have to say. Here are your secondary colors probably, but you can't use 'em on top of each other like this. This can only be used in reverse and this can only be used in this with a percentage. I mean, it can get pretty detailed especially if you have a larger brand.
And that's why it really never ends, you know, because there's always, even if you design a brand, I mean, you know, like it doesn't take long at all to realize, oh, now how would I do that in this situation, you know?
Because it's, we're always kind of working on those nuances.
Elaine Acker: and I think accessibility has become such an important piece of design now, right?
Sarah Sears: it always has for designers, but because you're designing, it's human-centered design, inherently is human-centered and it's about communication and form. So, I think, depending on a person's background maybe. [00:23:00] But you know, in school we were taught to work in black, white first, and we were taught, about comprehension.
And, you know, different things are more readable type faces or more readable, more legible. You know, the spacing might change how you remember something or don't, absorb it So. There's a lot of, that gets into a lot of, geeky design stuff when you get into that stuff. But yeah, accessibility is always
Elaine Acker: yeah. And, and so let's, let's walk through some specific examples because we talk about, you know, I talked about my tiny little podcast shift and we've talked about a little bit about big things like mergers and acquisitions. But from your experience, when should people be thinking about refreshing or rebranding? Sometimes they do it too soon and sometimes they don't do it soon enough. 'cause you look at something like Coke and [00:24:00] you, you don't wanna change Coke because that's such an iconic brand. But yet, you know, you see businesses every day that really could use a little modernization.
So what.
Sarah Sears: I also think that there's a lot of redoing of brands that I think, you know, sometimes shouldn't that maybe there wasn't enough thought put into. What is the brand existing brand equity here? I think a lot of times people kind of engage with it before they think, oh, now I have to change this on 400 trucks, and that can be a big deal.
But okay. Let's back up just a little bit. Can you restate that for me? Like the question?
Elaine Acker: so my question is, I'm thinking about times when people should quote unquote, should consider a rebrand.
Sarah Sears: Right. So I think you're right. There's kind of a catch 22. Sometimes people come to us and they just have a business that they're starting, you know, they're gonna put the seed [00:25:00] in the ground and it's gonna start growing. And people have an idea of what they want. They have a vision for that company. But as you know, those first. Probably three years or so, you're really figuring out who you are. Like you probably don't really know who your clients are and you're learning, you're really doing a lot of research. So, I think even though we, you know, if something's well funded, it's always fun to do a brand.
Right. I would do that almost as a prototype like you're learning, right? Because. Design is that way. It should always be. It's iterative now, right? It's not like it used to be where you just designed something or have a project and that was it. It's very iterative.
So I think you're always learning. I don't know if there's a perfect time, it would be different for every business, but there becomes a time when you just start to realize, I don't think this is gonna get me to the next place, right? Either your sale, you know, something sluggish or it's not, you're not getting business the way you used to.
Through direct partnerships you've grown or scaled to a certain aspect, it's time to redo your website. So now you're [00:26:00] thinking away, maybe I should really stop and think about this and put a little bit more, into the strategy of how we're gonna build this brand. I wish I could give a more specific answer, but I do think it's okay, to start with something a little more simple.
We've done this before, where we have an organization like, I just need something simple to get started and we know that, and we can put that together for them. Then they can come back later but still having the strategy work done during that initial, who are we, what do we stand for?
Like what is our purpose? What are our values? So that at least you've got some aesthetics that represent that, you know, and it's not a disconnect.
Elaine Acker: and that made me think, so I've come to think of you most often for branding around you know, businesses in transition, some sort of transition. But when you just said strategy, it made me think, maybe it also lines up with times when you are refreshing your strategy [00:27:00] or something significant has changed about your strategy. It seems like that's a real, that's a moment.
Sarah Sears: Oh yeah. Yeah. Because often, you know, especially if you're repositioning a little bit, you might find yourself with an opportunity to compete in a space where there's maybe not as much competition, but you would still wanna look and see what does that competition look like?
Like, you don't wanna pick the same colors, you don't wanna be confused with somebody else. And so if you haven't done that research and really to figure out, you know, what do you have to be in like the top three to really break into a new area? You don't want to go into you want some blue ocean, right?
You don't wanna be going in and, and just being part of a, a feeding
Elaine Acker: Yeah. Yes.
Sarah Sears: right? I mean, you need to distinguish yourself. And so sometimes, you know, doing that strategy upfront can help you really nuance that or decide, oh, we thought that, but now we've done the research. That's probably not the right way to [00:28:00] go.
everything you change about your touch points and the way that you communicate and your messaging and the way you roll that out to people is gonna follow your strategy.
Elaine Acker: Yeah.
Is there anything I've not asked you so far that you think we should know?
Sarah Sears: I think it's important for people to have someone in their organization that we kind of joke and call it the brand police, but to have someone in their organization that really understands brand, because things can really go off the rails pretty quickly. I think about it like if you were gonna hire someone to landscape your yard and then you went away for the summer, and thought it was gonna be the same when you came back, it's not going to be.
So I think there's a certain amount of internal intentional understanding of brand from a organizational alignment aspect [00:29:00] and and an implementation aspect that every really, everyone really understands the role that they play in that, and that can make or break a brand.
We once did some work in transportation. We get to work on the brand for the transit system in Oklahoma City, which was really exciting. And you know, of course one of the core pieces of that are the bus drivers. And they had to understand that they were the face of the organization. And before that, they didn't really know that.
So I just think that everything they did was gonna reinforce that brand. It really didn't matter what the new name was or if it looked good or anything like that. If somebody got on that bus and there wasn't a smile and there wasn't a sense of community and there wasn't that emotion and connection then
it didn't matter what you did. So that's what I would just say is that it's something that I think organizations are going to do much better and it's gonna be really valuable for them and exponential if they can educate or get people [00:30:00] excited internally to see when, hey, are we going, is that really what we're about here?
You know, and kind of reign it in, know when to reign it in.
Elaine Acker: Well, I think that goes back to, the point of this podcast it's called Words and Influence, and here we are talking about design, but it really matters the context in which the words appear
Sarah Sears: Yeah, the messaging is really important.
Elaine Acker: Yeah. So you, I feel like what you do naturally ties into especially the extended piece of what you do.
So just like you were talking about the work with the bus drivers and having them understand that what they're doing is contributing to this overall brand you're setting the stage for them to have their maximum influence and, and I love that.
Sarah Sears: Yeah. And I mean, we do a lot of co-creative work with people and so, we did a big messaging [00:31:00] project last year and the organization was all over the United States, but like, you know, we went through the discovery together and so we got all the words that they use. And in this particular industry is very
Science-based and that their clients were more people in the community. So again, helping them to get the language, like when you say This, is this what you mean? And when we finally got it, like there were tears 'cause people thought, oh my gosh, like that is so much more moving when you explain it that way.
That's what I'm passionate about. But their language they use every day did not connect with it in that way. So they needed to help translate that into messaging that they could come back to. That really resonated with everyone in the organization.
But again, they gave us those clues. They just weren't thinking about communicating when they were using those words, and we were able to work it back into their messaging in a really authentic way. So I think. It's [00:32:00] all in the organization. I don't think branding happens to an organization.
It's the translation of the brand out of the organization in a way that connects with their audience. So,
Elaine Acker: yeah.
So I have to ask before we wrap up something that I would think to be able to sustain the energy that you have for what you do. What are you doing outside of work? We hit on some of your hobbies and things, but what really regenerates that creativity in you?
Sarah Sears: Oh, I don't know. I've been thinking about this this week 'cause I've been kind of all over the place this year. I love meeting new people. I met you through the Good Humans Growth Network and my friend Catherine Brown. And so that's been really fun for me to meet people in different, areas of work, because I think that is a really interesting group of people. From all different backgrounds. It's not the kind of people that you would normally bump into at your local networking event. So that's been really fun. People dealing with complex [00:33:00] things. I'm on the board at the University of Kansas Architecture and Design School and they have a really unique program there where they they have industrial design, architecture and visual communication illustration. Animation all in the same school. Because design, as you probably understand, the way I think about it is holistic and connected to everything.
So whether it's the spaces or the form that it takes it's all the same underlying practice, and so that's really exciting. I just got back from there. They're building a new building and they have a design build program where their students build a building every year as part of their, a home or a
a building with a different purpose. They've done 20 for the last 20 years, so that's really fun to just see all the work that those students are doing. It's the only program like that in the world. But I get excited about that next generation, and I kind of always had, I taught for 10 years and I used to have a really robust internship program, which I'm just in a different place now where it [00:34:00] doesn't really work for the
kind of work that we're doing now. But I think so, so that keeps me connected to like what's happening with them and then helping them and working with the other people on that advisory board to think about how do we bring also what's happening so fast outside of education into them. So it's an interesting, so that is, I'm really passionate about that and I love to travel and I have a little cabin up in the mountains that I, I love nature and I love to go up there.
So kinda getting excited about summer that's probably why I get so excited about the work that I do, because I get to go see all these different businesses and how they impact the world and help them to do that and the best that they can.
So, and there's always an underlying human aspect to that,
right? So I love that part.
Elaine Acker: Well, I know people are gonna wanna know where to find you, so where should they look if they wanna follow what you're up to?
Sarah Sears: I would say you can find my website at sdesigninc.com, but I'm most likely [00:35:00] gonna be found on LinkedIn. And so I would just reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Elaine Acker: We'll make sure.
Sarah Sears: place for
Elaine Acker: Well make sure we put that in the show notes.
Sarah Sears: Thank you so
Elaine Acker: yeah. Sarah, thank you for being here with me today and I love hearing about how you're approaching branding and it's not just as you know, a way to to address the design challenge, but really a way to support businesses as they make transformations. And I just think you've got such a grounded, creative way of helping people navigate that change. I hope people are walking away from this with a lot of insights and inspiration. And if any of you are in the middle of growth or a pivot or just feeling a little bit stuck, I know Sarah is somebody you will want in your corner. So thanks so much for being here.
Sarah Sears: Thank you, Elaine. It was great to talk to you today.
Elaine Acker: And thanks to all of you for listening. If you've enjoyed this [00:36:00] episode, please be sure to subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave us a review. It helps more folks discover this show. See you soon.
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Elaine Acker: Hey friends, I am excited to introduce you to Sarah Sears. Sarah is the founder and creative force behind S Design, and if you're from Oklahoma, chances are you've seen her work with maybe not even realizing it. She's helped shape the look and feel of everything from the Oklahoma City Boathouse Foundation to Myriad Gardens, and yes, even the state's own branding.
Sarah's not just a brilliant designer. She's also a strategist and a mentor, and a real community builder. She started the Oklahoma chapter of [00:01:00] A IGA and she's picked up a whole bunch of awards along the way. She's the kind of person who knows how to bring big ideas to life through design and storytelling. Now, I got to know Sarah through the B2B sales magic networking community, and I wanted to bring her in today because I've learned that she is especially good at helping businesses in transition, and it's not just design for the sake of beautiful design. I mean, it's helping businesses manage changes in their growth. So, for example, you'll notice that I just renamed and relaunched this podcast. I learned a few things that led to this switch. So it can be as simple as rebranding one aspect of your business up to maybe that full merger or acquisition situation. And outside of work, Sarah's all about good food, fine wine, outdoor adventures, and time with [00:02:00] her family, and I seriously can't wait for you to hear her take on branding, creativity, and building something that really lasts. So Sarah, welcome to the show.
Sarah Sears: Thank you. I'm so glad to be
Elaine Acker: Now you just told me what is not exactly a secret, but not many people know about it yet. So you have to tell everybody here, you had a little something to say about the Olympics.
Sarah Sears: Yeah. So, I think it's exciting for everyone in Oklahoma City right now because they announced last week officially, even though unofficially it's been announced for a while, that we're going to have a portion of the LA Olympics in Oklahoma City, at the Riverport venue, which is a previous client of mine.
And, so that's really exciting. I think it's a great example of an organization that set out years ago when there was nothing on the river and they had a vision of what that could be, and it included having an Olympic [00:03:00] training facility and being positioned for the Olympics. And then here we are this year, so, getting to do where we're gonna have the canoe slalom
event in Oklahoma City for the LA Olympics. So, it'll be fun and girls softball in Oklahoma City. But I think it's a twofold, right? Because you've got the Riversport brand, but also that changes perception of Oklahoma City's brand.
Elaine Acker: Definitely. And you had a hand in that Olympic branding, right?
Sarah Sears: Yeah. So at that time, not the Olympic branding, but the Riversport branding for sure. And it was interesting because, you can't use a brand with the Olympic logo. You have to have special permission to use it. And so when we did the announcement, when they became an Olympic training facility, maybe 2012 ish we did a big announcement and we couldn't
use the new uh, Riversport logo. So we really depended on the typography and [00:04:00] colors and all of that, because the only logo you could use was the Olympic logo.
Elaine Acker: So many rules.
Sarah Sears: interesting things. Yeah. But when you have that consistency, then when people get it in, you know, go through those experiences.
You've got that continuity of brand perception.
Elaine Acker: yeah. I love that. So let's talk about businesses that come to you. When businesses are in some kind of transition now, it could be a rebrand or a growth phase or something even bigger, like a merger. What is the first thing that you look for when you start to work with them. Talk to them.
Sarah Sears: Well, the first thing we do is we just sit down and have a chat, you know, like, what's going on? Every company's a little different. So really diving into what the situation is. Sometimes, through that discovery process, you really learn a lot more about what the problem really is that needs to be solved.
It's [00:05:00] often not exactly what you think it's gonna be when you get started. And often through that discovery process, we're able to better define what opportunities there are, what barriers there might be, and how that organization wants to approach that. And that's typically done with, leadership
discussions research, quantitative data, qualitative data, interviews, surveys with the org within the organization to get really clear around who they are. And then, after that, you know, sometimes the latter part of that is the, is a brand audit where you're really looking to see. Okay, here's what we think, but then based on everything we've discovered, that's not really actually what people think.
And a lot of times people think of brand as a logo or your messaging, but really it's the perception that's in the person's mind about who you are. And so you can only control what you can [00:06:00] control. And so some of that is how are we going to have experiences and touchpoints? Along the way from now moving forward, that are going to help people to understand better who we are or have a closer perception of who we are to what, who we think we are or who we actually are, you know,
Elaine Acker: maybe tell me what that looks like in real time, if you can. Is there a story about a recent project or something where you you set out thinking it was one thing and then you dug in and you found out more and the business evolved, or the project evolved and it was kind of something else? Can you think of a time when that you can share?
I know a lot of things are confidential, but.
Sarah Sears: I think sometimes with organizations they just don't really realize until you really start documenting all the touch points, what people are actually experiencing or asking, doing the interviews and asking [00:07:00] questions about what people actually experience.
We recently worked with a large university law school. And, they were very separate identity in a way from the university that they're part of. Because the university has a very specific brand in its larger sense. They really go after a certain type of people in entertainment and some other areas that you wouldn't necessarily align with the law school.
And so I think, you know, in a project like that, As you go through the process, you, it just becomes clear what the right thing is to do. And in that sense, what we realized was it really wasn't it. Yes, it was definitely independent in some ways, but in other ways.
You were still interacting with that university. And that can be very confusing if you were in a school where everyone thought, oh, we're just, we're just over here by ourselves doing this one thing. And you didn't realize that really the pathways and the journey that that student or that [00:08:00] donor or whatever was taking was was crossing them into all these other areas with a bigger, larger university.
And there was a lot of inconsistency. We didn't really need to change their brand. We needed to identify what their differentiator was in the market and then also align them with the standards as much as possible with the university so that those transitions felt intentional, if that makes sense.
Elaine Acker: It does make sense and I wanna highlight. One thing that I think came out in what you just said, and that is when you were looking at the university project, you were looking at this one piece of the university and how it aligned with the university as a whole. So then you're looking at that visual piece, but you are also looking at, when I hear you talk, I know that you're digging into much more than [00:09:00] just that visual piece of the branding. So talk about that a little bit, because I think that's something that's different about how you approach your projects.
Sarah Sears: my background is in corporate identity and visual communication, so that is where I came from. And people often think about brand in that way, but really because brand is your perception, right? You have all of these different experiences and you have pathways in working with different organizations that you're gonna go through.
And a lot of times people don't actually get through that pathway themselves so they don't realize, I mean, depending on who they are. And then if you think about the way that we communicate and share information, one of the reasons I think that I love looking at the whole organization from a business strategy standpoint, you know, if we are working, let's say with the university and we have that [00:10:00] school's strategic plan.
Then while we're going through and aligning purpose, vision, values, we're also aligning that to the university. Right? So you're still, even though we're saying yes, this to, we're still, we've still got that hierarchy. So, you know, it's not a total creative project in the sense of I'm just gonna do something completely different.
In a way, you have to figure out, you know, where are the differences that we're not bringing forward because everything you're gonna do in that brand is gonna drive that business strategy. It's not just about the visuals. I mean, there's visual cohesiveness, but there's also a language cohesiveness as a writer, you know, that do I sound, you know, correct.
Like, there are certain values that you want people to, live out in their expression of their job, right? So then now you've got operations in hr, like how do we do our jobs in a way that's natural in the way that we communicate, [00:11:00] that we represent the brand that we are working for, you know?
And I think this is where also in a merger and acquisition, you might realize some people are not the right fit, and that's okay as long as you have a good plan for, helping them to find the right place, I think, you know, approaching it from a human sense because what you really do want is people that fit within that organization, they're gonna show up that have the shared same shared values and things.
So a lot of what we do is help people to get clear on what those are so that they can apply them throughout the entire organization. And then really you just have a more efficient organization with more opportunity to build value for employees and clients.
Elaine Acker: And I think about what you're saying on the you know, this grand university level. And so, you know, some smaller business owners kinda like me, might be thinking, so what does this look like when you pare it down? Excuse me. So when you pare it [00:12:00] down, and I think about even just the rebrand of this podcast. So when I was at Grow 2025, I spoke to Bryan Steele and he is a podcast producer and he said. You know, I've, I've been digging into your podcast a little bit. I have a few notes for you. Do you wanna know about this? I'm like, of course,
I do. Do
Sarah Sears: Yes.
Elaine Acker: So he, and I talked for a while, and one of the things I realized was that our old title was Cover to Cover Influence, which I loved because I came up with it. It was,
something that I created and I loved the alignment with books, you know, read it, cover to cover kind of thing. But the more he and I talked and the more opportunities I saw. With doing the podcast, the more I realized I had to change the name and that felt like a real bummer.
But I think it's kind of a little [00:13:00] tiny insight into what goes on in a lot of businesses because. We have our umbrella brand, but then there are little things like podcasts and blogs and emails and things that we are branding and naming. And I think it's really easy to like building onto a house.
It's really easy to kind of lose track of some of that.
Sarah Sears: And have you ever walked through a house that hasn't been intentionally planned out? It's really uncomfortable.
Elaine Acker: And, and there's that emotional attachment to the thing you started with too, or to this, latest thing that you did. So what?
Sarah Sears: But the emotional attachment, yeah. Oh, I didn't
Elaine Acker: No, it's all right.
What do you wish more leaders understood about kind of that emotional side of branding?
Sarah Sears: Yeah, there's quite a few things there that, number one is the naming. Naming is so difficult, and especially, you know, obviously now, like there's so many names taken, and then [00:14:00] you get these ridiculous names, like some of the drag names that are on television. But the reason why is because it's just really hard to find a name that has not already been taken.
And so the trademark portion of that is a significant consideration. A lot of the work that we do comes from people that are like, oh no, now I have a cease and desist. And they just didn't take the time to go through and get things properly vetted before they launched it. And so I think that's especially, and you just never know when your business is gonna grow, right?
I mean, a lot of times this is someone coming in from out of state saying, oh, now we're coming into your state, but we have the national trademark on this and I'm sorry that you're this little bitty business which happens. For a little bitty business, redoing your signage and your naming and updating on social media is a really
big deal. To have to go through that all again. So, and the other thing I would say, when you were saying how attached you are, 'cause so many people, it's so dear to people's hearts, but I think one of the things that we have to remember [00:15:00] is that we're often not designing. I mean, we're not designing for ourselves, right?
designing for a client. And so people get very attached to the colors they like the look and feel of things that they like without considering. Okay, so if my client is the specific type of person what is their life like, what brands do they follow and based on that they're gonna make a decision.
Something happened to me this morning and it made me think about the, it's a super simple thing, but it, it was kind of funny 'cause I was standing there, I had a, a doctor's appointment and I was gonna get a cup of coffee and they have a cabinet where you can just pull out the cups and I stood there for a long time, right, trying to find the mug that felt like it was my mug.
Right. Like some of the mugs I didn't like and I was like, Ugh, I don't want that one. Just based on shape and color. It, it just, it's so interesting to me how we [00:16:00] gravitate to the things that we want. Well, your customer is doing that too,
Elaine Acker: Yep.
Sarah Sears: you want to find, if you want your brand to match for the right customer, you really need to understand your customer.
And that can be really difficult especially for small business owners but also for, mid-market companies or founder led companies that have maybe been around for a really long time. That could be a huge challenge if you're trying to update something to make it modernized and, and to sell, to let go of things it's a delicate balance, right?
How much are you known for that? And is that brand equity something you wouldn't wanna mess with? Or, you know, how much is it not a good fit for the new audience? Maybe if you're changing your strategy and going after a different market.
Elaine Acker: this is a random little rabbit trail, but you just made me think so often, you know, people ask. You know, what is, what is the science of the color? What colors should I choose? What should I do? The thing, and for me, when [00:17:00] I chose my colors, it was about, even though it should be perhaps about the customer a little bit more, it was about the fact that I had to look at them all day, every day. And I
wanted something that I liked enough to look at. So anyway, any passing thoughts on people when they're choosing logo colors? Is there any advice that you give them on colors in
Sarah Sears: Well, I would say that one question that we have, that we ask people when we're doing identity development, is it, so are there colors that you do not like? Like let's just get those off the board right now because no one's gonna approve something that is already a problem. And of course, you know, in Oklahoma.
Red and orange, you know, the Sooners and the Cowboys, I mean, so you just, you know, sometimes we present things in black and white if we know we're gonna have to do the color, because we don't wanna get, you know, we don't want the concept thrown out before we can get past the color. So, but color [00:18:00] does have meaning and especially in certain industries.
And that those, that meaning comes from culture, right? So. As a designer, you have to be careful too, like how, where is this gonna be used? Because if it's something that's international there's a lot of research that would have to be done or testing that would need to be done in other countries because they're gonna have a different they're gonna have different cultural aspects that are going to change the way that I perceive that, especially when combined with some other visual or maybe, you know, especially in identity development, animals, things, you know, different metaphors, things like that you know, that can be problematic if it's not vetted thoroughly. But these are things that a lot of times that nobody really realizes that they know. You know, we're not aware of all the subconscious stuff that goes on in our minds, but we have just, it's almost like epigenetics.
We have so many of information that informed how we react, respond to [00:19:00] color, even through plants. You know, like, this is edible, this is not. And so, you know, in modern time, you know, red can be warning, right? So, and then, you know, blue is water soothing. So you can see how these things can be applied to different brands based on those things.
And I would say sometimes, we kind of go the opposite direction too, for differentiation. So we have a client and they. I think they were called GreenWise Realty, which I thought was just terrible. And the owner's a good friend of mine now and she says that, I told her that in the first meeting her, which I don't remember, but she was pretty fond of that name and she had come up with it.
But she was really passionate about you know, doing environmentally sound. Real estate and really, you know, letting people know what they're gonna buy, what the energy costs were and all these different things. And I just thought that is a super narrow market for Oklahoma.
Elaine Acker: Yeah.
Sarah Sears: And so we created a name for her that was [00:20:00] Verbode, which meant green home.
And also it means forbidden in German, but I disclosed that to her and she was okay with that. But I also said, you know, the green thing is a, is a trend, so it's gonna, it's gonna go up and down. I mean, like, we still have those things, but then you're just gonna be in a sea of green, you know, if it gets more popular.
So, she picked, we picked Coral for their brand color, which actually stands out really beautifully on the lawn. So sometimes color it's the opposite. You're picking it for a specific reason, but it's the opposite of what you and very distinctive in the real estate market because where everything is kind of blue and red and, and those kind of things.
So there's a lot of thought that goes into color, but you know,
Elaine Acker: Well,
Sarah Sears: it to ask
Elaine Acker: yeah, and, then I think about the practical aspects of color, and because I spend so much time on the words lately, just in the last two weeks, I've been working on two wire frames for people for their websites and really working on the [00:21:00] words. And a lot of times I present those with the black and white blocks just so they understand the sections and kind of the story-based approach to why I've laid it out the way I did. But when I see them taking that and applying it, they then have someone building the page. I will see their colors and things that they think they like, but they haven't really tested it for the reader. So now it's back to the client and the reader and the customer, and how are they perceiving these things.
And I find myself going back to say, no, black on Maroon doesn't really serve you very well, because I can't read that it, you may think this looks beautiful, but I can't actually read it. So then there's those practical aspects. I, I'm assuming Yes.
Sarah Sears: thing with color.
Elaine Acker: That you are
Sarah Sears: So when you're creating a brand, you have to think through all those things before they even happen, often we'll have [00:22:00] colors within a brand that also have rules around them. You know, because accessibility would limit things so much.
So you might have to say. Here are your secondary colors probably, but you can't use 'em on top of each other like this. This can only be used in reverse and this can only be used in this with a percentage. I mean, it can get pretty detailed especially if you have a larger brand.
And that's why it really never ends, you know, because there's always, even if you design a brand, I mean, you know, like it doesn't take long at all to realize, oh, now how would I do that in this situation, you know?
Because it's, we're always kind of working on those nuances.
Elaine Acker: and I think accessibility has become such an important piece of design now, right?
Sarah Sears: it always has for designers, but because you're designing, it's human-centered design, inherently is human-centered and it's about communication and form. So, I think, depending on a person's background maybe. [00:23:00] But you know, in school we were taught to work in black, white first, and we were taught, about comprehension.
And, you know, different things are more readable type faces or more readable, more legible. You know, the spacing might change how you remember something or don't, absorb it So. There's a lot of, that gets into a lot of, geeky design stuff when you get into that stuff. But yeah, accessibility is always
Elaine Acker: yeah. And, and so let's, let's walk through some specific examples because we talk about, you know, I talked about my tiny little podcast shift and we've talked about a little bit about big things like mergers and acquisitions. But from your experience, when should people be thinking about refreshing or rebranding? Sometimes they do it too soon and sometimes they don't do it soon enough. 'cause you look at something like Coke and [00:24:00] you, you don't wanna change Coke because that's such an iconic brand. But yet, you know, you see businesses every day that really could use a little modernization.
So what.
Sarah Sears: I also think that there's a lot of redoing of brands that I think, you know, sometimes shouldn't that maybe there wasn't enough thought put into. What is the brand existing brand equity here? I think a lot of times people kind of engage with it before they think, oh, now I have to change this on 400 trucks, and that can be a big deal.
But okay. Let's back up just a little bit. Can you restate that for me? Like the question?
Elaine Acker: so my question is, I'm thinking about times when people should quote unquote, should consider a rebrand.
Sarah Sears: Right. So I think you're right. There's kind of a catch 22. Sometimes people come to us and they just have a business that they're starting, you know, they're gonna put the seed [00:25:00] in the ground and it's gonna start growing. And people have an idea of what they want. They have a vision for that company. But as you know, those first. Probably three years or so, you're really figuring out who you are. Like you probably don't really know who your clients are and you're learning, you're really doing a lot of research. So, I think even though we, you know, if something's well funded, it's always fun to do a brand.
Right. I would do that almost as a prototype like you're learning, right? Because. Design is that way. It should always be. It's iterative now, right? It's not like it used to be where you just designed something or have a project and that was it. It's very iterative.
So I think you're always learning. I don't know if there's a perfect time, it would be different for every business, but there becomes a time when you just start to realize, I don't think this is gonna get me to the next place, right? Either your sale, you know, something sluggish or it's not, you're not getting business the way you used to.
Through direct partnerships you've grown or scaled to a certain aspect, it's time to redo your website. So now you're [00:26:00] thinking away, maybe I should really stop and think about this and put a little bit more, into the strategy of how we're gonna build this brand. I wish I could give a more specific answer, but I do think it's okay, to start with something a little more simple.
We've done this before, where we have an organization like, I just need something simple to get started and we know that, and we can put that together for them. Then they can come back later but still having the strategy work done during that initial, who are we, what do we stand for?
Like what is our purpose? What are our values? So that at least you've got some aesthetics that represent that, you know, and it's not a disconnect.
Elaine Acker: and that made me think, so I've come to think of you most often for branding around you know, businesses in transition, some sort of transition. But when you just said strategy, it made me think, maybe it also lines up with times when you are refreshing your strategy [00:27:00] or something significant has changed about your strategy. It seems like that's a real, that's a moment.
Sarah Sears: Oh yeah. Yeah. Because often, you know, especially if you're repositioning a little bit, you might find yourself with an opportunity to compete in a space where there's maybe not as much competition, but you would still wanna look and see what does that competition look like?
Like, you don't wanna pick the same colors, you don't wanna be confused with somebody else. And so if you haven't done that research and really to figure out, you know, what do you have to be in like the top three to really break into a new area? You don't want to go into you want some blue ocean, right?
You don't wanna be going in and, and just being part of a, a feeding
Elaine Acker: Yeah. Yes.
Sarah Sears: right? I mean, you need to distinguish yourself. And so sometimes, you know, doing that strategy upfront can help you really nuance that or decide, oh, we thought that, but now we've done the research. That's probably not the right way to [00:28:00] go.
everything you change about your touch points and the way that you communicate and your messaging and the way you roll that out to people is gonna follow your strategy.
Elaine Acker: Yeah.
Is there anything I've not asked you so far that you think we should know?
Sarah Sears: I think it's important for people to have someone in their organization that we kind of joke and call it the brand police, but to have someone in their organization that really understands brand, because things can really go off the rails pretty quickly. I think about it like if you were gonna hire someone to landscape your yard and then you went away for the summer, and thought it was gonna be the same when you came back, it's not going to be.
So I think there's a certain amount of internal intentional understanding of brand from a organizational alignment aspect [00:29:00] and and an implementation aspect that every really, everyone really understands the role that they play in that, and that can make or break a brand.
We once did some work in transportation. We get to work on the brand for the transit system in Oklahoma City, which was really exciting. And you know, of course one of the core pieces of that are the bus drivers. And they had to understand that they were the face of the organization. And before that, they didn't really know that.
So I just think that everything they did was gonna reinforce that brand. It really didn't matter what the new name was or if it looked good or anything like that. If somebody got on that bus and there wasn't a smile and there wasn't a sense of community and there wasn't that emotion and connection then
it didn't matter what you did. So that's what I would just say is that it's something that I think organizations are going to do much better and it's gonna be really valuable for them and exponential if they can educate or get people [00:30:00] excited internally to see when, hey, are we going, is that really what we're about here?
You know, and kind of reign it in, know when to reign it in.
Elaine Acker: Well, I think that goes back to, the point of this podcast it's called Words and Influence, and here we are talking about design, but it really matters the context in which the words appear
Sarah Sears: Yeah, the messaging is really important.
Elaine Acker: Yeah. So you, I feel like what you do naturally ties into especially the extended piece of what you do.
So just like you were talking about the work with the bus drivers and having them understand that what they're doing is contributing to this overall brand you're setting the stage for them to have their maximum influence and, and I love that.
Sarah Sears: Yeah. And I mean, we do a lot of co-creative work with people and so, we did a big messaging [00:31:00] project last year and the organization was all over the United States, but like, you know, we went through the discovery together and so we got all the words that they use. And in this particular industry is very
Science-based and that their clients were more people in the community. So again, helping them to get the language, like when you say This, is this what you mean? And when we finally got it, like there were tears 'cause people thought, oh my gosh, like that is so much more moving when you explain it that way.
That's what I'm passionate about. But their language they use every day did not connect with it in that way. So they needed to help translate that into messaging that they could come back to. That really resonated with everyone in the organization.
But again, they gave us those clues. They just weren't thinking about communicating when they were using those words, and we were able to work it back into their messaging in a really authentic way. So I think. It's [00:32:00] all in the organization. I don't think branding happens to an organization.
It's the translation of the brand out of the organization in a way that connects with their audience. So,
Elaine Acker: yeah.
So I have to ask before we wrap up something that I would think to be able to sustain the energy that you have for what you do. What are you doing outside of work? We hit on some of your hobbies and things, but what really regenerates that creativity in you?
Sarah Sears: Oh, I don't know. I've been thinking about this this week 'cause I've been kind of all over the place this year. I love meeting new people. I met you through the Good Humans Growth Network and my friend Catherine Brown. And so that's been really fun for me to meet people in different, areas of work, because I think that is a really interesting group of people. From all different backgrounds. It's not the kind of people that you would normally bump into at your local networking event. So that's been really fun. People dealing with complex [00:33:00] things. I'm on the board at the University of Kansas Architecture and Design School and they have a really unique program there where they they have industrial design, architecture and visual communication illustration. Animation all in the same school. Because design, as you probably understand, the way I think about it is holistic and connected to everything.
So whether it's the spaces or the form that it takes it's all the same underlying practice, and so that's really exciting. I just got back from there. They're building a new building and they have a design build program where their students build a building every year as part of their, a home or a
a building with a different purpose. They've done 20 for the last 20 years, so that's really fun to just see all the work that those students are doing. It's the only program like that in the world. But I get excited about that next generation, and I kind of always had, I taught for 10 years and I used to have a really robust internship program, which I'm just in a different place now where it [00:34:00] doesn't really work for the
kind of work that we're doing now. But I think so, so that keeps me connected to like what's happening with them and then helping them and working with the other people on that advisory board to think about how do we bring also what's happening so fast outside of education into them. So it's an interesting, so that is, I'm really passionate about that and I love to travel and I have a little cabin up in the mountains that I, I love nature and I love to go up there.
So kinda getting excited about summer that's probably why I get so excited about the work that I do, because I get to go see all these different businesses and how they impact the world and help them to do that and the best that they can.
So, and there's always an underlying human aspect to that,
right? So I love that part.
Elaine Acker: Well, I know people are gonna wanna know where to find you, so where should they look if they wanna follow what you're up to?
Sarah Sears: I would say you can find my website at sdesigninc.com, but I'm most likely [00:35:00] gonna be found on LinkedIn. And so I would just reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Elaine Acker: We'll make sure.
Sarah Sears: place for
Elaine Acker: Well make sure we put that in the show notes.
Sarah Sears: Thank you so
Elaine Acker: yeah. Sarah, thank you for being here with me today and I love hearing about how you're approaching branding and it's not just as you know, a way to to address the design challenge, but really a way to support businesses as they make transformations. And I just think you've got such a grounded, creative way of helping people navigate that change. I hope people are walking away from this with a lot of insights and inspiration. And if any of you are in the middle of growth or a pivot or just feeling a little bit stuck, I know Sarah is somebody you will want in your corner. So thanks so much for being here.
Sarah Sears: Thank you, Elaine. It was great to talk to you today.
Elaine Acker: And thanks to all of you for listening. If you've enjoyed this [00:36:00] episode, please be sure to subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave us a review. It helps more folks discover this show. See you soon.
