A love letter to the messy, beautiful rollercoaster journey of authentic design and why love beats efficiency in design.

‍

‍

The efficiency trap

We've all been there. The client wants it yesterday. The budget is tight. The timeline is impossible and oh, when will the inspiration arrive to bring me ideas?! Suddenly, we find ourselves reaching for the quickest solution, the safest choice, the template that worked before.

Efficiency whispers seductive promises: "Just use that color palette from your last project." "Stick with what you know works." "Don't overthink it."

But here's what efficiency doesn't tell you: it's the enemy of discovery.

‍

Choosing process over speed

Recently, while working on a complete rebrand for Solveo - a company specializing in forward-looking strategy, digital process automation, and smart AI adoption - I faced these exact crossroads and it made me realize how I should just keep going steady down the path of a rediscovery of a brand so familiar, yet so different from before. Being part of its story for 4 years helped me a lot and made me realize that every twist and turn was not only part of Solveo, but part from all of us. In other words, we were the cause of those changes. 

It was clear as day that Solveo has grown up and the challenges had to grow with that. In a sense, this new look, new feel, new voice, new tone had to represent that change, that growth and maturity.  Eliminating everything that wasn’t serving us and only evoked  confusion about the identity of our brand. We had to work with a brand that has a solid background and core, visual direction, tone and voice that isn’t resonating anymore  and it’s outgrown by Solveo’s ambitions and aspirations. 

Instead, I chose to listen to feedback. To dig deeper. To ask uncomfortable questions about what this brand truly wanted to become. We constantly went front and back, revisiting and rethinking everything I was presenting.  Our biggest challenge was defining our new voice and tone and setting a clear impression on what we do. Sometimes we’d get feedback from people, saying when they look at our website, they don’t know exactly what we do and how it was confusing. This was a turning point, a wake up call, that made us decide that we should really make a change. It was time to give our best to understand ourselves, so that we can be understood by everyone else. This was the biggest challenge our team faced. 

‍

‍

We decided to go through our services, to redefine them and rewrite them. We dedicated a workshop to achieve this, we explored our clients, our collaborators, and the solutions we can offer to the problems they’re facing. We explored how we wanted to sound when we speak about what we do.  Through the workshop and experience from our previous clients, the problems they faced then and the solutions we offered them, we defined the possible struggles and challenges that can appear with the use of AI. Exploring these solutions was especially useful for more traditional businesses and through the solutions that we offered them, we defined our services. 

The things that felt the best for me to redesign, was the color palette and the symbol of our logo. And when I say outdated, I really mean outdated by anything we’ve become, achieved, evolved to and on and on…Instead of the color palette that consisted of 6 colors in total, we reduced that to 3 fresh and vivid colors. A shade of Persian green, a yellow that’s like a Sunglow and a shade of red that’s like a Rose madder, are the perfect evolution of the color palette. As for the symbol, it got the look it deserved. No shapes that look too busy and complex, just a minimalistic hexagon that represents the core shape that marks the beginnings of Solveo’s existence. 

‍

‍

The whole process, about the brand voice, copy, new branding and services, took way longer than we hoped and planned. It was messier. There were moments of doubt, hours and hours of exploration, concepts that led nowhere and times when our patience was put to a test. But through that patient journey, something authentic emerged - a visual identity that didn't just look modern and refined, but actually embodied the company's story of growth through meaningful change. Simply and only because, we gave it time and gave ourselves a chance to explore different perspectives. 

‍

‍

The love language of design

When we choose love over efficiency, we're choosing to:

• Honor the brand's story. Every company, every project, every brief has a unique fingerprint. Rushing past this discovery phase is like trying to have a conversation without listening.
• Embrace the unknown. The most breakthrough designs don't come from following formulas. They emerge from the willingness to explore uncharted territory, to sit with discomfort, to let ideas marinate.
• Value the journey, not just the destination. The iterative process - the sketches that don't work, the concepts that get scrapped, the late-night breakthroughs - this is where the magic happens. It's where we grow as designers and where brands find their authentic voice.
• Trust your intuition - the tool that no one can give you or teach you how to use it. Efficiency often masquerades as logic, but design is fundamentally about human connection. Our instincts, honed through experience and passion, often know things that our rushed minds miss.

‍

For fellow designers: permission to slow down

If you're reading this as a designer feeling pressure to work faster, produce more, optimize everything - I want to give you permission to resist.

Your creative process is not broken if it takes time. Your methodology is not flawed if it includes exploration and iteration. Your value as a designer isn't measured by how quickly you can produce work, but by how deeply you can connect with the essence of what you're creating.

‍

For clients: Why does the best work take time?

To the clients and project managers reading this: that designer on your team who wants "just a few more days" to explore another direction? They're not being indulgent. They're doing the deep work that separates good design from transformational design.

The difference between a rushed logo and one born from patient exploration isn't just aesthetic - it's strategic. It's the difference between something that looks professional and something that becomes an integral part of your brand's success story.

‍

For beginners: Trust the mess

And to the aspiring designers, the career changers, the students drowning in tutorials and conflicting advice: your process will be messy, and that's exactly how it should be.

Don't rush to find your "style." Don't try to skip the exploration phase. Don't choose the efficient path over the curious one. Every failed concept, every project that feels harder than it should, every moment of creative frustration - these aren't detours. They're the path itself.

‍

The Paradox of Patience

Here's what I've learned in my years of brand identity work: the projects where I trusted the process completely, where I chose depth over speed, where I followed my curiosity rather than my timeline - these are the projects that not only turned out better but often came together more smoothly in the end.

It's a paradox: when we stop rushing toward the solution, we often find it faster.

When we stop trying to control every outcome, we create space for breakthrough ideas.

When we choose love over efficiency, we don't just create better work - we become better designers.

‍

An invitation to trust

So here's my invitation to you, whether you're a seasoned designer, a curious client, or someone just beginning to appreciate the power of thoughtful design:

Trust the process. Trust the questions that don't have immediate answers. Trust the explorations that feel inefficient. Trust that the best creative work emerges not from shortcuts, but from the patient, passionate pursuit of what wants to emerge.

In a world that will always push for faster, cheaper, easier - choose love. Choose curiosity. Choose the beautiful, messy, transformational journey of authentic design.

Your work, and the brands you touch, will thank you for it.

‍

In a world obsessed with speed and efficiency, there's a quiet rebellion happening in design studios around the globe. It's the choice to slow down, to sit with uncertainty, and to trust that the best creative work emerges not from shortcuts, but from patience, curiosity, and yes - love.

‍