BRAND DNA

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BRAND VALUES

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BRAND LOOK & FEEL

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BRAND EXPERIENCE

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BRAND COMMUNITY

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BRAND DNA ✳︎ BRAND VALUES ✳︎ BRAND LOOK & FEEL ✳︎ BRAND EXPERIENCE ✳︎ BRAND COMMUNITY ✳︎

Over my 25 year design career I’ve noticed there's a step many people miss when they start a business. They go straight from idea to execution, and wonder later why nothing sticks.

They launch without knowing if there is a market for what they want to sell, what they actually stand for and why anyone should care.

Irregular Brand Building is here to ensure this doesn’t happen to you!

Irregular Brand Building is designed to have maximum value when deployed at the front end of your new business journey, as soon as possible after that first giddy rush:

“Hang on, I think I'm onto something here!"

Our series of online modules are designed to equip you with the clarity and confidence to build your business on solid foundations — foundations that will shape and inform every aspect of your business journey.

Placing values at the heart of your brand vision, you will establish a framework which allows you to align the various ways people come into contact with your brand in a way that is authentic and meaningful to your audience. These brand 'touchpoints' include:

  • products & services

  • brand identity & tone of voice

  • communication & marketing

  • behaviours & environments

Working through a structured sequence of modules, the course will guide you through mapping out and visualising the inter-connected elements which make up your brand eco-system. With a focus on identifying and defining those characteristics which set you apart from the crowd, your brand vision will act as the guiding light for all aspects of your venture, helping you to connect with your desired audience by amplifying the things both you and they care about.  

Because we strongly believe that business doesn’t exist in a vacuum from you as a human, we will also give you tips on the stuff that can be seen as ‘extra’ - but are actually essential, including maintaining a healthy mindset, showing up authentically and keeping your creative reservoirs topped up…

A course taught by people who care, designed for people who care - this is what makes us Irregular.

Irregular Brand Building is a great way to establish a strong foundation for your new business, but we can’t cover everything.

Here are some things we are not…

  • The Magic Bullet. Sadly, there is no magic bullet for guaranteed success but without a really clear, strong brand vision you will find it much harder to launch and growth.

  • A marketing course. Other people have greater experience in this area... go find them, and leverage all the confidence + expertise you will have in your brand from doing this course. Trying to to marketing without this is an uphill struggle.

  • For get-rich-quick, pile-it-high + flog-it-cheap characters. I don't think we can help you, it’s not our style.

  • A consultancy. That's a whole other (much more expensive) ball-game, but this course will definitely put you in a much stronger position if and when you need to call on outside expertise... it's all about building up the confidence to put YOU in the driving seat.

Why does it matter?

If you think you hate brands, and the very idea of building a brand is loaded with negative connotations, I hear you! It’s easy to focus on all the bad stuff: corporate greed, lies & manipulation, superbrands buying up or simply burying the little ones, the exponential and unavoidable presence of brands in all areas of modern life etc...

But let’s remember something important: not all brands are evil.

At its heart, a brand is really just the manifestation of an idea, and successful brands are those which manage to effectively communicate their idea to the intended audience, or customer.
It is the principle mechanism for getting your product into the hands of the people who want it, without having to do every sales pitch yourself, in person.

The nature of how your brand does this is entirely within your control - I am here to guide you in understanding why you should get passionate about brand, and the vital role it will play in sustaining and growing your business/product idea.

The world needs folk who put people + planet before profit, enterprises built on a foundation of authenticity & heart.

Let’s Do This!

Hi, I'm Mil.
Designer, educator, DAD & recovering would-be pop star.

I started late, enrolling at Art School at the ripe old age of 27 because I was interested in the world of ‘stuff’ and recognised that the main reason things work well or not is down to design.

Having studied product design at Glasgow School of Art and the Royal College of Art, I have spent the last 25 years working with corporate clients in the world of fashion, food & drink and retail as well as non-profit organisations, cultural institutions and government agencies.

My work has been worn on the feet of Italian footballers, drunk in bars, featured as a question on BBC's University Challenge and spent time in prison. What ties them together is a common approach, which always starts by looking for the underlying DNA at the heart of each project. No matter what the context, the challenge remains the same - to find & recognise this essence and use it as the hook to tell a good story.

 Alongside my design practice I've taught part time at Glasgow School of Art for over 20 years, and since 2020 have been building my own brand Irregular Sleep Pattern with my wife Jolene — literally practising what I preach.

Hi, I’m Jolene. Entrepreneur, Community Builder, Activist & Mother. 

A former arts TV producer, turning 40 was a wake-up call for me in terms of my career - I just knew I didn’t want to spend another decade in an industry that expected crazy working hours + routinely tolerated bad behaviour, so I persuaded Mil that together we had the skillset to launch the business we had fantasised about starting. Eight years later and our brand of bedding, sleepwear + homewares Irregular Sleep Pattern has a cult following and has made us friends around the world. 

We have managed to steadily grow our brand over the past 6 years in one of the hardest economic climates in recent history, and if it hadn't been for the solid brand foundation we built before launching, I don't think we would have survived.  Another critically important factor in our success has been my own growth as a human: I've built support structures that allow me to cope with the many bumps in the road that are inevitable when you run your own business. 

So in this portal, I will be sharing advice on all the stuff that “regular” courses don’t legitimise: showing up authentically, protecting yourself from the rollercoaster of emotions involved in being an entrepreneur, working on your mindset (probably the most important skill you can learn), trusting your gut and more. 

I’m so excited to share them with you.