Let’s talk about something that’s low effort, high reward, and just might save your brand sanity: a capsule brand. This is for you if: You already have a brand (even a half-baked one) You’re tired of second-guessing every Canva design You’re feeling “meh” after design sessions and you’re not sure why Why You’re Burnt Out Every Time You Open Canva Every time you sit down to “make something cute,” you’re making hundreds  of tiny design decisions. Color, font size, line spacing, alignment, texture, border, shadow, icon style—and that’s before you even get to the content. That kind of cognitive load is design fatigue 101. And you know what happens then: You burn out halfway through You hate what you made You swear off content creation for a week Here’s the fix: make 16 design decisions up front —your capsule brand—and reuse them for the next 90 days. This will save you thousands of micro-decisions. I’m not exaggerating. What’s a Capsule Brand? Think capsule wardrobe, but for your visuals. You pick 16 visual elements  (like fonts, colors, corner radius, textures, etc.) and commit to using only those for 90 days. Not forever. Just long enough to: Build consistency Reduce choice overload Practice executing a vibe It’s not a rebrand. It’s a focus tool. You’re working within creative constraints so you can actually create . Why 90 Days? Two reasons: Design skills come from repetition.  If you’re not a trained designer, you need reps. This lets you “wear” your brand for a while and figure out what works (and what doesn’t) before you commit long term. Brands evolve.  Your business changes. The internet changes. Design trends shift. A capsule brand gives you a structured way to adapt without totally derailing your look every time something new drops. Eventually, you won’t need this. But until you’ve really built up design confidence (usually 12–18 months of intentional practice), this 90-day rhythm gives you permission to change slowly , not reactively. What Goes Into Your Capsule Brand Here’s the full lineup of the 16 elements you’ll define. You can grab the free Capsule Brand Decision Guide I made [insert link] if you want help mapping this out. 1–4: Color Palette Lightest color (your white or background tone) Darkest color (your black or main text color) Two others that feel natural to you Pro tip: if you’re unsure, screenshot the colors you use most often, grayscale them in Canva, and look at their value  (lightness/darkness). You want contrast. Not everything should be mid-toned beige. 5: Background Texture This one sneaks under the radar. Are your backgrounds flat? Do you use gradients? Subtle textures? A crumpled sheet photo? (That’s what I use—because WorkShy is about being cozy and lazy.) Pick one , and stick with it. This tiny choice keeps your templates from looking like a design mood swing. 6–7: Fonts Title font:  This is your personality font. It can be fun, weird, expressive. Everything-else font:  Boring on purpose. Clear, legible, versatile. Pick one with multiple weights (regular, bold, italic, etc.) so you can actually format text without breaking the vibe. 8: Corner Radius Decide if your stuff has sharp corners, soft corners, or full-on pill shapes. This controls buttons, image frames, boxes—so many things. Choose once, apply everywhere. 9: Line Style Do you want: Thin lines? Thick lines? Dashed lines? Scribbly, hand-drawn ones? Choose one. Consistency makes you look intentional, even when you’re winging it. 10: Drop Shadow Sometimes you need a shadow—especially to make text readable. Choose a style and opacity level that feels right and stick with it . Shadow or no shadow—just commit. 11: Image/Video Filter If you’re editing visuals or videos, define your favorite filter or LUT (look-up table). Apply it consistently so your stuff has a “feel.” Even TikTok filters count here. Put it in your brand doc. 12–16: Pick Your Own These are the flexible five. Some examples of what you could add, depending on your branding: A pattern you use An illustration or icon style Your favorite “extra” color A specific element you love (like paper tears, scribbles, photo corners) An extra font (if you must) Just make sure these are things you actually  use often. And be specific—don’t just write “icons,” write “hand-drawn scribbly icons.” Make It Easy to Use Don’t just think about your capsule brand. Build it. In Canva or your design tool of choice, drop all these elements onto one page. Use it like a living, breathing brand book . Copy and paste from it. Reuse. Tweak. Test. Start every new Canva project by duplicating your capsule brand doc. Don’t start from scratch again. That’s how people end up with three different fonts and eight shades of pink in the same Instagram carousel. Final Thought Branding doesn’t have to feel like performance art. A capsule brand keeps things simple, clean, and consistent—even if you’re figuring it out as you go. You're allowed to change things, but do it deliberately , not on a whim. Give your brand time to breathe before you overhaul it again. You’ll learn faster, look more polished, and actually get your content done. If you want to try it, grab the [free Capsule Brand Decision Guide here] and tag me on Instagram when you finish yours. I wanna see.

Brand consistency sounds like the easiest part of branding. Pick your fonts, pick your colors, show up online every week, repeat. Right? Not even close. Most people I talk to know exactly what they’re supposed to be doing. You’ve got a brand book, or at least a rough idea. You’ve listened to all the podcasts. You’ve read all the “how to brand your business” posts. And yet… you still can’t seem to keep it together week to week. That’s not because you’re lazy. It’s because of something I call the Consistency Gap. Skip to the bits you care about! There are chapters! What’s the Consistency Gap? The Consistency Gap is the space between the version of you your brand plan expects—and the version of you who wakes up with a migraine, has a crying toddler, gets distracted by a leaky sink, or can’t focus because of anxiety. Brand consistency is built for ideal conditions. Real life doesn’t have those. We’re not consistent creatures. Energy levels shift. Focus evaporates. Life throws things at you. You can’t plan your brand the same way a corporate team of 15 does—and expect it to work. Why This Matters Your brand is supposed to be consistent across time, platforms, and touchpoints. But that model doesn’t work when you’re a one-person show, or even a small team where everything depends on your brain working properly that day. If you keep trying to run a high-capacity brand on low-capacity energy, you’re going to burn out. That’s the core of the Consistency Gap. So instead of building a brand plan for your best self, we’re going to plan around your worst. The Fix: A 4-Step Walkthrough Using My Notion Template This isn’t theoretical. I made a free Notion template that walks you through this exact process, and here’s what each step looks like: Step 1: Identify Your Consistency Gap In the template, you’ll see two columns. Left column: List everything your brand expects from you consistently. Regular Instagram posts, newsletters, YouTube, client outreach, etc. Right column: List everything that regularly gets in your way. This is where you’re allowed to whine. Be honest. Hormonal fluctuations, bad sleep, depression, screaming kids, no motivation, you name it. Why it matters: Looking at these two lists side by side makes it clear why your brand plan isn’t working. It’s not aligned with your reality. Bonus: I sometimes color-code the right column: Red = things I beat myself up for Blue = things I don’t Purple = circumstantial things out of my control This can help you spot where you’re being unfair to yourself—and what might actually be solvable. Step 2: Capacity Buckets Now take that left column of brand tasks and break each one down by type and capacity required. For example: Don’t just write “Instagram post.” Break it down into types: quote graphics, talking head reels, carousels, etc. Don’t just write “email.” Break it into “quick tip email” vs. “long-form sales email.” Then ask yourself: can I do this task on a low-capacity day? Or does it require a high-capacity version of me? The goal here is to sort all tasks into low capacity and high capacity buckets. Step 3: Evaluate What Stays From here, go down the list and be brutally honest: Does this task give me energy or drain me? Is it worth the effort? Is it crucial or optional? Can I batch it or delegate it? Anything that’s high capacity and draining and not pulling its weight? It’s either getting cut or radically adjusted. Step 4: Prioritize & Make a Plan The last part of the template helps you turn this into a usable plan: Keep only the tasks that are realistic and essential Decide which ones can be batched, delegated, or postponed Write out what batching or delegating actually looks like (what time of day it’ll happen, what systems or SOPs are needed, etc.) Create action steps to make each task feel easier or more automated Don’t overthink this part. It’s better to solve one problem well than write out a master plan you’ll never execute. Final Thoughts This process isn’t magic. You’ll still have days where things don’t go as planned. But what it does is lower the friction. You’ll start building a brand that functions on your worst day—not just your best. That’s what WorkShy is about. Low-maintenance, high-impact branding for the inconsistent human behind the brand. Download the free Notion template below. Walk through it. Don’t overachieve—just be honest. That’s the real work. 👉 Grab the free Consistency Gap Notion template here

I’ve been in the design world for over 15 years, which is both impressive and boring. I started in UX and UI—designing mobile apps, web apps, big functional systems. Everything I did had to be grounded in how a person would actually use it…and if it didn’t work, it didn’t ship. If it looked good but confused people, it was trash. The brand identity world does not operate on the same rules. No, the branding world is obsessed with the end customer, with questions like: What will attract them? What will speak to them? What will "pop" out at them and slap them in the face? It doesn’t matter how complicated or combersome it is to create brand assets and maintain the brand, as long as it’s attracting that end customer. The who, what, where, when and why are all covered throughout the branding process and final presentation. But you know what isn’t covered? The How. You know who isn’t factored into the equation? You. The person or team who will be handed a logo, a color palette, a handful of fonts, and a link to a glossy PDF with some phrases like “always center the logo on white space to represent clarity” or “use photography that evokes growth and possibility,” and then… good luck! I’ve been hired by companies after they finished a rebrand, multiple times. Like, literally weeks after the big brand reveal. I was brought on as a full time employee with design as the primary role, because the team had no idea what to do with the brand they just paid (tens of) thousands for. These were not small teams or online biz owners. These were established businesses, 60+ employees deep. 60 employees and it was time for them to make the committment to hire a full time designer, for the first time. And what prompted that need? A rebrand. Then in 2019, I started working with small businesses and solopreneurs—aka the people with no extra time, no extra hands, no in-house team. And yet they are still called to hire branding studios just like those established companies are. And they do. And they don’t “just get a logo” because they are told that’s a waste of money. They won’t know what to do with it. They need more, so it’s easier and cohesive and consistent. They need the full branding package so they get a brand book. That brand book will be their guiding light king after the brand designer is gone. So that’s what they do! They get the full branding package for 3…4….6 thousand dollars and get their beautiful brand book. And after all that time everything and sparkly presentations… just a few days or weeks later they find that they were still stuck. Still struggling to make shit look good. Still spending hours in Canva pushing things around and not understanding why they can't "do this." Sound familiar? It's not your fault. You've been set up to fail. Because these branding packages with logos, colors, fonts all wrapped up in a pretty brand book? It isn’t built for you. They are made by designers, FOR designers. They are not made for the business owner who’s just trying to send a damn proposal. And don’t get me wrong, they’re beautiful. Branding studios do amazing work. The fonts are trendy. The mockups are clean. The moodboards are moodboarding. But none of it means anything if you can’t use it without wanting to scream into a pillow. A good brand identity isn’t one you have to figure out every time you open Canva. It’s not one that makes you sweat trying to match the energy of your logo. It’s not one that you feel bad about “not using properly.” If your brand makes you feel guilty? It’s broken. If you’re afraid to post because your brand “isn’t polished enough”? Broken. If you’ve paid for branding and still don’t know how to design a presentation without Googling “presentation examples”? Broken. This is coming from someone who has literally spent a year inside a company building a real, usable brand system. That’s how long it took. I was working (at least) 20 hours a week on branding tasks, for 12 months, inside a hospital system with 300 employees. I created over 50 pages of documentation, links to templates, folders of Canva assets, examples of social posts, brochures, flyers, everything. And it _still_ took the full year to get to a point where I could easily delegate it without a lot of intervention. That’s what it takes to make a truly usable brand. Not a moodboard. Not a logo reveal and a PDF. A YEAR. And a year of someone like me, aka a trained and very experienced designer, focusing a lot of time into. So if you’re sitting there thinking, “Why is this so hard for me? Why can’t I just _use_ my brand like a normal person?”—babe, you were set up. The branding industry is still operating like it’s the Mad Men era and once the brand is presented, you’ll have an agency of designers there to execute it. It was never designed for you. But I see you. I’ve been you. Hell, I’ve been the designer _burning out_ trying to design for you. And I’m here to say what most people won’t: Your brand isn’t bad. It’s just not built to be used by you. And it’s not your fault. Now, this is the part where you’d expect me to say “you need a rebrand.” But no. NO!!!!!! You don’t need a rebrand. You need a reset. You need a version of your brand that’s stripped down, usable, human, and built around the way you actually work. You need a system that works for _you_, not just the people looking at it. And that’s what I’m going to help you build. So if you’re tired of pretending your branding is working when really you’re hacking together posts and crying into your laptop—cool. Me too. Let’s burn it down and start over the smart way. The best place to start? My free Thoughtless Brand Starter Pack . Where I’ll walk you through how to run your current brand through the IDGAF Framework, which uses minimalism and design principles to make your brand feel so easy it’s thoughtless.

Most branding systems are not built to support you. They’re built to support a fantasy version of you. The aspirational you. The you who always has great photos, perfect lighting, a fresh idea, and three hours to design a post. That version of you doesn’t exist. You know what does exist? Tired you. Over-it you. “Oh shit I forgot to finish that” you. “This offer ends tomorrow and I still haven’t promoted it” you. “I had a whole strategy but now I’m in a depression hole” you. And your branding needs to work _for_ that version of you. If your brand only functions when you’re in peak performance mode, it’s not a brand system—it’s a trap. And it’s time to stop blaming yourself for not being able to keep up with something that was never built with you in mind. Consistency isn’t about willpower. It’s about friction. The more decisions you have to make, the more resistance you’ll feel. The more resistance you feel, the more likely you are to bail. That’s not a personal flaw—that’s how brains work. Especially if you’re neurodivergent. Especially if you’re creative. Especially if you have small kids a and are sleep deprived. Especially if you’re a person who is already doing literally everything else in your business alone. So when your brand is abstract with no clear structure? That’s friction. When none of the templates that you bought actually work without gorgeous photos that you don’t have time to take? Friction. When you have four different “brand fonts” but you can never remember which one is supposed to go where? Friction. When you’re scrolling Canva to try and find an icon for “brainstorm” and can’t decide if you want a cute pastel kawaii one, or a hand drawn one, or a clean outline, or a clean filled in or... You’re not dumb. Your brand just isn’t t structured well enough for you to use. It’s too abstract, too precious, and too hard to reach for when you need it most. And every time you skip a post or bail on a newsletter or stop showing up for a week because it just felt like _too much_—you blame yourself. You tell yourself you need to be better. But really, you just need things to be simpler. That’s what a Thoughtless Brand is all about. It’s using minimalist principles to save your brand. It’s about eliminating friction. Reducing decisions. Building branding _around how you actually work_—not how you wish you worked. Because when your branding is easy to use, you actually use it. When you know exactly what font, color, and format to default to, you can start creating _before_ your brain talks you out of it. When your brand system is built to support your lowest energy day, you’ll be shocked how much more consistent you become.

Okay, so let’s talk about it. The scary thing. The thing no designer wants you to hear: You need to lower your branding standards. I know. It sounds dramatic. Sacrilegious. Like I’m telling you to give up and just start posting screenshots of your Notes app in Comic Sans. (Which, to be clear, I would support.) But what I’m actually saying is this: You’ve been trying to make your branding do something it was never designed to do. You’ve been trying to make it easy . And it’s not. And you keep blaming yourself for that. But the real problem is the brand you were handed—or pieced together yourself—is like the season two heartthrob on every early 00s teen drama. Mysterious, gorgeous, great in theory…and lets you down on a weekly basis. I’ve watched so many people pour time, money, and way too many Pinterest boards into “beautiful branding,” only to end up throwing up some random template every single time because they’re exhausted and nothing else ever works. Because here’s what’s happening behind the scenes: You sit down to create content. You open your brand folder. You look at your templates. And you feel that familiar dread. The fonts are finicky. The layout isn’t built for what you want to say. You don’t have the photos it needs. You start dragging elements around. You question everything. Hours pass. You post it anyway. It feels off. You close your laptop and go lay in a shame coma. Or maybe that’s just me. (It’s not just me.) Branding is supposed to make things easier. But it usually makes everything harder. And that’s because most of it was never built for function. It was built for _aesthetic._ It was built to impress, not to be used. So yeah, I’m telling you to lower your standards. Because the standards you’re trying to meet weren’t made for you in the first place. We’re in an era where video content runs the internet. Your grid doesn’t matter anymore. People want to see _you_—your face, your voice, your POV, your vibe. And if the only thing standing between you and showing up is the fact that your post “doesn’t look good enough”… we’ve got a branding problem. And let’s be real—you already have enough to do. Running a business is a full-body sport. When you’re not making content, you’re selling, serving, emailing, invoicing, strategizing, launching, people-pleasing, spiraling, recovering, repeating. You do not have time to spend three hours pixel-f*cking a social post that’s gonna be seen by twelve people and a spam bot at least half the time! The hustle isn’t holy. The aesthetic isn’t worth it. And you don’t get extra credit for sticking to the exact shade of sage green you chose in 2021. So we’re doing something else. We’re going full goblin mode. We’re lowering the bar. We’re making a Thoughtless Brand —a lazy, lovable, functional little system that lets you get in and get out and go live your life. It’s not ugly. It’s not chaotic. It’s just simple . Its a capsule wardrobe but for your brand. It’s just the shit you’ll actually use. A logo, a headshot, two fonts, 4 colors, 4 elements, and 4 layouts. That’s it. That’s the base. That’s the version of your brand that you _don’t_ dread using. That you can actually pull out of your back pocket on a random Wednesday and make something that doesn’t suck. And if that’s all you ever use? That’s fine. That’s enough. But you’ll review and tweak every 90 days to make sure it’s still working for you. but don’t worry about that right now. Right now, you need less . So that’s where we’re going. Into the depths of branding minimalism. Into freedom. Into functionality. Into branding that won’t ruin your week. You don’t need to start over. You just need to go Thoughtless. And if that makes your eye twitch a little—good. It’s working.

Let’s talk about the brand book. You paid for a brand identity. You were told you needed more than just a logo. You were told you needed strategy. Cohesion. Consistency. A full, proper brand. You nodded. You agreed. You sent someone thousands of dollars. And then you got it. The PDF. The sleek mockups. The beautiful fonts. The curated photography. The hex codes. The little notes about “using your logo responsibly” like you’re some kind of feral goblin who might stretch it flip it and reverse it, if not properly trained. And for a few days? You felt great. You felt official. You posted a reveal. You imagined your future—everything looking cohesive, everything finally working. Then you tried to use it. And suddenly, that brand book? Yeah. It wasn’t so helpful anymore. Because here’s the thing no one tells you: most brand books are made for designers, not for business owners. They’re made to show off the branding, not to help you actually _use_ it. They speak in abstracts. In a language meant for designers to interpret and make their own. Most brand books spend 60% of their energy telling you not to stretch the logo. Then they throw a few fonts and colors at you. Maybe a few photo examples. Maybe a mockup of a business card. And then… that’s it. Congratulations. You’re branded. What’s missing? Oh, nothing. Just: Like how to use this brand on Instagram. Or what to do when you don’t have professional photography. Or how to design a webinar slide, or a YouTube thumbnail, or an email header. Or how to resize anything, write anything, or adapt anything in a real-world, you’re-tired-and-it’s-Tuesday kind of way. Instead, you’re left flipping through a PDF like: “Cool… so I shouldn’t stretch the logo. Got it. That’s page three, four, and five. Page 10 says I should use imagery that feels warm and grounded. What does that mean? Do I search ‘warm grounded woman’ on Unsplash?” You were told you needed more than a logo. And that’s true. But what you actually need is Rules and guidelines you can use and understand. Not a style guide that falls apart the second you try to make something with your face or a screenshot on it. Here’s how I know: I’ve been hired twice by companies immediately after they got a brand book from an agency. Not because the brand was bad—but because no one on the team could figure out how to use it. One company had 60 employees. The other had over 300. Both had entire marketing departments. And still, they needed someone to come in and say, “Okay, but how do we actually make this work?” Brand books are sold as “clarity tools.” But for most people, they’re just a very expensive way to feel even more confused—only now you feel guilty about it. And listen—I’m not saying all brand books are scams. There are some incredible designers out there doing amazing work and providing real support and documentation. But they are the exception. And even when you do get a great brand book, it’s still just a starting point. It’s a snapshot of a brand system—not the actual system. How often are you hearing that? That branding takes time, takes trial, takes adaptation, takes evolution, even after the brand book is delivered? I don’t see it. The brand book with a few templates is sold like a magic pill. But it isn’t. Never has been. Never will be. And that’s why I created the IDGAF Framework. Instead of selling you a rebrand and saying “good luck,” I’m going to walk you through building a Thoughtless Brand based on the branding you already have. A brand can actually use right now , even on your worst, messiest day. A brand that works with or without fancy photography. A brand that helps you get more WS and less Ls. One that gives you energy instead of draining it. So yeah. For most of you? Brand books are practically useless. Let’s build something better.