Commit to your bit
Originally published in Theresa Sullivan’s newsletter for Little Flame Creative on August 25, 2026. She was kind enough to write a wonderful intro and conclusion to go with my thoughts, which I’ve left included at the beginning and end of the piece. Fully cosigned!
After exchanging enough comments/email replies of the “wow yes THIS” variety with Sharon of Swail Studio (a psychic creative director for firebrands, but of course) over the years, I really wanted to pass her the mic aka keyboard here to talk about design.
I’ve long felt like our ideas kinda share an orbit, with hers located on Planet Design and mine, of course, on Messaging Moon.
We both defend the belief that good creative work takes time. (Trust me, you want it done RIGHT, not done tomorrow.)
We’re both pretty bored with the safety of swoopy fonts + greige neutrals and Generally Looking Palatable. (Who are you really? What is it that you want to be able to let out and SAY?)
And we’re both into helping our clients go beyond your basic best practices to develop a presence that’s specific, memorable, probably a little weird, and original as hell.
Which is to say, since you like my emails, I think you’re gonna love what I asked Sharon for her take on:
Expressing your perspective (sound familiar?!) by ditching the beige and committing to your bit.
I’ve had the honor of being told by a client that their rebrand felt like soul-retrieval. I found this so profound because it’s so true to what unfolds with most of my clients:
They come into a session thinking that to get the depth and visual impact that they want to have, they need to create or become something New. Does that sound familiar?
They leave realizing that they already have exactly the spark they were looking for — they just left it behind somewhere along the way, whether accidentally or on purpose, and needed someone to help them weave it back into their brand as a whole.
The life coach who was a very successful public speaking coach in a past career, but didn’t think that was an important part of her story to her clients — when it actually lent her miles of extra credibility in an industry that often lacks it.
A musician for children was self-conscious about not knowing Who She Was. But exploring identity is an essential part of childhood, and that questioning quality actually made her relatable in an often-gimmicky category.
These discarded parts often reveal the through-line of even the most multi-talented entrepreneurs’ work — what they do best and how to visually express it. That through-line is what makes a brand clear, specific, and memorable.
Unfortunately, the need to be “clear, specific, and memorable” often gets poorly translated as an obligation to be “narrow, simple, and digestible.”
(Theresa note here: THIIIIIIIIIS THIS THIS!!!)
And that’s how we got all-beige everything.
The textures, layers, nuances, bumps and bruises are what make us human. Not to say that we need to bare it all or forget structure altogether, but we do need to consider our whole selves…which brings me back to what pisses me off about beige.
Highly-palatable, beige-and-sage brands will generally appeal to lots of people, and you may have built your own success on one (especially if you serve women + nbs in their 20s–40s, iykyk).
But just because something is pleasant and not off-putting doesn’t mean that people go “Yeah, I LOVE THIS.” It’s more likely to make them say, “oh, another wellness coach or something…”
On the other end of the spectrum, some people interpret being relatable as “I’m a person, so I don’t need a brand.” And I, a branding professional, will never tell you that you need a $5k+ professional brand identity to start a successful business.
But if you stay stuck in whatever free templates that Canva, your email provider, and your website builder are serving you (which may also be beige btw)…
You’re going to struggle to stick in peoples’ memories when you’re using the same visuals that everyone else is, inevitably mismatched over years of building your business through multiple rounds of trends. Not making a choice is also a choice. (I wrote more about this specific phenomenon and what to do if you’re caught in it here.)
Neither the clean, beige girlboss nor the anti-brand girlmoss are really expressing their own perspectives. Both are easy identities to hide behind when you’re afraid to commit to your bit.
I actually adore moss, but this sentiment works better for the traditionally-employed giriies :/
It can be tough to take risks around how we present ourselves, whether through messaging or visuals, because we’re afraid of saying/being something wrong. When our income is potentially affected by our wrongness, that makes it even scarier.
It’s much easier to either smooth out your rough edges into the clean girl package… or say fuck it and swing all the way over to meme goblin mode.
But the girl -boss/-moss spectrum is a horseshoe — the two extremes are closer than you think, because they are both rooted in a fear of showing up earnestly.
If you’re actually trying, you’re absolutely going to be the wrong thing to the wrong person at some point. But is that risk worth never being the right thing to the right person?
Is (strategically) trying new things until you find out what works worth the risk of a few bad experiences, a little embarrassment, a shitty comment?
Even if people only remember that you did something that seemed weird to them… they will remember a weird story. And when they meet someone who is just as weird as you are, they’ll proudly tell them in an effort to connect, because that’s what humans do.
Insert every conversation I’ve had with a stranger about their friend’s FULL COLOR tattoos that they WOULD NEVER get but they still think it’s neat ON THEM and ME of course!!! And need to tell me for some reason…?
My own weird girl problems aside: of course you’re worried about being judged. But we are all going to be judged by someone. So make it someone who you’re not for anyway. And even those people will probably remember you — which is what we actually want.
When you default to trending beige-and-sage or the literal defaults, you’re designing for the least compatible person, which means the most compatible person misses you completely.
If you’re picking up what I’m putting down, I’d love to hear from you about your own experience on the boss-to-moss spectrum. Email me directly at sharon@swail.studio.
Or, if you’d rather not out yourself, but want to hear more about my approach to branding, subscribe to my substack, The Edge Cases.
Shall we say it together as a collective rally cry? Repeat after me:
We are not here to default to the default.
We are not here to be the right, or just okay, thing to the wrong person.
We are here to SHOW UP, to give a shit, to LOOK AND SOUND like we give a shit, and go full-send in how we present ourselves.
There is so much potency in that: when you don’t have to beg/hope that someone will pay attention to what you’re putting out there, because they immediately see and feel themselves in it already.
Count on Sharon for brand design + creative direction with exactly that power, and me for the words.
xo
