(1) BRAND IDENTITY & STYLE GUIDE

Before starting any design ideation, I conducted a kick-off meeting with the main stakeholder to gain a clear understanding of the business, its market segment, and unique value proposition. This discovery phase laid the foundation for BUILT’s visual brand identity. The key takeaways from that meeting were as follows:

• Service offer: 90% business valuation, 10% ownership transfer consulting
• Client type: 85% Construction Contractors (building infrastructure), 15% other (engineering • firms, construction materials firms, building product manufacturers & distributors)
• Client location: United States
• Client size: $10M - $1B revenue
• No existing branding or style guides

Beyond stakeholder input, I also researched industry norms by reviewing competitor color palettes to determine how to differentiate BUILT while still aligning with its sector. I then considered the target audience, selecting a palette that conveyed the right emotions and associations. The final direction was bold yet balanced: red (authority and impact), blue (trust and balance against red’s intensity), and gray (intelligence and maturity). This palette positioned BUILT as a seasoned, credible expert in valuations.

Once colors were finalized, I applied them to logo exploration. Since this was the client’s first time selecting a logo, I developed five distinct options to gather feedback and highlight different aspects of the brand. After review and testing across mockups, the chosen logo combined the brand typography (Metropolis) with a clean building silhouette—a straightforward, professional mark that differentiated BUILT from competitors while remaining recognizable and timeless.

Before developing the sitemap, I conducted a competitive analysis to identify key differentiators that would shape the website’s core features. To organize this research, I built an Excel spreadsheet comparing Built Valuation’s strengths against top competitors. A few notable trends emerged (proprietary details excluded):Before starting the sitemap, I conducted a competitive analysis to determine key differentiators that would define basic features of the website. For this research, I created an Excel spreadsheet that allowed me to easily compare and contrast Built Valuation's abilities to its top competitors. A few notable trends are listed below (due to proprietary information, I am limited to listing what is available):

• Most competitors were generalists, lacking a dedicated industry focus
• Competitors operated globally, while Built targeted U.S. companies
• Homepages tended to be overcrowded with information, offering little white space and appearing ‘busy’

Following this analysis, I created a user persona to guide how Built’s content and visuals would be presented. Understanding the target user was essential in determining both the site’s structure and design decisions. Given project constraints, I developed one persona, focusing less on demographics and more on objectives and behaviors. Leveraging my AEC industry experience, I spoke with Principal Engineers at two local firms to refine this profile. The resulting user persona highlighted the following:After my research, I then focused on creating a user persona that would be the blueprint on how Built’s written and visual information would be presented to the user. It was imperative that I understood who the potential end users were going to be as this dictated various design elements on the website along with its structure. Due to time constraints, I created one user persona for this project. Rather than their demographics, I focused more on the users objectives and behaviors. Having worked in the AEC industry, I spoke with Principal Engineers from two local organizations to get a good grasp of who might be looking for a firm like Built Valuations. Below are the takeaways for capturing users:

• Principal Engineer from a civil engineering firm revisiting exit strategies due to retiring stakeholders
• Age: 55
• Current stakeholder and board member
• Involved in planning leadership transitions over the next five years

This combination of competitor insights and user persona research served as the foundation for the sitemap and ensured the website would meet user needs while distinguishing Built Valuations from the competition.