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The Human Centered Brand (2018)

The Evergreen Ethical & Practical Branding Guide

This book is 100% completeLast updated on 2026-06-24

For agencies & freelancers: Promote your services with ease, clarity, and confidence.

Practical advice on growing a brand that’s focused on you (the owner), your team, and the relationships you form with your clients. It fills the void between personal branding and corporate branding, when neither of them really fits your needs.

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About

About

About the Book

For agencies & freelancers: Promote your services with ease, clarity, and confidence.

Published in 2018, but more relevant than ever: this book offers a deep dive into the essentials of branding for professionals who work directly with clients.

Most books on branding are focused on corporations, startups, or personal brands. This book covers practical information on growing a brand that’s focused on you (the owner), your team, and the relationships you form with your clients. It fills the void between personal branding and corporate branding, when neither of them really fits your needs.

The Human Centered Brand contains theory, examples, practical exercises, and stories to make learning easy and engaging. The bonus workbook turns it into a self-guided class that enables you to implement the information you’ve learned right away.

The Human Centered Brand framework is:

  • Practical
  • Effective
  • Flexible
  • Sustainable
  • Authentic
  • Relational
  • Ethical
  • Neurodivergent-friendly

What you'll learn:

  • Why most conventional branding approaches don't work for agencies and freelancers offering custom services.
  • How to identify your core values and use them in your business and marketing decisions.
  • Various ways you can make your business unique amongst all the competition.
  • How to express yourself verbally through your website, emails, articles, videos, conference talks, podcasts...
  • What makes your “ideal clients” truly ideal, and how to make genuine connections with real people who appreciate your approach.
  • How to craft an effective tagline.
  • What are the most important elements of a visual brand identity, and how to use them to design your own brand.
  • How to develop an exceptional client experience and impress your clients with your professionalism.
  • How your brand relates to your business model, pricing, company culture, fashion style, and social impact.

Whether you’re a complete beginner or have plenty of experience with marketing and design, you’ll gain new insights about your own brand, and fresh ideas to implement right away. The companion workbook, checklists, templates, and other bonuses ensure that you not only learn new information, but create a custom brand strategy on your own.

If you keep attracting the wrong clients who treat you badly, haggle, call you on the weekends… this book will show you how to keep them away, and instead attract excellent clients that respect your expertise and send you highly qualified referrals.

If you work in a super saturated market and have no idea how to justify charging higher rates, this book will show you how to do that.

If you’ve been procrastinating on writing your about page, redesigning your website, creating content, or reaching out to new prospects because you don’t know what to say, this book and the bonus workbook will help you find the right words and finally start making progress.

If you’ve tried using AI to craft your copy and design but the results were disappointing, the strategic blueprint and the brand alignment checklist can help you pin-point exactly what is lacking and how to improve it so it sounds like an actual person wrote it.

If you’ve tried other branding methods but they didn’t work for you because they felt creepy, manipulative, or too prescriptive, give this book a try—it’s written with the rebels, creatives, and neurodivergent people in mind.

ChatGPT is not your brand strategist, but you can become one yourself.

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All packages include the ebook in the following formats: PDF and EPUB

The Book

Minimum price

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$25.00

    Buying multiple copies for your team? See below for a discount!

    Brand Style Guide Kit Bundle

    Minimum price

    Suggested price$60.00

    Great value for small business owners that can't afford to hire a designer. Just plug in your own text, colors, fonts, and graphics, and you're set! This Brand Style Guide Kit Bundle includes: 📕 The Human Centered Brand ebook (270 pages, PDF, EPUB) 📄 Brand Style Guide Template (Canva, INDD, Google Slides, PPTX, ODP) 🎬 Video instruction for InDesign, PowerPoint, Canva & Google Slides

    $60.00

    • Brand Style Guide Templates
      For Canva, Google Slides, InDesign (INDD), PowerPoint (PPTX), Open Office (ODP)
    • Video instruction for Canva
      Step-by-step tutorial
    • Video instruction for InDesign
      Step-by-step tutorial
    • Video instruction for Google Slides
      Step-by-step tutorial
    • Video instruction for PowerPoint
      Step-by-step tutorial

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    Get a team discount on this package: The Book

    • Up to 3 members

      Minimum price
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    • Up to 5 members

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    • Up to 10 members

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    • Up to 15 members

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    • Up to 25 members

      Minimum price
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    Author

    About the Author

    Nela Dunato

    Nela Dunato is a multimedia artist, brand designer, educator, and writer. She’s been working as a designer for over 20 years. In 2013 she started her own design consultancy, with the focus of helping service based businesses craft expressive brand identities and exceptional client experiences. This rich hands-on experience, as well as many years of study, has resulted in her unique branding methodology that she shared in her first book "The Human Centered Brand".

    She teaches in-person and online branding workshops, and is often invited by startup incubators to mentor founders. She's been a frequent speaker at industry conferences like WordCamp Europe, WordCamp London, ACE!, WebCamp Zagreb, etc. She has also taught graphic design as an Adobe course instructor at Alegbra Open University.

    Learn more about Nela and her work at: neladunato.com

    Testimonials

    Reader Testimonials

    Contents

    Table of Contents

    • Introduction
      • Do We Need Yet Another Book on Branding?
      • Defining the Terms ‘Brand’ & ‘Branding’
      • Whose Rules Do You Play By?
      • Poor-Fit Clients Cost You More than You Think
      • Branding: The Bridge to Overcome the Trust Gap
      • The Small Fish Advantage
      • How to Put This Information into Practice
    • I. The Human Centered Brands
      • Deconstructing Branding
      • Why Does Branding Matter?
      • Differentiation: The Main Purpose of Branding
      • The Second Purpose of Branding: Connecting with the People You Most Care to Help
      • Great Branding Creates Resonance
      • Human Centered Branding is about Self-Knowledge
      • Do We Need to Be Strategic about It?
      • Why Human Centered Branding Works
      • Human Centered Brand Is Not a Personal Brand
      • Human Centered Branding Is Not for Wimps
      • When Is the Right Time to Create Your Brand?
      • Bootstrapping versus Outsourcing
    • II. Your Brand Needs a Healthy Foundation
      • Dealing with Emotional Blocks That Prevent Your Authentic Self-Expression
      • The Human Centered Brand Discovery Pyramid
      • Where the Framework Meets Real Life
      • Consistency, Consistency, Consistency
      • Are We Ever Allowed to Step Away from Our Brand?
      • The Rebranding Process
    • III. It’s All about You
      • Business is Personal
      • What Are Core Values?
      • Can Our Core Values Change?
      • Your Transformation Story: The Key to Your Core Values
      • Your Most Defining Core Value
      • How Core Values Ripple through Your Business & Brand
      • How to Identify Your Core Values
      • How to Use Core Values in Your Business
    • IV. It’s All about Them
      • Your Unique Value Proposition Is a Promise of Client’s Transformation
      • The Role of the Buyer Cycle
      • The Real Challenge: Making It Unique
      • How to Identify Your Unique Value Proposition
      • How to Use Your Unique Value Proposition
    • V. Talk the Talk & Walk the Walk
      • How to Discover Your Authentic Brand Voice
      • How to Use Your Brand Voice
      • Naming Your Business
      • Authentic Connection or TMI?
      • Is Swearing Ever Acceptable?
    • VI. Who Are You Serving?
      • How Narrowing Down Makes You Stand Out
      • How to Identify Your Ideal Clients
      • How to Use Your Ideal Client Profile
    • VII. Wrapping It Up with a Bow
      • Beauty Matters
      • Design Is a Visual Language
      • Who Is a Designer?
      • The Elements of a Visual Brand Identity
      • 1. Brand Mood Board
      • 2. Color
      • 3. Typography
      • 4. Logo
      • 5. Photography
      • 6. Illustration
    • VIII. Brand Style Guides
      • Why Brands Need Guidelines
      • What Goes into a Brand Style Guide
      • Where to Keep Your Brand Style Guide
      • The Brand Style Guide Bundle
    • IX. Creating an Impeccable Client Experience
      • Tips on Implementing Your Brand Strategy and Identity
      • Everyday Communication
      • Stationery
      • Documentation
      • Online Marketing
      • Public Relations
      • Live Events
      • Advertising
      • Physical Space
      • Uniforms
      • Packaging
    • X. Beyond Branding
      • Business Models & Offers
      • Pricing Your Work
      • Social Impact
      • Company Culture
      • Fashion Style
      • Reviewing Your Brand
    • Closing words
      • What’s Next?
      • Acknowledgements
      • References
      • About Nela Dunato

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