SMB Accounting approached The Good Studio with the goal to grow their accounting firm reputation to become one of the leading firms in Australia. The owner, Stephen, came to us with a crystal clear vision for the future of his firm but needed help to translate his vision into a brand.

The strategic process for SMB Accounting involved an interactive brand workshop where we ran exercises to understand and clarify SMB Accounting’s true points of difference. We quickly discovered that Stephen had developed a one-of-a-kind way of approaching accounting.

SMB Accounting is an all-in-one accounting and bookkeeping service that small business owners can keep “always-on” in their business. As a result, accounting for small business owners becomes easier and more affordable, and owners are empowered to make better financial decisions.

We helped Stephen and SMB Accounting take this innovation and build a brand. Following our brand strategy workshops, we crystalised the brand’s attributes, personality and archetype—The Citizen. From here, we created a brand messaging toolkit for communicating with consistency and ease across all of the brand’s channels.

It was important for us to develop a brand and brand identity for SMB Accounting that felt friendly, supportive and trustworthy. These qualities are both true to the Citizen brand archetype and SMB Accounting’s culture. Creatively, we saw an opportunity to break the mould of traditional accounting businesses and design SMB Accounting to feel human—something that many accountants are often accused of failing to do.

To translate these values into design, we engaged an illustrator to create a custom set of brand illustrations that each depicted an element from the brand’s value proposition. Type, iconography, colours, and curated stock photography were also developed to complement the bespoke illustrations. This combination of visual elements provided SMB Accounting a visual language with a range of aesthetics that worked together to create a playful nature and bring a human feel to the brand.

Working through brand strategy to brand identity with SMB Accounting gave insight as to where to take the brand creatively. With strategy, we identified that building a brand that was unexpected for an accountancy firm was a skillful step to differentiate SMB Accounting from competitors and connect in a more human way with its customers.