About

Hi! I'm Nick Galuban. 👋🏽 I'm a brand designer that helps non-profits increase their visibility using scientific principles behind branding and consumer behavior.

If you’re in need of a brand for a new company or product, or want to strengthen your existing brand, you've found the right person. That said…

If you’re here because you want me to only execute some “cOoL BrAnDiNg” for you without an ounce of research, I am not the right person to work with you. If you’re wanting only execution (and no research), I am not the right person to work with you.

Most brand/creative studios will gladly take your money and devote their whole consultancy designing and executing brands under the mask of being “strategic,”—without any knowledge of what the word means, or without any evidence-based principles that should (and can) guide the design of brands. Their practice is more about the craft then it is about evidence.

The branding industry is largely unregulated and dominated by the loudest Instagram and Tiktok designer or marketing clowns that regurgitate the same consistent bull shit, and if you’re a business owner reading this, you’re most likely the recipient of misleading information. Here are just some examples:

  • If you heard that “Storybrand is the solution,” you’ve been misled.

  • If you heard that “social media ‘first’ is the solution,” or anything about “growth hacks,” you’ve been misled.

  • If you heard “digital is the solution, and print advertising is dead,” or that strategy means, “we need a social media strategy,” you’ve been misled.

  • And if you think your company’s brand needs to “connect” with customers, you guessed it: you’ve been misled.

I don’t want to mislead anyone I work with. And so before we even think about “look and feel,” I help you answer more crucial precursor questions: What do people currently think about your brand? What’s your segmentation look like? Who do you want to target? What is your brand position to different segments? What are your brand perceptions among target segments? Does the perception match your position? Do you have enough brand equity to justify existing price premiums? Answering these questions requires real research, and I’d rate each of these questions at least 100,000% more important than starting with “which Pantone communicates more ‘youthfulness,’?” or “what font should we choose?” These are shiny objects at the tip of the iceberg that distract most studios from having any strategic backbone. They matter—but not at the level of the iceberg we give them.

If this all sounds contrarian and your first thought is, “this guy is a total clown and I disagree with everything he’s saying,” great. Like I said…I am not the right person for your job.

I believe that the best way to succeed in the market is to remember that you are not your customer, and therefore, you don't have a full picture of things until you do some level of research. If that sounds 1% intriguing, then I might be the right person to work with you. If you understand (or are curious) in the idea that strategy must happen before tactical executions…and diagnosis must happen before strategy, then you’ve come to the right place.

Before doctors prescribe, they must diagnose, which is the place we must start at in the conversation. Anything less is malpractice. The good news is that we’re not doctors—we’re talking about brands—things that are relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of life. You’ll have more success if you recognize your brands insignificance.

That’s where we start.

Contact Me