What Five Days of Building a Brand Taught Me About Transferable Skills

Brittany Rodgers

Oct 9

3 min read

Last week, I wasn’t planning on building a merchandise storefront.

But a friend's CPA suggested they explore branded merchandise for his business, Green Flash LLC. They had some ideas for T-shirts and knew I dabbled in creative projects, so on a random Sunday evening I was commissioned.

Within a few days we had moved from a conversation, to a visual identity, to multiple rounds of client feedback, logo variations, and merchandise designs. We expanded the merch to include sweatshirts and stickers to reflect my friend’s interests. With permission, I developed a storefront in case someone was interested in buying a shirt he was wearing, or wanted to support his business. By Friday evening we had a live storefront, https://gfllc-shop.fourthwall.com .

Though I was working in a very different professional capacity, I was using many of the same skills I’ve relied on throughout my career: listening carefully, identifying the actual need behind a request, researching unfamiliar territory, organizing information, evaluating options, adapting to feedback, solving problems, and carrying an idea through to completion. A mindset and skillset that have served me well throughout my career in vastly different industries.

The first idea is rarely the final idea

We began with a character concept. That led to experiments with mascots, typography, surf imagery, Hawaiian and Mexican influences, color palettes, and different logo structures.

Some ideas worked immediately. Others absolutely did not. A design might be visually strong but wasn’t a good fit. An element might have personal significance but was impractical.

The process paralleled curriculum development, claims work, project planning, and nearly every other kind of problem-solving I’ve done professionally.

Feedback is information, not failure

Because I was developing the work for someone else, I had to separate my attachment to an idea from its usefulness.

We went through multiple rounds of feedback. Some concepts were approved quickly. Others discarded altogether. That process reinforced something that good collaboration requires: listening for what someone is trying to communicate—even when they don’t yet have the language to describe exactly what they want.

And sometimes understanding why the change was being requested was key to finding a better visual solution.

AI accelerated the work, but judgment shaped it

Generative AI was an important part of the design process. It allowed us to create and explore concepts that wouldn’t have been possible by our own hand since neither of us are artistically gifted.

But the generated images were far from perfect. I had to establish the design criteria, recognize when an image had drifted away from the intended style, determine which concepts deserved another iteration, maintain consistency across assets, and determine how designs would function on actual products.

AI was an invaluable tool in my kit that required an understanding of how to use it in order to complete my objective.

Implementation changes the way you design

When I began building the Fourthwall storefront, suddenly a logo wasn’t just a logo.

Would it work on a dark shirt? A light one? Could it be embroidered on a hat? Was the detail readable at a smaller size? What about a simplified icon for a sleeve or collar? Would a large illustration work better as a back print than a chest graphic?

Designing for an actual application forced me to think differently than designing something simply because it was a cool graphic.

Over the course of 5 days, my friend and I established a few designs for t-shirts, sweatshirts, and vinyl stickers. And I was reminded how satisfying it is to develop an idea into something functional.

Transferable skills sometimes reveal themselves through unfamiliar work

By no means am I going to add “graphic designer” to my résumé after a one week project.

But I did come away from the project with a better understanding of another skill set I’ve been developing: taking an ambiguous idea and creating structure around it.

I also leveraged skills I’ve developed throughout my career, in different roles: learning what I need along the way, collaborating with stakeholders, and turning the result into something usable.

The tools and subject matter can change. The approach to the work doesn’t.

By Friday evening Green Flash LLC now has a functioning merchandise storefront (https://gfllc-shop.fourthwall.com). I came away with a new creative outlet, experience with a new platform, and another reminder that learning by building is still one of my favorite ways to learn.

Not bad for an idea that started with, “What if we made some shirts?”