We were lucky to catch up with Wells Collins recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Wells thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Is there a historical figure you look up to? Who are they and what lessons or values have you learned from them?

Historical figures that I look up to in my industry include two dynamic duo design couples: Massimo and Lella Vignelli and Charles and Ray Eames. I studied these four iconic designers in school, and have been forever impressed with their range. These days, many industry professionals advise young designers to seek out highly specialized niches within the design industry. While I think it is important to become an expert in your field, this also suggests putting on blinders to many other facets of design. The Vignelli’s and Eames’ believed that design is a way of life, not just a profession. Throughout their careers, they designed everything from airline brands, subway signage, timeless furniture, their own clothing (uniforms), and even architecture. I believe they were able to tackle such a broad range of projects because they treated each project as a problem to solve that deserved a strategic solution. I strive to keep an open mind and work with as many different people as possible to continue to take on new challenges. If you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not growing.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hello, my name is Wells Collins and I am a brand designer based with a passion for designing logos, wordmarks, and cohesive brand systems. I believe great design is the product of collaboration and iteration.

In college, I majored in graphic design, and started my career in Atlanta as a web/digital designer. After a few years, I pivoted my career to become more of a general brand designer. I worked my way up in the Atlanta agency world and worked with many well known clients such as, Georgia Pacific, Chick-fil-A, Delta, MattressFirm, Primrose Schools, Red Bull, and more. About 6 years ago, I moved to Denver Colorado to become Creative Director for a family investment office. During this time, I gained a wealth of branding experience by working with many startups and creating cohesive brand systems and bespoke wordmark logos. Whether working from the ground up for startups, or helping established companies refresh a dated look, I always approached the projects as partnerships. I think this commitment to the team rather than the project is an asset I bring into every working relationship.

I’ve worked with a lot of great people all over the world, and through a wide range of industries. With the input of these leaders, I’ve created brands for coffee shops, restaurants, fin-tech startups, breweries, crypto tokens, an expansive list of cannabis ventures, and even helped other brand agencies find their look. Currently, my top services include: visual identity design, logo design, packaging design, web + digital design, illustration, iconography, and product photography.

I really enjoy the process (which I think is important) and I thrive on the challenge to learn and adapt to the particular needs of each client. The variety keeps the work fresh and exciting, and constantly pushes me to grow through experience.

As far as my design process, I always start with pencil to paper in the ideation phase. I am a firm believer that quantity leads to quality. What I mean by that is: The more concepts that we throw at a wall in the beginning, the more educated and informed the final solution will be.

I design what matters for people who care.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

My first real job out of college was a web designer role. I had been building HTML/CSS and WordPress websites in college to make extra cash. I really enjoyed using both sides of my brain to balance artistic design and analytical coding. However, I quickly realized that web design is usually one of the last steps in a branding project. I was often given visual assets to manipulate versus creating the brand look and feel from scratch. I was also starting to burn out from too much screen time and was looking for a way to make design more tactile again. I started taking on more and more full identity design work to start thinking of the big picture and seeing the process through from ideation to execution. I also began to practice hand-lettering as a form of “high touch” creativity. Getting back to drawing felt like a reconnection to my roots. I grew up in a creative family who used sketching as a way to support or argue our ideas at the dinner table. Hand-lettering has become an invaluable tool in my arsenal that has allowed me to work with companies all over the world to create custom lettering for logotypes.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I’ve built up a moderate following on Instagram and Dribbble (a social platform for designers to share work in progress). My social journey began by posting hand-lettering designs weekly. The original goal was to improve my skills and a weekly post kept me accountable to keep producing at a high level. In the beginning, working for an experiential branding studio in Atlanta, I didn’t get to work on many logo & wordmark projects. Instagram and Dribbble provided free marketing platforms for me to share my style in an attempt to attract clients looking for that type of work. So, I suppose my goal expanded to increase my range of styles and overall branding experience. After about two years of consistently posting, I began to gain traction. The biggest source of new followers came from larger aggregated accounts reposting my work.

In the last few years, I’ve been head down on client work, and I have neglected to keep up with the consistent posts/stories. Both accounts have suffered from the time away. This is validity to being ever-present on social media in order to grow and build a community. So I am working to better balance my client work with personal marketing efforts, and hope to get back to a more steady and dependable posting cadence.

I think the goal for social media moving forward is to always stay in competition with myself. I hope to continue using it as a directory of my most recent logo and brand design work, and hopefully inspire someone out there, maybe even to start posting their own custom lettering.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.wellscollins.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wellscollins/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wells-collins-27044130/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/wellscollins
• Other: Dribbble: https://dribbble.com/wellscollins Behance: https://www.behance.net/wellscollins Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/wellscollins

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