The Messy Middle

When people hear the word “rebrand,” they picture the after. The polished reveal. The cohesive grid. The sleek new logo dropped on a Wednesday morning with the perfect caption. What they don’t see? The chaos. The indecision. The late-night Pinterest binges that start as “just a quick search” and end three hours later with seventeen saved boards and more confusion than you started with. The lip gloss stain on my shoot-day outfit. (Yes. That actually happened.) Today, I’m taking you behind the scenes of the TheAduni rebrand, the real, messy, beautiful middle that made the glow-up possible.

Step 1: The Mood Boards

I started, like most creatives, with inspiration. My Pinterest boards became a living document of everything I was drawn to: soft luxe interiors, feminine editorial photography, muted greens and dusty pinks, whispers of modesty in fashion, the kind of aesthetic that feels expensive without being loud. Whites. Pinks. Olive greens. I kept coming back to the same palette. Clean but rich. Soft but confident. There was something in that combination that felt like me, the version of me I was growing into, not the version I was leaving behind.

Step 2: The Colour Palette Drama

Choosing a colour palette is deceptively difficult. Every shade carries a different energy, and you want all of them to work together in a way that feels intentional, not accidental. Pink felt like me, but how much pink was too much? Would it read as feminine or frivolous? White gave me space, but would it feel cold? Olive green felt grounded and unexpected, but did it overwhelm the softness I was going for? I tested combinations for weeks. Swatches on my phone wallpaper. Colors dropped into mock Instagram grids. Fonts tested against backgrounds at 2am. Until finally, something clicked: rose pink, olive green, and white together. Warm, feminine, editorial. That was it. (And yes — those are also the exact tones you’ll find in the Shopcerisa visual identity. Both brands live in the same world.)

Step 3: The Photoshoot Chaos

Rebrand shoot day was equal parts exciting and completely unhinged. Outfits everywhere. Props that looked perfect on Pinterest and questionable in person. Me, checking the mirror every ten minutes and changing my mind about the first look three times. My photographer trying to keep the energy light while I second-guessed every shot. But then, between the laughter and the hiccups and the “Wait, can we try that angle again?” we started capturing something real. Not just pretty photos. Images that felt like the brand. Intentional, warm, feminine, alive. Those are the images that now define this new chapter of TheAduni.

Step 4: The Little Details

Nobody warns you about the little details. Logos. Font pairings. Website tweaks. Colour hex codes. The hours you’ll spend debating whether a heading should be serif or sans-serif, and whether “sage” or “olive” is the right word for the green you mean. I spent longer than I’d like to admit on typography alone. The right font doesn’t just look good, it sounds like something. It has a personality. It either matches your voice or it doesn’t, and you can feel the difference even when you can’t articulate it. These are the quiet details that pull everything together. And in the end, every agonised decision was worth it.

“The messy middle is where the real work happens. And the real work is always worth it.”

The Truth About Rebranding

Rebranding is not a clean process. It’s not a straight line from “old” to “new.” It’s a winding road with detours, dead ends, and moments where you genuinely wonder if you’ve made a terrible mistake. But it also reminds you why you started in the first place. Every sticky note, every rejected colour swatch, every reshoot brought me back to the same thing: I’m building something I actually believe in. Something that’s mine. If you’re rebranding anything in your life, your business, your style, your habits, your sense of self, here’s my honest advice: embrace the mess. Don’t wait until it’s perfect to start. The magic doesn’t happen despite the chaos. It happens inside it.

Tell me: What’s the most chaotic “messy middle” you’ve ever pushed through? I’d love to hear it in the comments.

Missed my last blog post, catch up HERE Catch up on Instagram HERE With love, Aduni 💗