Professional logo & brand identity design guided by your values and purpose

Human centered branding is a deeply transformative process – it changes how your clients perceive your business, and how you see yourself.

I help consulting companies connect with their ideal clients though meaningful, values-driven, authentic, and beautiful brands.

My previous clients include consultants, medical professionals, educational institutions, and nonprofit organizations from across the world.

Tell your story through powerful & memorable visuals

Plain intellectual information can seem boring and is easily forgotten. Branding relies on feelings, emotions, impressions, experiences, and memories. This makes your story rich, dimensional, believable, and impactful. Your clients easily recognize that you are the right expert to help them in achieving their goals.

Instead of reluctantly handing out that old business card, or postponing marketing campaigns because you’re not satisfied with your website yet, there’s another possibility: you can feel a sense of pride in a brand that is completely aligned with your values, personality, and the exceptional quality of your work.

Client Success Story

After nearly 20 years of working on branding projects, this is what I’ve learned:

The key to crafting a brand you love is building it on the foundation of your core values.

Superficially pretty visuals are very easy to do. The challenge is creating brands with substance – brands that “work”.

How do you know if your brand is working for you? You feel that your brand communicates accurately what you and your business are all about. An exceptional brand is not only aesthetically beautiful, it also conveys your values and transparently represents the people who serve your clients.

Every business wants to be seen as different from their competitors, but how do we achieve that?

If we start with your core values, it’s actually quite easy. Values are like your unique brand DNA, since no two businesses have exactly the same ones. Differentiating is then not about coming up with gimmicks, but simply about being authentic, transparent, and human.

“Business as usual” is gone out the window.

In recent years people have become more intentional when making buying decisions. It’s not enough for the services or products to “do the job”. Many also consider the ethical impact when choosing who to buy from.

People want to support businesses that share their values and whose story they believe in. They willingly pay more for services and products they feel good about. Let your brand demonstrate to your clients that they can feel great about working with you.

Client Success Story

“Once you do commit to that journey, I really feel like you come out on the other side as not a different person, but more of you and that just feels like a beautiful process.”

Sarah Santacroce

Founder of Humane Marketing

Let’s Go on a Branding Journey

Creating remarkable brands requires vision, time, and the willingness to dig deep.

I’m dedicated to helping a select number of clients with all their branding and design needs, using a process that reliably gives results: beautiful, meaningful, and lasting brands.

My signature process takes you through four main stages. You can move through all of them at once, or choose to stop at any point and resume when you’re ready to move forward.

Human Centered Brand Strategy

Connect to your audience and clients with ease, clarity and confidence.

My brand strategy methodology, described in the book “The Human Centered Brand”, focuses only on the essential elements of branding that are most useful to service-based businesses. Human Centered Brand Strategy is practical and easy to implement regardless of your prior experience.

Human Centered Branding is different from both corporate and personal branding, and fills the void that these two leave behind. It is relationship-focused, and its main goal is enabling you to have successful and harmonious interactions with your clients.

After this deep dive, your new brand will feel authentic and comfortable, and it will resonate with your right people.

You’re allowed to take the insights you’ve received through our work and your very own Brand Strategy Guidebook, and move forward with a different designer, or your internal design team. There is no obligation to continue to work with me unless you choose to.

If you want to learn more about my brand strategy framework, read the following articles:

Brand strategy services are offered in the form of a full-day immersive brand discovery workshop for individuals and teams (1.000 EUR/USD fee), as well as a shorter consulting engagement intended for the readers of my book who have completed The Human Centered Brand Workbook (400 EUR/USD fee).

Both options include your custom Brand Strategy Guidebook.

The workshop and the consulting session are delivered worldwide via online video calls.

Brand Identity Design

Design is both practical and emotional. People are willing to pay more for beautifully designed products, and consider professional-looking websites and marketing materials more trustworthy.

My specialty is translating your core values, brand voice, the benefits you provide to your clients, and the emotions you want to evoke into the visual language of symbols, colors, and letter shapes that tell your story. I put special emphasis on custom hand-lettering, as well as drawing elegant and attractive visual symbols.

Each logo I create comes with a detailed brand style guide so you never have to wonder which colors or font to use in your materials, or if you’re using the correct version of your logo.

You’re free to choose your own brand identity applications that are the biggest priority for your business, to ensure that your brand looks amazing across all media. Popular choices include business cards, letterhead, email signature, social media graphics, business document templates, office and vehicle graphics, brochures, print ads, posters, banners, etc.

The resulting identity will look impeccably professional and symbolically communicate your brand message, so that you stand out as an authentic leader in your field.

To learn more about my approach to logo and brand identity design, read my articles:

Logo and brand identity design services start at 2.500 EUR/USD

WordPress Website Design

The next step in the process is to transfer the atmosphere of your brand to the digital world to attract new audiences and clients.

I’m specialized in building websites on the WordPress platform, which is a free, open source solution used by millions of websites today.

I tailored my services to support you through the process of planning and creating your website content, so you’ll never have to wonder what the next step is. We’ll remove the stress and overwhelm that you may be experiencing, and smoothly move you toward your new website.

Your website will be informative, functional, visually appealing, and aimed toward getting you more client inquiries and sales.

Website design & development services start at 3.000 EUR/USD

Continued Collaboration

As your business grows and evolves, so do your graphic design needs. Often business owners need new marketing materials in preparation for an industry event, a new service launch, or to package their new educational content (workshops, online courses, or books). To help you decide which additional graphics to order, read my article: Which brand identity design assets does your business really need?

Most of my clients decide to continue collaborating with me over the years, and reach out to me whenever they need new graphic materials. By then we’ve become a great team, and communication flows easily and quickly – almost like I’m reading your mind. (I explained how and why this works in my article How designers and clients benefit from long-term relationships.)

You can count on me to be your design fairy godmother for years to come.

Are you ready to start your branding journey?

Get in touch by clicking the button below, so we can talk about what you and your business need to elevate your visibility and impact.

Let’s work together

Meet Nela Dunato

Brand designer inspired by your stories

As a visual artist and communications expert, I’m constantly on the lookout for inspiration so I can create original and meaningful designs for my clients. The time-tested method that has always worked for me is to carefully listen to my clients talking about themselves and their business, and pinpoint key themes and moments that make their story special. I’m trained to spot what makes you unique, even if you’re not sure about it yourself.

After 17 years of designing for a living, I’m still as passionate about my work as I was starting out, and this passion comes through everything I do.

My superpowers are…

Visual thinking

Noone wants to play Pictionary against me anymore, because I always win! My vivid imagination is constantly coming up with ideas for how a certain concept can be described through images, and I have a prolific personal art practice. For this reason, my logo designs are unique and symbolic.

People skills

If I didn’t become a designer, my backup career would be art therapy. My empathetic nature allows me to tap into what people need and want, even when they struggle to explain it. I also ask lots of potent coaching questions that help people reach clarity.

Tech wizardry

My interest in technology started in my early childhood, and I even studied engineering for a few years. I try to simplify tech for my clients, and figure out solutions that will make their life easier.

Strategic thinking

Figuring out how different elements can work together to achieve better results is one of my favorite pastimes. I don’t just “dream big”, I also know what steps are needed to accomplish it.

How do I do it?

My methodical design process is a result of hands-on experience and continuous learning. Whenever I follow and trust this process, I deliver design solutions that are exactly what my client needs. I keep refining my process over time as I gain deeper insights into the human psychology.

But as with any highly aesthetic field, there’s a great deal of subjectivity and serendipity involved. There’s plenty of room for flashes of inspiration and unexpected results.

My favorite part of the design process is the breakthrough moment – when I look at a logo sketched on the paper and I immediately know it’s “the one”.

Yes, it hits all the criteria and objectives we’ve set, but it also just feels right. It’s difficult to explain to others how and why that happens, but that feeling of intuitive knowing has never failed me. This is why I show my clients only one logo design concept at a time – the one I believe in and stand behind 100%.

You deserve a brand you will adore.

Let’s make it happen

Client Success Story

“It gives me a sense of greater professionalism in approaching clients”

I started a business and needed a website that would provide a more professional and competent presentation to clients. My biggest concern was choosing the right person for the project in terms of professionalism, achieving the desired result, support and pleasant cooperation, with a fair financial investment.

Collaboration with Nela was excellent, professional, and very enjoyable, based on mutual trust. Any worries and anxieties were short-lived, thanks to her continued support, respect for agreements, and a refined sense of communication and respect for the client.

Compared to my previous experiences with similar services, Nela provides better support and secure guidance in resolving professional issues, subtly clarifying vague desires her clients have. It saved me time, because there was no worry or need to further check that what we’ve agreed on was completed.

I am extremely pleased with the result of the project. Since my business is still in early stages, it’s too early to judge the impact of my website, but it gives me a sense of greater professionalism in approaching clients.

I would definitely collaborate with Nela again, because of her professionalism, support, respecting agreements, pleasant cooperation and personality, a sense of confidence in her professional competence, and a refined sense of pleasant communication and attitude. I’m very happy to recommend her work because of my excellent experience and the results of our collaboration.

Sanja Krmpotic

Hospitality consultant at Sagape

Client Success Story

“All of our clients notice the consistency of our visual brand”

“We set the brand identity as a priority at the time of starting our business, because of the positive impression we’d get when a company (especially a small one) that had a professionally defined brand identity reached out to us. This proved that somebody cares about their business, and invested additional time in shaping their approach toward their users.

We expected that this approach will bring recognition to our company, and we’re proud that we’ve achieved that – clients and partners tell us years later “We remembered you because of your unusual business card”, or “We saw your people doing field measurements, we recognized the car because of the decals”, all the way to the positive comments about our documentation.

Over the years we confirmed that all our clients notice the consistency of our visual brand application, even those we would never expect, especially because our company is in the engineering and technical consulting niche, not sales or marketing.

Our communication looks professional, and we don’t consider visual branding too large an investment – objectively, it’s not a big expense, and we believe it’s an essential first step for any company.”

Kristijan Ljutic

CEO of 4D-monitoring Ltd

Client Success Story

“She understood the essence of our work”

I needed a visual solution and a website for our non-governmental organization. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted the logo to look like or what aspects to consider when creating it. I was concerned with whether I knew how to verbalize what I thought was important to me, and whether I would be able to answer any questions that were relevant to getting the job done.

We chose Nela above all because we are familiar with her work, and we felt that she was the best choice given the focus of our association. Nela has an artistic flair in her work, and that’s what we wanted for our organization and its visual brand identity.

The collaboration experience was great. Nela is very disciplined, dedicated, responsible and creative. For those aspects that we didn’t even consider important, yet turned out to be very important, Nela pulled what was needed out of us. She created a great brand identity and a simple and beautiful website. She extracted everything she needed from our heads to come up with a creative solution for our association. She understood what we wanted and the essence of our work, and she portrayed it with visuals.

We really liked Nela’s discipline, honesty, responsibility, simplicity and creativity in her approach. Communication was easy and effective, and we quickly got to an agreement.

We are very pleased. We have something tangible. We look forward to sharing our activities on our website. We consider the site and the brand identity to be the first step, and it has given us a kick in the rear to move forward.

We would absolutely work with Nela again! We would recommend her services to anyone who wants to create a brand identity and a website, especially if we are talking about the NGO sector and those who have a penchant for artistic expression.

Ana Markovic

Founder of PEZ

Client Success Story

“I got exactly what I hoped for.”

I am in the process of building a new brand and due to limited finances, we do a lot of things on our own, temporarily. The transition from the temporary to the real brand is a step forward that makes me happy.

At first, the uncertainty of the results scared me. What if we go through the whole process and end up not liking the result? But I saw Nela’s past works, I saw what the work process looks like, and got the impression that Nela is a person who knows what she’s doing. My impression was correct. In the beginning, I believed that I would collaborate with an expert. Now I know that I’ve collaborated with an expert.

The collaboration was pleasant, clearly defined, and very efficient (no delays, waiting, misunderstandings). By working together, we turned my desires, which were initially very abstract, into reality. Every time I look at the result I feel happiness, satisfaction and even pride. I got exactly what I hoped for.

I’d recommend Nela to anyone who wants their visual identity to tell their story.

Sanja Veletanlic

founder of go2human

Client Success Story

“Better than anything I could have imagined!”

“Nela was fabulous to work with! I had a general idea of the direction I wanted to go in with my logo when we started working together, but nothing concrete. I sent her some images I liked and tried to describe the feeling I was going for, but felt like all my guidance was pretty vague. Somehow, she was able to take my vague guidance and turn it into an image that was not only exactly what I had in mind, but was even better than anything I could have imagined! I was blown away at her creativity.

She even thought of hand painting the background in watercolor to give the image the organic and soft look I was hoping for. Nela made the entire process of designing my logo really fun. I can’t recommend her enough!”

Nadia Setzer

Integrative Health Coach at Wild Woman Journeys

Client Success Story

“I’m absolutely delighted with the results”

I needed a logo and branding for my new cafe business. I had considered doing it myself, but concluded that although I could create something for free from the internet it was probably not going to be of the quality or have the impact I wanted. I considered it too risky leaving something as fundamental as this to chance.

I chose Nela because her website presented her as someone who was knowledgeable and experienced, and her artwork demonstrated that she was clearly talented in the field. But ultimately it came down to a face and a character I knew I would be able to trust. She was more expensive than some other designers appeared to be but I felt sure I would be getting what I paid for if I went with them.

The experience of working with Nela was great! She was friendly, helpful, patient. Her instructions and requests were clear. She encouraged a dialogue and valued feedback and opinions. She answered queries and questions. She helped with various aspects of tech and gave advice on some of the wider considerations and implications of the project.

I think the best thing for me was feeling a valued part of the creative process, helping to make something that I could be proud of and be happy with.

I found the creation, bit by bit, of it all satisfying. Seeing all the different elements come together, from ideas to initial concepts to tweaked versions to the application across all the different formats. I’m absolutely delighted with the results, and I think it’s telling that other people in the business have noted the logo is clearly the work of a professional.

Nela provides an excellent service and I would definitely consider engaging her again for another project when the need arises. I’d recommend her to anyone needing a logo/branding for a new or existing business. She’s been brilliant to work with.

Ian Daniel Taylor

Owner of Silver Lime Café Ltd

Client Success Story

“Nela provided a stunning logo.”

I needed a logo for my brand new company, and Nela provided a stunning logo. I’m very happy and excited that she was able to fuse all of my company values into a striking logo.

I chose to work with her because her portfolio and design procedures struck me the most. Initially I was concerned about trusting to work with someone internationally, but her professionalism proved trustworthiness. Every aspect was well taken care of. I would most definitely work with her again, and recommend her to anyone who could use her service, 200%. She’s the best!

Malik Jones

Founder and CEO of Student Justice Union LLC

Client Success Story

“I don’t know anyone who manages the creative process so clearly.”

We’ve laid the foundation for the development of Playful Croatia as a brand at the right time. What I like the most is the shift in her creations from “generic” design, combined with unprecedented professionalism.

Honestly, I don’t know anyone who manages the creative process so clearly – their own and the clients’ process. When we collaborated a few years ago, I can’t describe how much I learned from her approach and how much it helped me in my own work. Setting expectations and realistic deadlines, exchanging questionnaires, cooperation… I would definitely work with Nela again and recommend her services to others.

Iva Silla

Founder of Playful Croatia and Secret Zagreb

Need more time to think about it?

Read my blog

Name	Domain	Purpose	Expiry	Type
__utma	neladunato.com	Google Analytics long-term user and session tracking identifier.	2 years	HTTP
__utmc	neladunato.com	Legacy Google Analytics short-term technical cookie used along with __utmb to determine new users sessions.	53 years	HTTP
__utmz	neladunato.com	Google Analytics campaign and traffic source tracking cookie.	6 months	HTTP
__utmt	neladunato.com	Google Analytics technical cookie used to throttle request rate.	Session	HTTP
__utmb	neladunato.com	Google Analytics short-term functional cookie used to determine new users and sessions.	Session	HTTP