The right way to create audience personas is…

Confusion, overwhelm, or a vague sense that something's missing.

Do these feelings come up the moment you think about "Creating audience personas"?

Does sitting down to build personas feel like you're going through the motions, gathering random information that doesn't really tell you anything meaningful about the people you're designing for?

If you're nodding your head, today’s newsletter is for you!

We’re breaking down one of most easily misunderstood part of the strategy process.

Misunderstood not because you don’t know what it is. But because it sounds so simple, that you think you know what to do, and then never put in the effort to learn how you can do this part well.

By the end of this email, my goal is for you to:

• Break down audience personas so YOU can use them to guide your designs

• Understand how creating these can help your CLIENTS get insights they didn't know they needed

This one's super tactical. So read it fully.

You’re here, so you already know that the job of a designer is to:

Design solutions that solve problems for a specific group of people.

To do that, you need to know those people deeply.

If you’ve been reading my newsletters, we talk about understanding your clients' problems when you’re approaching them. Now when you get to strategy part of the process, you need to go one layer deeper: understanding the problems your clients' customers face.

This is the key to designing the brand’s visual identity in a way that positions your client’s products as the solution.

The good news is that you get this conceptually.

But the bad news is that, most likely, you are still getting it wrong in practice.

Let’s look at the 3 reasons why:

Reason 1: You're only looking at surface demographics

Age, gender, location, income. These are the easy data points to find. But they're also the least useful on their own.

A 28-year-old in Atlanta tells me almost nothing about whether they'll actually care about your client's product. But a 28-year-old sales executive in Atlanta who values efficiency, maintains a structured lifestyle, and is climbing the corporate ladder?

Now I'm starting to see the person.

Now I can design for them.

Now I know WHY they will get attracted to a product that aligns with their value of efficiency, ambition, and structure.

Reason 2: You're making assumptions without backing them up

I used to do this constantly.

“I can’t really know what their exact customer is making every year, so why care to look at any data”.

This is especially true when you’re working with small companies who don't track customer data.

But what matters is NOT so much the exact numbers, but that you’re being directionally accurate.

Rather than building personas purely on your client's opinion or your gut feeling, doing a quick search on the income of a person staying in a specific city, or finding the ratio of genders in a specific role will allow you to help you and your clients build the brand positioning in a far more informed way.

Reason 3: You're creating one persona that tries to be everyone

This is the cardinal sin of persona work.

Your client has multiple audience segments. A coffee brand isn't just for one type of person. But if you collapse everything into one generic persona, you're diluting your strategy into something that appeals to no one.

One persona that's "young and social and health-conscious and professional and busy" is a persona that means nothing. It's just... people.

So, what needs to change?

Your audience personas need to serve a bigger purpose than just filling out a template

Strategic Brand Designers understand that when done well…

Creating audience personas help both you and your clients gain more clarity about the business.

When you ask the right questions during your strategy call, you help your client see their customers in ways they've never seen them before. You narrow down on specifics. You challenge assumptions. You dig deeper.

Then you take that foundation offline.

You move on to researching the data points and validating them, so that you can build personas that are grounded in data and insight, not just opinions.

These personas become the connecting tissue for everything you can help your client with, and what client does after the project is done. These insights are not limited to only the logo and color palette, but these have ripple down effects.

For example, when you can identify a persona that commutes to work daily, it helps:

• your client to see how billboards might be an effective marketing method,

• and for you to conclude that a brand pattern would be an effective asset to create.

Working on audience persona with the lens of finding insights will help your clients make business decisions differently because they clearly understand who they're serving, how they can reach them, and why all of it matters.

And that's the work that gets noticed. That's the work that commands respect and higher rates.

So, how do you create personas to get strategic insights?

Here’s my 4-step framework to that I use to create personas, not to tick a checkbox, but to gain real strategic insights for both me and my clients:

Step 1: Start with what you know (from the strategy call)

Your strategy call is where all the foundation for audience insights live. Review your notes and identify the audience segments your client mentioned.

Categorize the 2-3 key “avataars” your client called out.

I usually do this using the information about what the different target audiences do for a living. You can use whatever segments came up, and write them down.

And then, you want to give each one a name. These are the audience groups you're going to build personas around.

Step 2: Build the demographic layer (with research)

Now you take one audience segment and you make it specific.

For example, if the client mentioned an age group, you want to choose a number that fits the segment. Because we’re not talking about the general audience, we’re imagining everything about a person who might buy the product.

Then do a quick research to back up your other choices.

Look up data that helps you understand this person better. Industry reports. Job market information. Demographic breakdowns in specific locations. Cost of living. Average incomes for different roles.

You're building a defensible profile based on real information, not guesses.

The research doesn't have to be exhaustive. A quick Google search takes 5 minutes. But that 5 minutes transforms your persona from invented to informed.

Step 3: Add the psychographic layer

This is where the persona comes alive.

Psychographics are about why someone behaves the way they do. Personality traits, motivations, habits, goals, values. You're moving beyond just demographics into understanding what actually drives this person.

Use your demographic foundation to inform these choices.

Think about how someone's role, age, and life circumstances shape their priorities and behaviors. A corporate professional likely has different values and goals than a freelancer. A parent has different time constraints than someone without kids.

So you want to start adding these, so you can slowly move on the next step and identify their needs and goals.

Step 4: Identify problems and position solutions

Finally, connect the persona's pain point to your client's offering.

Now think about how your client's product fits into this person's actual life.

• What does a typical day look like for them?

• When and why would they need or want what your client offers?

• What problem would it solve?

• What gap would it fill?

• What's the core frustration this person experiences that your client can address?

Make it specific.

Not "stressed" but something that might be more specific for someone who might be a social media content creator, like: "overwhelmed by the pressure to keep up with trends."

Not "tired" but "exhausted from juggling competing priorities and struggling to find time for themselves."

Then flip it.

How does your client's product solve this?

This is where your brand positioning gets teeth and where your design work gets direction.

If your persona values trust and reliability use consistent layouts, calming colours and clear hierarchy to build confidence.

If they crave adventure and excitement lean into bold contrasts, unexpected layouts and expressive imagery.

If they’re driven by status and aspiration focus on minimalism, refined materials and elevated typography that signal prestige.

(Obviously there’s nuance to this and it also depends on the industry, but you get the idea).

This is what I mean when I say strategy allows your design choices to be rooted in understanding what the persona actually needs and how your client delivers that.

When you work with this framework, design decisions start to make sense.

Strategy that actually informs your work. Clients who gain real clarity about their customers. And presentations where you can defend every choice you've made.

Use this the next time you sit down to create personas and see how your designs start to feel more intentional.

Your strategy feel more solid. And your client understand their business in a way they didn't before.

That's when personas stop being exercises and start being strategic assets.

Chat soon,

Abi 😊

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