Behind the scenes: The creative process at Ugly Wolf and the power of personal branding

An interview with Katie Kravit and Julie Steinhagen, co-founders of Ugly Wolf. Ugly Wolf is a brand design agency based in New York and Dallas. They’re known for their creative and strategic approach to branding, helping businesses build comprehensive and resonant brands. You can watch Katie on our podcast here.

How Ugly Wolf came to life

Question: Tell us about yourself and your beginning.

Katie:

“I started my career in New York City, working in editorial design and then in-house at a fashion brand. Then I immersed myself in eCommerce working at Amazon for a few years. From there I went on to be a creative director at an alcohol startup, Minibar Delivery, and got to partner with global brands like Anheuser-Busch, Veuve Clicquot, and Absolut Vodka. While working there, I got my Masters in Branding at the School of Visual Arts in New York, which changed everything for me. The program taught me a new way of thinking and fueled my passion to work with brands with purpose. 

After moving agency-side and working on branding social justice campaigns, I decided to venture out on my own freelancing for a few DTC brands.”

 Julie:

“I’ve been really lucky to have worked with some of the best and brightest creatives, marketers, and strategists throughout my career. Forming strong relationships with co-workers, clients, and partners is important to me. I was honored to hear from one of those brilliant former co-workers who, at the time she reached out, was starting a new company and was looking for help with their branding. I really wanted to get involved, but knew I couldn’t do it alone. The timing was perfect – I knew Katie, who I loved working with at our shared time at Amazon – had just graduated from SVA and was open to new opportunities. We decided to partner up and the rest is history!”

Katie:

“We helped launch a new kind of club for women executives, partnering on the initial launch strategy and identity. Today, Chief is now worth $1 billion. 

We loved that experience so much, and thought there was a space in the market for a more personal, collaborative agency that really gets to know you. We decided to go into business together and Ugly Wolf was formed.”

About Ugly Wolf

“Ugly Wolf is a full-service, award-winning strategic brand design agency based in New York and Dallas. 

We’re small on purpose, giving you a true collaborative and personal experience. We’ve worked in-house and agency side, so we aim to give you the best of both worlds, blending in as a seamless extension of our clients’ team. 

At typical agencies you pay top dollar for the top executive, but what ends up actually happening is the junior designer does the work. Not here. We do everything from start to finish. We offer everything from foundation – brand strategy, naming, audience work – to brand guidelines – brand identity and voice – to launch, where we can produce anything from packaging to websites to branded environments to even installing shelves at a flagship retail space. Basically anything design related. 

We’ve been in business for 7 years and have worked in many different sectors – CPG (consumer packaged goods), restaurants, tech, fashion, pets. We’ve won a few awards, most recently a Dieline Award in 2024 for outstanding packaging, and worked with some of the most innovative and brilliant founders. But the thing that unites them all is that they’re brands with purpose led by founders who really care.”

Question: Can you share the story behind the founding of Ugly Wolf?

“We started Ugly Wolf as an antidote to the traditional design agency – giving the best of both worlds, acting like your in-house team but still providing that outside agency perspective. 

Early in her career, Katie had a boss who would once told her that she “just makes things look pretty.” So we decided to embrace it. We called ourselves Ugly Wolf  to emphasize that we don’t work in ugly or pretty – we use strategic thinking to build brands, create new meaning, and tell stories people care about. Good design isn’t just about aesthetics, it’s deeply rooted in strategy and problem solving. 

The wolf is our spirit animal – they’re loyal, smart, and fierce. Wolves are powerful alone but even more powerful together in a pack. That’s the collaborative agency we are building every day.”

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From concept to collaboration: The heart of Ugly Wolf’s design approach

Question: Your agency’s motto is ‘ugly is a construct.’ Can you elaborate on its meaning?

“The word ugly usually has a negative connotation. By taking a negative word and using it as our agency banner, we change the meaning of the word entirely. And that’s what branding is: creating new meaning and emotion.

A brand is a promise and what that means to you over time. When you create a brand from scratch or reposition an existing brand, you assign new meaning. 

‘Ugly is a construct’ is our way of challenging preconceived notions and stereotypes in the brands we work with.”

Question: What does the creative process at Ugly Wolf look like from start to finish?

“We like to approach a project as if we are aliens coming to earth for the first time. We try to not come in with preconceived notions, but instead let the work lead us. 

Build

We start with building the brand by developing an internal compass and defining how a brand thinks, sounds, values, and why people should care. We audit the current brand, the competitive landscape it operates in, and the audience it serves. We also audit culture, seeing how a brand can fit into the unique zeitgeist we are living in now and how to stay relevant in the future. Then we develop tools that showcase the brand’s unique differentiation and positioning in the market. 

Create

Next, we design the identity based on the strategy we developed. We don’t just make something pink because we like the color or choose a font because it’s trendy. Every design choice is rooted in strategy so we are showcasing the brand’s essence at every touchpoint. 

We build extensive brand guidelines that include everything from the brand’s reason for being to exact details on design elements and language.

Launch

Last, we apply the design system we created to brand manifestations, such as the website, packaging, environments, etc. 

From start to finish, we are collaborative partners with our brands. We always say we are designed to go away – giving you all the tools you need to build a dynamic and resonating brand. But about 90% of our clients return for more work!”

Question: How do you ensure effective collaboration with clients throughout the branding process?

“We’re a full-service brand design agency that has chosen to be small on purpose. We take on a limited amount of branding projects at a time so that we’re dedicated from start to finish. Our goal is to be true, creative partners with the founders and teams we work with, like an extension of their in-house team.

Our collaboration starts from the proposal phase. We don’t have a pre-set menu of services and prices. We listen to our founders to hear what they need, what stage they are in their business, and how we can best serve them. From there, we build teams of subject matter experts in copy, design, photography, development – whatever a client may need – and create custom proposals that best fits the project scope. 

For example, when we worked on a dog food brand, our 6-person team was made up of dog owners and creatives with experience in the pet space. When we launched Cabinet, a tech-platform built specifically for executive assistants, we brought on a seasoned EA to consult with our team. Unique perspectives and experience are valuable to us and a big part of our process.

From there, it’s continual collaboration from kick-off through execution. We immerse ourselves in the worlds of our clients and, in addition to scheduled check-ins and work reviews, we make sure our founders know they can call us and talk at any time.

We believe our clients’ success becomes our success. After a project wraps, a majority of our clients remain a part of the Ugly Wolf family. Even though we’re designed to go away – arming our clients with everything they need to launch and expand their brand without us – 90% of our clients either tap us for more work or refer us to other companies or peers. Most of our new work comes in through word of mouth and referrals. We’re really proud of that.”

Question: Can you provide an example of a particularly challenging project you’ve worked on?

“We were tasked with rebranding an existing client – the snack bar brand MCTCo. They found themselves in the ‘product attributes’ trap, when a brand is based on listing product benefits, rather than building something distinct and truly differentiated. The company had a loyal base of health-conscious workout warriors attracted to the one specific keto-friendly ingredient that set them apart (MCT Oil), but that narrow audience made it difficult for the brand to grow and scale beyond its niche.

We rebranded MCTCo under a new name, NuSkool, and with a whole nu attitude. We recommended a positioning that focused on everything you can do with a healthy, convenient snack, rather than the snack itself. With a product line focused on better-for-you versions of snacks enjoyed as a kid, we infused the same energy, playfulness, and youthful joy that comes from an active lifestyle into the brand. And so, NuSkool’s values took shape: Good. Clean. Fun.

This new approach helped open the door to a whole new audience. Aligning the brand under a rallying cry of having fun while living a clean lifestyle opened the audience far beyond a fad diet. Anyone can aspire to live a healthy, positive, fun life, and by putting the NuSkool values front and center, the brand was able to expand its reach into untapped audiences.

Since our rebrand, NuSkool received investment from Tim Tebow, was accepted into the Mondelēz SnackFutures CoLab, and went on to a successful exit.”

The power of personal branding

Question: What are some key elements that eCommerce sellers should focus on when developing their personal brands?

“Branding is always personal. Whether it’s an individual or a corporation – how people perceive you, what they associate you with, and what you mean to them are all personal. 

When it comes to eCommerce, it should be personal as well. You’re not just selling items, you’re hopefully impacting people’s lives. Include your unique reason for being, your values, and what people can expect from you as much as you can. 

Just like with people, when your values align, you trust them more. Trust is essential in building a lasting relationship with your customers.

Essentially, know who you are and do it on purpose.”

Question: How do you think personal branding can drive growth for eCommerce businesses?

“Branding is more than just a logo. Branding is your intentional differentiation. Everything fits together – your language, your visuals, your values, your products – and ladders up to tell your unique story. 

Branding is more important than ever when it comes to online businesses. When you shop online, you’re not engaging with a human being. You can’t touch, taste or smell the product, pick up the product, or ask a question about the product with a human being. So you have to tell the product story through images and language – how does it taste? What does it feel like? Can I imagine this in my life? 

Our attention spans are shorter than ever and if they’re not engaged by a brand, it’s so easy to move on. 

In the DTC world, you get to know your customer intimately. Because of this, you’d be able to solve their problem and create a community around your brand. Your branding should connect directly to your audience. You’re able to test things to discover what resonates with your audience and what doesn’t. And when it’s online, you have the data to back it up.

One success story we like to share is Frankie’s on the Park – a fashion brand for girls and tweens. We created a brand that was a safe space for a girl to grow up in, to learn her likes and dislikes, to play with fashion and expression, and to be mentored and supported by the women behind the brand.

After rebranding Frankie’s on the Park with a fresh identity that fit their fun, empowering personality, online sales increased by 30% year over year, surpassing their two popular retail locations in Chicago and LA. Our Back to School campaign was the biggest and most successful in their 15+ year history.”

Question: What role does social media play in personal branding, and how can eCommerce sellers leverage it effectively?

“Social media is a great tool to amplify your message because it extends the brand experience, and allows a deeper look into the company and what it stands for. It also keeps your product and services top of mind when it’s at the top of the feed. But if you don’t know who you are, it’s just digital noise. It’s important for brands to leverage the tool effectively by genuinely connecting with their audience, listening to their needs and seeing where they are. When done correctly, social media can become a communal space for brands.”

Lessons and trends for eCommerce sellers

Question: What are some common mistakes eCommerce sellers make when it comes to branding, and how can they avoid them?

“Our goal is to help our partners understand the value of a strong brand – it’s not just a logo, it’s who you are. Companies are often attracted to a look and feel or a visual trend and try to use that as their starting point. We encourage them to think about who they are internally before promoting things externally. And if it’s not genuine, people will always know. At the end of the day, a brand is a promise, and if you can’t uphold that promise – unfortunately, you’re out of luck.

Companies can avoid making costly mistakes by hiring Ugly Wolf! But, if we’re unable to work together, we encourage brands to take time up front to define what makes them different and be clear with what your brand is all about. It’s important to do it once and do it right – a solid strategy will inform every business decision you make afterward. If you don’t invest time up front, you’ll definitely revisit in the long run – readjusting, redesigning, and spinning your wheels, when you don’t know who you are and what you stand for first. With a strong foundation, you’re able to make better decisions down the line.”

Question: Looking to the future, what trends do you see emerging in the fields of branding and eCommerce?

“Trends are everywhere and ever-changing. We see this with the tools being used (AI, different design software), the way things look (cyclical aesthetic trends like 90’s fonts and early aughts web design), and the method of selling (influencers, TikTok ads). 

But it’s important to embrace what doesn’t change, and what allows brands to rise above the latest fad – a solid brand foundation and distinct values. Because everything we do is rooted in strategy, we’re not driven by aesthetics or execution. 

For that reason, our advice is always: don’t chase trends. We understand the importance of brands to move and shift their strategy to meet demand and gain an audience, but they should not lose their foundation. Emotional meaning is stronger than aesthetics, and is something that keeps customers coming back. Building a brand that doesn’t feel like you, but is chasing a visual or selling a trend – if it’s not genuine, people will always know.

If you want to work with us, reach out at hello@theuglywolf.com.”

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