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Before a single pixel is pushed or a line of code is written, every successful project at ONBOX starts with one thing: 

Discovery sessions are where strategy meets intuition. It’s how we align with our clients, uncover hidden insights, and chart a path forward that isn’t just good looking, it’s 

. Whether we’re designing a brand from scratch or overhauling a legacy website, Discovery is where clarity begins.

This article is the first in a series exploring the ONBOX approach to design and strategy. You can think of it as a behind-the-scenes look at how we bring bold ideas to life, starting with Discovery.

Your project doesn’t start on a sales call. Sure, we’ll gather some initial context, but a few quick conversations are never enough to build a brand, design a website, or launch a product with impact. That’s why we begin every engagement with our dedicated Discovery process.

We approach Discovery as a true collaboration. You’re the expert in your field, we’re here to extract your knowledge, challenge assumptions, and uncover what truly matters. This isn’t a questionnaire you fill out and forget. It’s an active, guided process where we listen closely, ask the right questions, and shape the foundation together.

“Somewhere in every Discovery, there’s a moment where we go from understanding the client to rooting for them. That shift changes everything.” 

Before the actual discovery session we send over a short 

. It covers your background, market, audience, and goals, but more importantly, it helps us identify the right questions to ask during our session together.

Discovery can be done remotely or in person. Both are great, but there’s something special about meeting face to face. Some sessions are fast-paced and focused over a few hours. Others stretch across days (or even a week), especially if the project or company is complex. Either way, the format is shaped around you.

Step-by-Step: The ONBOX Discovery Process

1. Setting the Stage: Context and Background

We begin by immersing ourselves in your world. We want to know your history, your team, your mission, and your product. Every insight you give us at this stage helps guide the rest of the process.

Next, we work together to define a clear, actionable goal for the project, something we return to constantly. This becomes our north star. It guides creative decisions, prioritization, and helps us know when something’s veering off course.

“When a project has no clear goal, it’s like designing in the dark. A strong goal doesn’t just guide the creative, it keeps the team aligned when things get messy.”

3. Reframing Obstacles Into Opportunities

We don’t just ask what success looks like, we ask what failure might look like too.

“If we were to travel into the future and the project was a failure, what might have caused it to fail?”

From here, we turn problems into possibilities by framing them as 

 questions. These aren’t just creative thought experiments, they’re springboards for our strategy and design work.

"The brand might isolate our current audience" becomes → 

“How might we ensure our current audience feels included and recognized?”

"We want strong design, but it needs to function" becomes → 

“How might we balance functionality with immersive design?”

A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger

 a book that reframes the power of inquiry. Instead of jumping to solutions, we use questions to transform uncertainties and challenges into creative opportunities. This is how tension becomes traction.

4. Finding the Why: Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle

Using Sinek’s Golden Circle framework, we identify:

Most companies can answer the "what" easily. Some can explain the "how." But the "why", that’s where things often go quiet. And that’s exactly where the real work begins.

, because it's what your audience connects to emotionally. It's what aligns your internal team. It’s what makes you different in a sea of sameness. When we understand your why, we can make every decision, from messaging to design to user flow — resonate with more meaning.


Working through this together helps you articulate not just what you do, but why people should care. When your brand speaks from the inside out - why → how → what - it doesn’t just inform. It inspires. And that’s where brand loyalty begins.

5. Designing the Roadmap: From Today to 10 Years Out

Great brands aren’t built for today, they’re built for what’s next. That’s why every ONBOX Discovery includes a 

. It helps us understand where your brand or product is now, where it needs to go, and what’s standing in the way.

The roadmap is more than a timeline, it’s a living document that guides decisions, prioritizes features, and ensures our work sets you up to scale.

We start by grounding ourselves in the present:

What are the constraints we need to navigate (budget, resources, timeline)?

This gives us a clear baseline and helps avoid reinventing the wheel unnecessarily.

What does success look like 12 months from today?

What growth, reach, or impact are you aiming for?

What will you need to support that (tools, team, infrastructure)?

This informs the scope and focus of the work we’re doing together. We prioritize what delivers value 

 while laying groundwork for what’s next.

At the five-year mark, things start to get interesting:

What new products, audiences, or verticals are you targeting?

What kind of perception do you want to own?

This helps us make smart foundational decisions, from your brand architecture to how we structure your site navigation. We think about flexibility, scalability, and the ability to grow without needing to start over.

Finally, we ask you to dream big. What’s your 

This isn’t just about revenue or reach. It’s about 

Do you want to change how people live, think, or feel?

This helps us connect design to mission. It’s not about where you are, it’s about where you’re going.

The roadmap ensures that the work we do today doesn't box you in tomorrow. It keeps us future-proof. And it gives you something incredibly tangible, a framework you can share internally, build your business plan around, or even use with investors.

We start by mapping out every potential audience connected to your brand, your customers, users, partners, internal teams, even future segments you haven’t reached yet.

Then we prioritize. Together, we identify the top three audiences that matter most right now and go deep into each one. For each, we outline:

What they need from your brand or product

We translate these into clear problem statements that shape messaging, design, and functionality. This focused approach helps us avoid designing for everyone and ensures we’re building something that connects with the people who matter most.

With the audience defined, we turn inward and start building the foundation of the brand itself. This part of the Discovery focuses on defining what your brand stands for, how it should feel, and how it should show up in the world.

These are the beliefs that guide how your brand operates. They influence everything from internal culture to external messaging. We keep it focused by narrowing to three, so they’re actionable and memorable.

These describe how your brand should feel to others. Think of them as your brand’s personality traits — are you bold or refined, playful or serious?

We plot your brand across visual and tonal spectrums. For example: traditional vs. modern, minimal vs. expressive, premium vs. accessible. This helps us visualize your position and build creative work that aligns with your intent.

This shared language becomes a reference point for everything to come, making sure your visual identity, tone of voice, and user experience all feel cohesive and true to who you are.

To position your brand effectively, we need to understand the landscape you’re operating in.

We begin with a competitor audit - a focused look at other brands in your space. This isn’t about copying or benchmarking. It’s about identifying what’s already out there, what’s working (or not), and where there’s room to stand out. We analyze tone, visual style, messaging, structure, and user experience.

Then we shift to brand affinities - the brands you admire or aspire to be like, regardless of industry. This helps us understand your taste, ambitions, and the kind of emotional response you want your audience to have. Sometimes your competitor isn’t the brand next door, it’s the one setting the bar in an entirely different category.

Together, these two lenses help us define where you fit in, where you don’t, and how we can position you to lead rather than follow.

Words like “modern,” “elegant,” or “bold” can mean very different things to different people. That’s why one of the final steps in Discovery is aligning visually so we’re all speaking the same design language before the creative work begins.

We look at any visual references you’ve brought to the table, whether that’s brands you love, styles that resonate, or inspiration from outside your category. We also bring curated references of our own to spark discussion and explore directions you may not have considered.

Together, we review and discuss these visuals to understand not just what you like, but 

 you like it. This allows us to identify themes, aesthetics, and tonal cues that feel right for your brand.

This step is key to avoiding misalignment later. It creates clarity and gives us a shared foundation to build from, so when we present creative, it already feels like a natural evolution of the conversation.

Process

Discovery Sessions: The Secret to Every Successful Brand and Website Launch

Thrilled to announce that ONBOX has won a 

 for the trust, vision, and collaboration. Proud to be part of a project and a community that continues to inspire. 💪

ONBOX wins the Webby Award for Health & Wellness Website for Arnold's Pump Club.

ONBOX Wins Webby Award | ONBOX

News

We Won a Webby!

We’re incredibly proud to share that ONBOX has been nominated for a 

 — a project that continues to inspire us every day.

This recognition is a testament to the power of collaboration. Huge thanks to 

 for inviting us into their world and trusting us to help bring their vision to life. And a special shoutout to 

, our creative partners on the project, it’s been an honor to work alongside such a talented team.

Proud to be a small part of The Pump Club community, it's truly special and inspires us every day. 💪

ONBOX received a Webby nomination for Website Design for Arnold's Pump Club.

ONBOX Webby Nomination | ONBOX

ONBOX Nominated for a Webby!

The tools have changed. The playing field has shifted. And if you work in design, you’ve already felt it.

A few years ago, executing a big idea meant teams of specialists, weeks of work, and a lot of money. Today, the barrier to execution has collapsed. With the right prompt, anyone can generate concepts, images, and entire brand systems, instantly. AI tools like Midjourney, ChatGPT, and Runway are giving people superpowers.

But, this isn’t the end of design. It’s the beginning of a new era. One where imagination, taste, and intention matter more than ever.

From "Can You Make It?" to "Should You Make It?"

The shift is profound. The question used to be 

AI lets us prototype anything from brand worlds, product ideas, ad concepts, user interfaces, even memes. All in a matter of seconds. It’s no longer about whether you have the resources to build, it’s about whether the idea is worth building at all. The scarcity has moved from execution to originality.

And that changes what it means to be a designer.

But there’s a danger here: homogeneity.

Most AI models are trained on what’s already out there. Which means if you’re not intentional, you get more of the same. Smooth gradients. Neo-brutalism. Retro-futurism. You’ve seen the look. You can spot the Midjourney in an image the way you used to spot a Helvetica Neue obsession in the early 2010s.

We’re heading toward a flood of fast design that is shiny, well-rendered, and soulless.

 be a backlash. People will crave imperfection again. They’ll want to feel the hand behind the work. The question won’t be 

In a world where everyone can generate, the rarest skill becomes 

Taste is the real moat. Not technical skill. Not speed. But the ability to filter the noise and recognize what actually deserves to exist. What will move people. What will matter.

The designers, strategists, and founders who thrive won’t be the ones who can make the most, they’ll be the ones who know what’s worth making. And why.

At ONBOX, we use AI to go faster, but we don’t rely on it to finish the job. It’s fast becoming part of how we research, ideate, build moodboards, test directions. It expands what’s possible in early phases. But the final decision, the nuance, the storytelling, that’s still human. And it always will be.

We believe the best design is still about clarity, conviction, and care. AI helps us try more things. It gives us time to explore further. But it doesn’t replace the conversation, the collaboration, or the craft. It just removes friction.

And maybe that’s the best way to think about it: AI doesn’t replace design. It removes excuses.

The future of design won’t belong to those who can make the most things. It’ll belong to those who can 

Discover how AI in design is shifting the creative landscape, from execution to curation. In an era of instant creation, taste, originality, and purpose are the new competitive edge.

Discovery Sessions: The Secret to Every Successful Brand and Website Launch

We Won a Webby!

ONBOX Nominated for a Webby!

The Future of AI in Design

Keep up with the latest.