BRAND YOUR SUBSTACK
TURN YOUR SUBSTACK INTO A BRANDED PUBLICATION.
A live workshop + complete branding toolkit to help you define your publication, create its visual identity, customize your Substack + build a repeatable system for everything you publish.
A LIVE 90-MINUTE WORKSHOP WITH LEXI CHENG
- OCTOBER 27th 10AM PACIFIC
$97 pre-sale price
Get in before the live workshop and save $52. Brand Your Substack will be $149 once it's available on demand.
SUBSTACK IS MORE THAN A NEWSLETTER.
Substack is having a MOMENT right now, and there's a reason so many writers, creatives, personal brands + businesses are moving over there.
It can be your publication. Your writing platform. Your podcast. Your video channel. Your paid membership. Your resource library. Your creative playground. A whole world built around your ideas, work + point of view.
Straight out of the box, every Substack starts looking pretty dang similar.
The built-in customization is limited, some of the coolest features are weirdly hidden, and it isn't always obvious how to take your existing brand (or create one from scratch) and translate it into an entire publication.
That's what we're doing inside Brand Your Substack.
WE'RE NOT JUST MAKING IT PRETTY.
We're building a recognizable publication.
We'll start with the bones: what your publication is about, who it's for, your content pillars, recurring series + what you want the whole thing to feel like.
Then we'll turn that into a visual world with typography, color, imagery, moodboards + graphic elements.
Then we'll create a repeatable system so you aren't designing every damn post from scratch.
And finally, we'll bring it all into Substack and I'll show you what you can customize, where everything lives + what I've learned after spending way too much time clicking every setting available to me.
HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
By the end of Brand Your Substack, you'll know how to:
Define what your publication is: what you want to be known for, who you’re creating it for + what people can expect when they subscribe.
Build your content world: create content pillars, recurring series + a structure that gives you plenty to write about without boxing yourself in.
Turn your ideas into a visual direction: using moodboards, typography, color, imagery + graphic elements to create a recognizable look and feel.
Build a repeatable brand system: so your posts feel recognizable without designing something completely new every time you publish.
Translate your brand into Substack: knowing what to customize, where your branding can show up + how to work within the platform’s limitations.
Make Substack work for the publication you want to create: whether that includes essays, paid content, subscriber perks, podcasts, video, resources or a mix of everything you can use to make your publication feel like a whole brand world.
YOU'LL WALK AWAY WITH A CLEAR DIRECTION FOR WHAT YOUR PUBLICATION IS, HOW IT LOOKS + HOW TO KEEP IT CONSISTENT EVERY TIME YOU PUBLISH.
PICK YOUR SUBSTACK VIBE
Don't have a visual identity yet? Or just want a really fucking good starting point?
I'm creating six mini brand kits, each with its own completely different visual world:
The Edit · Lucky You! · Sunday Sessions · The Oracle · Soft Launch · Studio Notes
Each direction will include a moodboard, palette, typography, image direction, graphic style + pre-styled Canva templates you can customize into your own.
Already have a brand? Perfect. You can skip the starting-point aesthetics and use the larger template library with your own fonts, colors, imagery + visual identity.
MEET THE EDIT
The Edit is the first mini brand kit I've created: minimal, editorial, refined + collected.
Each kit gives you the ingredients + customizable assets to create the look, and inside Brand Your Substack I'll show you where and how to bring those pieces into the platform using Substack's built-in customization options.
The Substack shown above is an example of The Edit visual direction applied to a publication. This is not an installable Substack website theme.
WHO IS BRAND YOUR SUBSTACK FOR?
YOU'RE STARTING A SUBSTACK
You want to figure out what you're creating, what you'll publish + how the whole thing should look before you launch.
YOU ALREADY HAVE ONE
You're publishing, but visually it's still giving default Substack and you're ready to turn it into something recognizable.
YOU ALREADY HAVE A BRAND
You want to translate your existing identity into Substack + create a repeatable system for everything you publish.
YOU DON'T HAVE A BRAND YET
You want a beautiful starting point you can customize into something that feels like you.
You don't need to be a designer. You don't need an established brand. And you don't need to have your entire Substack figured out before you come.
EVERYTHING YOU GET
90-minute live Brand Your Substack workshop
Complete Canva template library
6 mini brand kits
Substack Brand Blueprint
Resource library
Live Q&A
Forever access to the workshop
PRESALE: $97
Available on demand for $149 after the live workshop.
QUESTIONS?
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Nope! You can use Brand Your Substack to build a publication from the beginning, or use everything we're doing to give an existing Substack a serious glow-up.
If you're brand new, I'd recommend creating your free Substack account before the workshop so you can poke around + follow along.
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Nope.
If you already have a brand, I'll show you how to translate your existing visual identity into a repeatable Substack system.
If you don't, you'll have the mini brand kits, moodboards + visual direction I'm creating to help you find a starting point and make it your own.
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Hell no.
Substack can be a home for writing, podcasts, video, paid memberships, resources, creative work + plenty more.
Brand Your Substack is for writers, creatives, designers, photographers, coaches, consultants, service providers, personal brands + business owners who want to create a publication around their work, ideas or expertise.
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No. Substack doesn't work like Squarespace or Showit where you install a website template.
You'll get customizable Canva assets, visual direction + guidance for creating your brand system, and I'll show you where + how to bring those pieces into Substack using the customization options available inside the platform.
The example publications you see on this page are there to show you what each visual direction can look like when it's all brought together.
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Perfect. You don't need to use one of my mini brand directions.
Use your own fonts, colors, imagery + visual identity and customize the template library to fit your existing brand. The mini brand kits are there as a starting point for anyone who wants one, not something everyone has to follow.
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You're good! Everyone who purchases gets forever access to the replay, so you can watch whenever you want.
If you can make it live, you'll also get the chance to ask questions about your publication, brand, visual direction + whatever weird Substack setting you can't find.
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This isn't a Substack growth-hacks course.
We're focused on building the publication itself: what you're creating, your content structure, visual identity, repeatable design system, customization, free + paid options and how you can use the platform creatively.
You'll hear plenty about what I've learned from using Substack myself, but I'm not promising you 10,000 subscribers in 30 days or teaching you how to game Notes.
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Forever! You'll have access to the workshop replay + included resources after the live workshop, so you don't have to implement everything in one sitting.