Branding for Therapists

A decadent, art-inspired brand for a Seattle sex and relationship therapist

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How Intima Therapy was fully booked within six weeks of launching

Kristin Cherry Jackson is a licensed sex and relationship therapist in Seattle whose work is mostly out of network. She needed a brand and website that would signal depth, professionalism and emotional safety in a field many therapists avoid talking about. Intima Therapy launched with a bold, art-inspired identity, a word-rich website and a space designed to match, and was fully booked within six weeks.

Fully booked within six weeks of launching

A client who had searched for the right therapist for 15 years knew from reading the site that Kristin was the one

More clients finding her through Google than through ads or Psychology Today

A specialist in a field most therapists avoid talking about

Most people have no idea what they want in a new brand. Kristin came to me armed with pages of carefully cross-referenced research and a list of about a hundred questions. She had interviewed several brand and web designers, and she was looking for the right fit.

She told me what tipped it: “One of the reasons that I picked you is I’m a typography geek. I love typography. I loved what you did with the Rebalance logo, with the mirror images of the A, the way that you told me in your portfolio, the choices that you were making about fonts, that is so my jam.”

She was launching her first dedicated therapy practice. Most of her work is out of network and not typically covered by insurance, so the brand had to carry the value of the work before anyone met her: depth, professionalism and emotional safety, in a field where many therapists shy away from talking about sex, intimacy and desire.

Where clients come from had changed as well. Fewer therapists can rely on Psychology Today alone to fill a practice, so clients had to find her website and choose her on its own merits.

The category made it harder. Sex therapy websites tend to fall into one of two camps: tongue-in-cheek innuendo, or generic stock photos of forests, which is what I see across therapy generally. Kristin had a clear view of a third option. In our first session, she said: “Most therapists have washed out beige. And that’s sort of not what I’m interested in.”

She was also candid about the tension in front of her: “I’m wrestling a little bit with the level of authenticity I want to bring in my branding, and it’s because I’m going for an executive-level client.”

Intima Therapy brand mock-up for a Seattle sex and relationship therapist

The strategy session, and the moment it clicked

Like every project at Be More You, this one began with brand strategy: your vision, your audience, what makes your work different, and the emotional experience clients need to have when they meet your brand.

Kristin does not work from labels. She is a trauma specialist who helps clients uncover deep-rooted beliefs and behaviours, and meet life, relationships and connection in all their complexity with curiosity, compassion and joy. Her brand values are compassion, curiosity, courage, connection and congruence. Her brand essence is passion, wonder, anticipation, aliveness and visionary leadership; the antidote to the shame, restraint or clinical distance some of her clients have met before.

When I showed her where the strategy was heading, she named what it was doing for her: “I like the way that you’re homing in on the visual elements that will silently portray legitimacy.”

The essence of Intima became clear very quickly. This brand needed to embrace abundance, decadence and sensory pleasure.

A few days after our first conversation, Kristin found the premises for her clinic. The space could also work as an art gallery and a venue for talks, workshops and art-inspired coaching. That turned Intima into a destination: Intima Therapy and Intima Space, which fitted the strategy of positioning Kristin as the go-to sex and relationship therapist in Washington state. When I described it, she said: “…you just nailed it, destination brand. That’s it.”

The design decision I would defend: bold, sensual and classy

Kristin’s Pinterest board was decadent and unapologetic: dual-tone colours, rich textures, layered florals, Art Deco influences, gothic and Arabian interiors. When a client arrives with a purple-and-pink mood board, a designer can feel a flicker of fear. It matched her ethos and how she works with people, so my brand brain said go hard or go home. Muting it would have cost the vibrancy.

Instead, we refined it and gave it structure, and I held two lines. First, when somebody is sexy, they do not need to be overtly sexy, so the brand is suggestive and never cheap. Second, no flat black: the darkest shade of the darkest colour, which is kinder on the eye.

The visual identity borrows from a grown-up Alice in Wonderland. It has layered florals, indulgent imagery and subtle erotic symbolism, plus bespoke collage with pixelated, kaleidoscope effects that hint at other ways of seeing. Everything in it is a decision.

Intima Therapy Brand Design. Therapist Branding & web design_1

How strategy, design, website, search and the space were built as one

Strategy. Kristin’s persona work was exceptionally thorough, and we built on it: five client groups, from couples opening up their relationship to people healing from trauma, each with their own worries and their own words. Her brand pillars and the competitor set came from the same session.

Website. It is deliberately word-rich. Kristin offers several specialist services for different needs, so each one has its own page explaining who it is for, the therapeutic approach, what to expect and how the work unfolds. My job was to turn a large amount of complex, thoughtful information into sections that feel digestible, grounded, and reassuring without losing depth. The site invites you in at an unhurried pace and builds trust through clarity.

Search. We mapped each of those five client groups to the words they actually search with, which shaped the language on the service pages and the blog. One strategy fed the brand and the search work, so the two never pulled in different directions.

The room and the photography. The project went beyond visuals and words. I gave creative direction on the interior of the therapy space (the rugs, the curtains, the art, the furniture and the fabrics) and wrote the photo shoot brief and inspiration board with Kristin, including her outfits, the textures, colours and patterns. Kristin found the photographer, Suzanne Rothmeyer in Seattle, and the shoot kept every image speaking the same language as the website. Intima Space, the gallery, has opened.

The brand lives in the room, online, and in how clients feel when they walk through the door.

The result: fully booked, and found through Google

Kristin’s newly launched private practice was fully booked within six weeks of launching.

One client shared that she had been searching for the right therapist for 15 years. She had never found anyone she felt would truly understand her, and after reading the website she felt confident that Kristin was the person she had been looking for all that time.

As the project drew to a close, Kristin wrote to me: “I am extremely pleased with the branding, the website, my business cards… really, everything is spectacular and I am so, so grateful to have worked with you!”

Two months later: “I continue to be THRILLED with the website and branding work you did for me. I have over a dozen clients now… More clients are finding me via general Google search results than from ads or my Psychology Today listing, which is amazing!”

In April 2025 she wrote: “Things are going swimmingly over here – my practice is full and I’m enjoying my work.”

The brand has lasted. In April 2026, about a year and a half later, Kristin was still putting it on new printed material, this time spot UV business cards.

If you are a therapist like Kristin

A therapist is not just a therapist. Often they are a specialist working in a very specific area, speaking to a very particular audience. If your brand does not yet say that, with the depth and professionalism your work deserves, I would love to hear about it.

To see how I work with therapists, read about my therapist branding and website design.

Intima is one of several therapist brands in my portfolio that look nothing alike: see how I built Karen E Sherwood and Chloe Jimenez Peters. If my portfolio looked cohesive across all my clients, I would have failed. You can read more about my wellness branding work for health and wellness experts, or see how brand and website projects work.

Danielle Garber

Danielle Garber

Danielle Garber is the founder of Be More You and an integrative brand strategist and designer with 21+ years in brand and marketing. She's worked with global brands like Apple and Amazon, and now works with expert-led health, wellness and transformation brands around the world. Since founding Be More You, she's helped clients go from invisible to ranking #1 on Google, grow from zero to 17,000+ monthly clicks, land six-figure launches, double their prices, attract high-ticket clients and fully book their practices, all while making sure the brand authentically represents the expert behind it.

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