This post is part of the Real Rebrands interview series, exploring visual branding on Substack through real creator journeys.
Visual branding has a way of telling the truth early.
Before a reader commits to a paragraph, before they decide whether to stay, they register whether a space was built with care and attention. That first impression does more than catch the eye, it sets expectations.
That moment matters for retention. It’s also why visuals play such a central role on AI Meets Girlboss.
When visuals align with the depth of your writing, readers trust the work more. They take you seriously in a way that’s hard to quantify, but easy to feel.
Meet Caitlin McColl from Dose of Wonder
It is pure joy to introduce today’s Real Rebrand story.
Caitlin McColl 🇨🇦 writes Dose of Wonder, a Substack grounded in attention rather than escape. She writes about wonder as something found through presence and staying with what’s real.
For a long time, her visuals softened that stance. Early AI avatars leaned toward polish. Later iterations moved closer to realism, but still felt sealed off from the texture of her writing.
What eventually emerged was Elara: a visual protagonist shaped through iteration, restraint, and care. She is a presence designed to inhabit a world of wonder.
Caitlin is one of those Substackers who tries my visual experiments early, implements fast, and genuinely enjoys figuring out what works for her. She treats tools as invitations. The combination of speed, discernment, and playfulness is rare, and it shows in the result.
It’s also what makes her rebrand story worth studying.
What This Visual Rebrand Story Will Give You
A way to think about visual branding as an extension of worldview
Insight into how physical detail changes emotional credibility
A practical model for evolving visuals without losing coherence or care
I’m not selling a cheery wellness escape
You ran the Visual Distinctiveness Test before this interview. Your strongest dimensions are Emotional, Credible, and Concrete. How do they reflect the way you write?
I think these dimensions show up strongly because I don’t believe wonder is a floaty, ethereal thing. Initially, that was kind of my view on wonder. But this year, I’ve pivoted to seeing wonder as something heavy, something found in challenges and in the gritty, grounded, complex parts of life.
That’s why my images feature concrete things like a hand on a wooden table or the weight of an iron key. My writing and my worldview are grounded in the idea that our present reality is something we have to rebuild from our pasts.
The Emotional and Credible scores reflect that I’m not selling a cheery wellness escape. I’m inviting readers into a lived presence that acknowledges both the grit and the shadows, as well as the light and the wonder, if you know where to look.
Stock images and comic book didn’t match my writing
Dose of Wonder already carried a strong philosophy. What was the first signal that your visuals needed to evolve, not to change your work, but to finally match it?
The first signal was a deep sense of aesthetic cognitive dissonance. My words were talking about finding wonder in everyday life, but my visuals looked like a sterile wellness ad.
First, they were bland stock photos.
Then they looked weirdly comic book-y when I used Canva AI’s concept art style to generate an avatar. I quickly realized that didn’t fit.
I moved on to a middle, evolving version of Elara using Gemini, but that still felt too polished, too unreal. I was asking readers to value the messy, hand-touched work of being human while showing them high-gloss, plastic perfection, even when depicting the tougher parts of life.
The visuals weren’t just “nice.” They weren’t telling the full story. They needed to evolve to match the weight and texture of the stories I was actually telling.
Stock images are the death of emotional honesty
Before Elara fully emerged, what role were your visuals playing?
Before Elara, the stock photos I used were soulless placeholders. They didn’t offer anything beyond bland genericness instead of a specific, real world.
Stock aesthetics are designed to be broadly acceptable, which is the death of emotional honesty. By using those “illustrative” images, I was unintentionally signaling to readers that this was a space for sentiment rather than a space for soul. It was “wellness lite,” not wellness with any depth.
That limited our connection, because there was no “there” there, just a reflection of what everyone else was already doing. Elara brought depth, soul, and connection.
Stopping the pursuit of “perfect”
What did you have to let go of to stop hiding behind acceptable aesthetics and begin building a world with a soul?
I had to let go of the need for my brand to look “professional” in the traditional, polished sense. At first, that was exactly what I was going for, even with my slick logo.
Psychologically, that meant stopping the pursuit of “perfect” and embracing painterly realism, which allows for dust and shadows, along with the distressed look of my new logo.
I changed my image prompts to include painterly realism so the visuals would carry more weight and realness, while still keeping a small dose of wonder. I also moved away from safe, generic, facing-the-viewer portraits and into “absorbed action,” where Elara isn’t looking outward but is immersed in real life, doing work, using her hands.
Letting go of what felt “acceptable” allowed me to build a world that finally felt like it had a heartbeat and a history.
The iron skeleton key and dust as visual anchors
Keys, woodgrain, iron, dust, light. Why did grounding wonder in tangible artifacts matter so much to you?
I believe wonder needs an anchor. Without one, it can drift into something fluffy or fairytale-ish, sometimes even leaning toward the toxically positive. It needs something to bring it back down to earth.
By grounding Elara’s world in woodgrain, iron, like the iron skeleton key and dust, I gave wonder a physicality it didn’t have before. The iron key isn’t just a symbol. It’s a tool with weight that guards a threshold.
Once the visuals became more concrete, the emotional gravity shifted. I hope readers can feel the cold metal of the key, the rough stone of the village, or the weathered wood of a table. That makes the emotional transformation feel embodied, something the reader is part of rather than something that’s merely stated.
Appearence, colors, texture and cottage vibes
What elements of Elara’s world feel non-negotiable now, and where do you intentionally leave space for softness and surprise without breaking the hearth you’ve built?
The non-negotiables are her appearance, you need consistency. Her curly auburn bob, wavy bangs, chestnut eyes.
The navy, peach, and sage color palette of my Substack brand is also essential.
Texture matters too: the hand-touched feel created through painterly realism, the earthy palette of soft sages and comforting neutrals, navy shadows, and soft peaches. I want the world to feel like “you’re safe here,” but not in a sterile room, more like a cozy cottage.
I leave space for softness through golden-hour light and moments of stillness, where Elara might be holding a mug or a book, feeling the weight of her hands in her lap.
Surprise comes through visual disruptors, breaking a lighting pattern, shifting toward something moodier or more defiant, or changing the setting so the hearth stays alive rather than becoming static or boring. Life keeps changing, after all.
Tools are secondary to systems
Looking back, what mattered most in allowing this evolution to happen?
The most important factor was choosing consistency over convenience. It would have been easier to keep using stock images, or even generic AI-generated visuals that were more realistic but still too smooth, almost-perfect versions that sat just a step removed from the reality I wanted.
I could have stayed there.
Instead, I committed to the slower work of world-building. That forced me to see my brand as a journey rather than a destination. Having that structure gave me the freedom to evolve without losing the core of what Dose of Wonder stands for.
Stop your character from staring straight ahead
For writers whose visuals feel disconnected from their world, what’s one practical step they could take this week to begin anchoring their visuals?
Choose one symbolic object that represents the “why” behind your work and commit to it.
For me, it’s the iron key. For someone else, it might be a cat. Or a flamingo.
And if you use a person or person-like figure to represent your brand, stop relying on portraits where they’re staring straight ahead like they’re getting their picture taken. Show them living instead of posing. Turn their shoulders away from the camera. Let them be busy with real life.
This small shift that anchors visuals in a reality readers can relate to on a much deeper level.
If you want to follow how Elara’s world evolves both visually and intellectually, Dose of Wonder is well worth subscribing to.
Take 10 Minutes to Start Your Rebrand Journey
A visual rebrand takes time to mature, but finding direction doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. What makes the difference is attention: noticing what repeats, what feels aligned, and what’s worth shaping into a system.
If you want a simple place to start, try the Visual Brand Distinctiveness Test for Substack creators, the free custom GPT I built. It takes about three minutes and gives you a clear read on how your visuals are showing up, plus a few concrete starting points. No panic, no overthinking.
That’s your tiny action for today.
In the comments share…
Where are you in your visual branding journey on Substack? If you’re already rebranding, just starting, or somewhere in between, tell me in the comments. And tag me in anything you’re experimenting with… I’m always curious to look 👀
Talk later, Girlbosses!
Pinkie🩷🦩
Want to Be Featured in a Future Real Rebrands Interview?
Real Rebrands shows how creators update their visual identity after they’ve already found their voice. If you’d like to be featured, you’ll find the collab link below, or just DM me.
If today’s post made you think about your own visual brand, I am launching The Branding Flock, a 12-month visual brand program for Substack creators who are done guessing.
Full breakdown posts, real prompts, real outputs. Your color palette, your logo, your brand character, your content system — built step by step alongside the flock.
33% off closes after the first 100 seats. The discount lives inside your quiz result.
Rebrands Work In Progress 👀
In every post, I shout out the creators who are rebranding their Substack channels. I encourage you to check them out and give them some encouragement!
Manisha and I were working on her rebrand. I will be sharing the full workflow of how to build your visual brand from zero soon. Check out her Substack channel: AI Family Network with her new covers!
Elena | AI Product Leader changed her visual and her channel's name with over 1,800 subscribers! Read about the reasoning behind her ballsy move! Why I’m Killing Product Release Notes (And What Comes Next)
Alyssa Fu Ward, PhD has been using her hand-illustrated orange characters as the base of her visual language on Substack. Her latest post on Code Like A Girl features these characters: You are Already Technical Enough for AI
This is a smart case study because it treats visuals as narrative infrastructure, not decoration. “Aesthetic cognitive dissonance” is exactly the problem. When the writing says grit and presence, but the images say glossy wellness ad, trust leaks before the first paragraph lands.
The strongest move here is the system thinking: a protagonist (Elara), a repeatable anchor object (the iron key), and constraints that keep the world coherent while still leaving room for variation (light, mood, setting). That is how you get consistency without going stale.
If I’d push on anything, it’s making the “Visual Distinctiveness Test” output feel a bit more concrete for readers. One quick mini-template would turn this from inspiring to immediately executable. For example: pick 1 anchor object, 3 textures, 1 lighting rule, 1 “absorbed action” rule, and 1 brand easter egg. Done. Now build ten images.
Painterly realism? 100% Sara approved! Awesome work you two!