Brand identity
A mark is the smallest part of a brand.
The work is the system around it — and the rules that keep it holding together after we leave the room.
Most brands do not fail
at the logo.
They fail at the fortieth application. Somebody needs a one-page flyer on a Thursday, the file is not to hand, and a near-enough version gets made. Then another. Within a year the company looks like four companies, and nobody can point to the moment it happened.
A logo is a drawing. A brand is a set of decisions about colour, type, spacing and tone, written down clearly enough that a person who was never in the room can apply them and get it right.
That is the unglamorous half, and it is the half that decides whether any of it survives contact with a real business.
The mark, and everything
that has to hold it up.
The mark
Drawn to work at every size the business actually uses — a site header, a brochure cover, and print small enough to sit on stationery. One drawing, legible at all of them.
Colour and typography
A palette that survives print, screen and a single-colour stamp, with contrast that meets WCAG 2.2 AA rather than being checked afterwards.
Guidelines
Written for the person who was not in the room. What to do, what not to do, and the reasoning, so a new case can be decided rather than guessed.
Application
The identity used across the touchpoints you have — print, site, decks, signage, social — because a system is only proven by being applied.
Verbal identity
How the company sounds: tone, boilerplate at three lengths, and the words to avoid. Consistency in words is as visible as consistency in colour.
What you
receive.
- Logo files in every format and lockup you need
- Colour and typography specifications
- A written guidelines document
- Print-ready collateral
- Verbal identity and boilerplate
- Source files, with licences named and owned by you
What people
ask first.
01How long does it take?
Three to five weeks for an identity and its guidelines. Longer where there are sub-brands, or where existing material has to be audited before anything new is drawn.
02Do you do naming?
No. Naming is a specialism with its own legal and linguistic work, and we would rather point you to someone who does it properly than do it adequately.
03Who owns the fonts?
You do. We specify the typefaces and tell you what the licence costs; you buy it in your own name. A brand running on a licence the client does not hold is a bill that arrives later at their address.
04How many logo options do we see?
Two or three directions, each one we would be willing to build the whole system on. Presenting eight is a way of asking the client to do the deciding, and it is how a brand ends up chosen rather than designed.
Tell us what is
not working.
We read every message, and if we are not the right studio for it we will say so and point you somewhere better.