Brand strategy & identity
A brand is a system. A logo is one part of it.
Watch one business become recognisable — a position first, then a mark, then the type, colour and graphic language that carry it everywhere the business appears.
Illustrative identity · sample brand
Before the design
Before identity comes a point of view.
Every business can list what it sells. Far fewer can say who it is for and why that person should care — and until that is settled, design is decoration with nothing to carry.
Brand strategy decides what a business should be understood for: who it is for, what problem it solves better than the alternatives, and what somebody should remember afterwards. Brand identity is how that decision is expressed consistently — the mark, type, colour and graphic language that make it recognisable. Strategy comes first because identity has to carry something.
True, and true of four hundred other companies. Nothing here is a reason to choose one.
The first real decision, and the one that makes the rest possible.
A reason that is specific enough to disagree with, which is what makes it worth saying.
Short enough to survive being repeated, and it means something.
Everything after this — the mark, the palette, the photography, the words on a bottle — is answerable to it.
The system
Six decisions that have to agree with each other.
An identity is not a folder of assets. It is a small set of decisions that hold together, which is why changing one of them changes the others.
A brand identity system is the set of decisions that make a business recognisable: the mark and its variants, a type system, a colour palette, a graphic device, a way of treating photography, and the spacing and rules that hold them together. They are designed as one thing, because a palette that fights the photography or a typeface that cannot hold the mark produces an identity that only works in the presentation it was shown in.
Space & rulesClear space, minimum sizes, what goes on what, and what is not allowed.
The mark is drawn from the typeface, so choosing one decides a lot about the other.
Type carries most of what a brand sounds like. It is doing more work than the logo on almost every surface.
Colour is what people recognise from across a room, and the first thing a photograph can fight.
This is what makes a post identifiable in a feed before anybody reads the handle.
Most brands break here first — the identity is fine, and then somebody adds a stock photo.
The unglamorous half, and the reason an identity still looks right two years after we hand it over.
They are designed together and tested against each other. An identity that only works in the deck it was presented in is a portfolio piece, not a brand.
What the choices do
Same sentence. Three different companies.
Type, colour and wording are not decoration on top of the message. They are most of what the message becomes.
The same words read differently depending on the identity carrying them. Typeface changes how much authority a line has, colour changes what it is associated with and how memorable it is, and the wording itself changes who it sounds like it was written by. That is why these decisions are made against a position rather than to taste.
The same messageSunscreen you will actually wear every day.
Sounds like a pharmacy. Trusted, a little cold, and it will be believed about efficacy.
Sounds like a person who has also given up on the greasy one. Easier to like, harder to seem authoritative.
Sounds expensive and calm. Works on a shelf, needs the product to live up to it.
None of these is better. Which one is right is decided by the position — who this is for and what they need to believe — which is exactly why that decision comes first.
Consistency
A rule is worth more than a beautiful example.
Guidelines exist so that somebody who has never met us can make something that still looks like your brand. That is the whole job.
Brand guidelines turn design decisions into rules other people can follow: how much clear space the mark needs, which type size does which job, how colour is divided across a layout, how photography is cropped, and what is not allowed. The value is that a printer, a new marketing hire or an agency you use next year can produce something consistent without asking.
What happens without the ruleFive people make five reasonable decisions and none of them match. Nobody did anything wrong, and the brand still stops being recognisable — which is why the rule matters more than any single beautiful example of it.
In the world
It has to work where people actually meet it.
A brand is judged on a phone screen at a bus stop and on a bottle in bad shop lighting, not in the presentation where it was approved.
An identity has to work across every surface a business appears on: packaging, the website, social content, documents and decks, and physical signage. Each has different constraints — size, material, colour reproduction, how long somebody looks — and a system designed for only one of them tends to fall apart on the others.
The sample brand on this page is illustrative and made for the purpose — it lets us show a whole system without misrepresenting a real project. Published Branditify identity work is below.
Selected workWork
Identity work you can open.
Judge the drawing, the type and the way a system holds together from projects that are published, then we scope yours against your own business.
You already have a brand
Keep it, evolve it, or rebuild it.
Most businesses arriving here already have an identity. Throwing it away is rarely the right answer, and neither is defending it out of habit.
Whether a brand needs a refresh or a rebrand depends on four things: whether people already recognise it, whether it is clear about what the business does, whether it is applied consistently, and whether it still fits who the business now sells to. Strong recognition with weak consistency calls for a refresh. Recognition that no longer matches the business calls for a rebrand.
- Do people recognise it?If customers already know the mark, that is an asset and it is expensive to throw away.
- Is it clear what you do?A memorable identity attached to an unclear proposition is a memorable confusion.
- Is it applied consistently?Often the identity is fine and the rules were never written, which is a much smaller job.
- Does it still fit who you sell to?Businesses move. An identity built for the customer you had is the usual reason to rebuild.
We will tell you which of these you need, including when the answer is the cheapest one. An agency that recommends a rebuild to everybody is telling you about its pricing, not your brand.
What you get
Files somebody can actually use.
A brand that lives in one designer’s folder is a brand that stops being consistent the moment that person is busy.
A brand identity project hands over the working files: the mark in its variants and in the formats each use needs, the colour specifications for screen and print, the typefaces and how they are licensed, the graphic device, and a brand guide setting out the rules. Templates and application examples are included where they are in scope. Exactly what is delivered follows the agreed scope rather than a fixed package.
- Primary, compact and monogram forms
- Vector and screen formats
- One-colour and reversed versions
- Clear space and minimum sizes
- Colour values for screen and print
- Typefaces, with how they are licensed
- The graphic device and how it is used
- Image treatment and cropping
- A brand guide people can follow
- What is allowed and what is not
- Worked application examples
- Templates, where they are in scope
Final deliverables follow the agreed scope. Typeface licensing in particular is bought in your name rather than ours, so the brand does not depend on a licence we hold.
The identity, the files and the rights agreed in scope are yours. Typefaces are licensed to you directly, and there is nothing to keep paying us for in order to keep using your own brand.
What decides the size
Scope is set by how much has to be decided.
A mark for a new business and an identity system for one with fifteen products and four audiences are different projects.
The size of a branding project is decided mainly by how much strategy work is needed before design can start, whether naming or messaging is in scope, how many surfaces the identity has to work on, how many sub-brands or product lines it has to hold, how much of the existing brand is being kept, and how many templates and application examples are needed at handover.
Time follows the same drivers, and the one that moves it most is how settled the position is when we start. Design goes quickly once there is agreement about what the brand is for; it goes very slowly when that argument is still being had through rounds of logo revisions.
Questions
Asked before commissioning branding.
- What does a branding agency actually do?
- It decides what a business should be understood for, then builds the system that expresses it consistently. In practice that means the positioning work first — who this is for and why they should care — then the mark, typography, colour, graphic language and image treatment, and the rules that let other people apply all of it without asking.
- What is brand identity?
- The visual and verbal system that makes a business recognisable: the mark and its variants, the typefaces, the colour palette, a graphic device, how photography is treated, and the way the business writes. It is what somebody recognises across a shelf, a feed and a document, usually before they read the name.
- What is the difference between branding and logo design?
- A logo is one identifier. Brand identity is the wider visual and verbal system that makes a business recognisable — type, colour, graphic language, image treatment and the rules holding them together. Branding includes the strategic decisions that decide what that system should communicate in the first place. A logo bought on its own has nothing to be consistent with.
- What is the difference between brand strategy and visual identity?
- Strategy answers what people should understand, remember and believe about the business. Identity is how that is expressed consistently so they do. Strategy without identity never becomes visible; identity without strategy is decoration that looks fine and carries nothing. They are done in that order because design needs something to be about.
- When does a company need rebranding?
- Usually when the business has changed and the identity has not — a new audience, a broader offer, or a position the old brand was not built to hold. Also when the identity is genuinely holding the business back, rather than simply being older than the current marketing team. Not liking it is not on its own a reason.
- What is the difference between a brand refresh and a full rebrand?
- A refresh keeps the recognition you already have and rebuilds around it — the mark is redrawn rather than replaced, and the type, colour and system are renewed. A rebrand starts from the position and produces a new identity. The test is whether what people already recognise is still worth keeping. If it is, a refresh keeps equity you have already paid for.
- What is included in a brand identity project?
- Typically the positioning work, the mark in its variants, a type system, a colour palette, a graphic device, image treatment, and a brand guide with the rules. Naming, messaging, templates and application design are included where they are in scope. What is delivered follows the agreed scope rather than a fixed package.
- Can you work with our existing logo?
- Yes, and often we should. Where the mark is recognised and still works, the useful project is usually everything around it — a type system, a palette, a graphic device and the rules — because that is normally where the inconsistency is coming from. We will say clearly if we think the mark itself is the problem.
- Do you do naming and taglines?
- Where it is in scope. Naming is a separate piece of work with its own process and its own checks, including availability, and it is scoped deliberately rather than added to a logo project. The same is true of the line a brand leads with — it comes out of the positioning rather than being written afterwards.
- Do you create brand guidelines?
- Yes, and they are written to be followed rather than admired. The point of a guide is that somebody who has never met us — a printer, a new hire, an agency you use next year — can make something that still looks like your brand. Clear space, minimum sizes, what goes on what, and what is not allowed.
- Can the identity extend to our website, social and decks?
- Yes, and it should. A brand that stops at a PDF guideline tends to stop being consistent within a year. We can apply the identity to the website, to social templates and to presentation and document templates, and where you want the website built as well that is the website development page.
- Can you work alongside our existing marketing team?
- Yes, and that usually produces a better result. Your team knows the customers, the objections and the language people actually use. We tend to build the system and the rules, and hand over something the team can run with rather than something that needs us every time it is applied.
- Who owns the final identity files?
- You do. The identity, the working files and the rights agreed in scope are yours. Typefaces are licensed in your name rather than ours, so your brand never depends on a licence we hold, and there is nothing to keep paying us in order to keep using it.
- What determines the scope of a branding project?
- Mainly how much strategy is needed before design can start, whether naming and messaging are in scope, how many surfaces the identity has to work on, how many sub-brands or ranges it has to hold, how much of the existing brand is being kept, and how many templates are needed at handover.
- What makes one branding project larger than another?
- Surfaces and sub-brands, mostly. An identity for one business appearing on a website and a card is a different job from one that has to hold a product range across packaging, retail and signage. After that it is how settled the position is when we start — an unresolved position is what turns design into rounds of revisions.
- How does a branding project start?
- With a conversation about the business rather than the logo: who you sell to, what they compare you against, what they need to believe, and what you want them to remember. That produces a position. Design starts once there is agreement on it, which is what stops the work becoming a debate about taste.
- What do you need from us?
- Access to what you already know. What customers ask, what they hesitate about, which words they use, what your team says on the phone, and any existing brand material including the parts that are not working. That is the raw material — the useful version of a branding brief is usually already inside the business.
Start here
Bring us the brand you have, or the business that still needs one.
Either is a fine place to start. A conversation about who you sell to and what they need to believe usually settles whether this is a refresh, a rebuild, or a set of rules you were always missing.