What makes a brand recognisable is almost never its mark: it is the repetition of a colour, a weight, a framing and a way of speaking, held for years.
The request almost always arrives as "we need a new logo". That is rarely the problem. What is missing is the system around it: the two typefaces and their uses, the palette and its proportions, the way a photograph is framed, the grid that holds documents together. Without it, every new item starts from scratch and the whole is never recognised.
A mark must then survive its real conditions of use. It will be seen at sixteen pixels in a tab, engraved on a stamp, embroidered on a garment, printed in a single colour on an invoice. A drawing that only holds large, in colour and on white is not an identity, it is an illustration. So we test every route in those four situations before presenting it.
Finally, tone of voice weighs as much as the visual and is almost always neglected. Two houses can share the same palette and differ entirely in how they write an error message, an invoice reminder or a reply to an unhappy customer. So we write those texts too, because they are the ones your customers read most often.
What your clients say about you, set against what you believe you say.
Interviews with you, with your teams and with three of your clients, chosen because they chose you. What those last say about you almost never matches what you believe you are saying, and it is that gap that gives the territory. We also record what your competitors do, mostly to know what not to repeat.
The world fixed on a board, before any drawing.
A board that fixes the world before any drawing: references, materials, light, words. It exists so we can agree on intent while changing our minds is still cheap. An identity approved on a logo with no territory always ends up arguing over details that were never the real subject.
A mark tested at sixteen pixels, in one colour, before it is shown.
One defended direction, tested at sixteen pixels, in a single colour, debossed and reversed before it is shown. We deliver the mark in its working variants, horizontal and compact, with clear space and forbidden uses. That last document is what stops a well-drawn logo being destroyed in use.
Two typefaces, a palette, a grid: enough to produce without us.
Two typefaces and not five, a palette with its usage proportions, a grid, a way of framing images, a set of components. It is the least spectacular part and the one that does all the work: it lets a new document be produced without us and without it showing.
The everyday texts, which make the brand more than the strapline.
The words you use and those you do not, sentence length, how you address people, what is written when things go wrong. We write the texts used every day: error messages, reminders, replies to reviews, email signature. Those are what make the brand, not the strapline.
Your images shot at your place, and three rules to carry on alone.
Photography and video shot at your place, because a stock library will never show your workshop. We set three rules of framing and light so your own shots then fit the system, which makes you self-sufficient for the everyday and keeps us for the exceptional.
A full identity takes eight to twelve weeks. The calendar matters less than the order: each stage closes a question, and going back costs twice the time saved.
Interviews, survey of what exists, three clients questioned. We report what we heard before drawing anything, including the parts that are not pleasant. It is often the most useful session of the whole project.
One board, only one, defended in session. You approve an intent and not a drawing. Until that is settled, drawing a mark is a throw of the dice: it will please or not, with no one able to say why.
Drawing, proofs at sixteen pixels, in one colour, reversed, over photography. We present the chosen direction and two adjustments, not three worlds. Corrections happen on detail because intent is already settled.
Typefaces, palette, grid, components, photographic framing, tone of voice. We apply the whole to three real items from your activity, because a system can only be judged against a document you will actually use.
Source files, templates, usage guide, and a session with your teams. An identity not understood by the people who will use it daily falls apart in six months, whatever the quality of the document.
Vector files, in every working format, with horizontal, compact, monochrome and reversed variants. They are yours: an identity whose sources you do not hold is an identity you rent.
Clear space, minimum sizes, forbidden uses, palette with its proportions, typefaces and their uses. Written to be applied by someone other than us, including a printer in a hurry.
Stationery, presentation, quote and invoice, social posts, email signature. Editable, not flat images: that is what lets a new document be produced without coming back to us.
Vocabulary kept and vocabulary banned, before and after examples, and the everyday texts already written. It is the part most often forgotten and the one your customers read most.
Often no. A mark your customers recognise is capital it would be absurd to throw away because it looks dated from the inside. In half the cases we keep the mark and rebuild the system around it: typefaces, palette, framing, templates. The result looks new without losing what your customers already recognise.
One, defended, plus two adjustments. Presenting three worlds means asking you to do the choosing for us, and the choice is then made on the decision-maker's taste rather than on the intent approved at the territory stage. If the direction does not fit, we take another, but we do not show three to cover ourselves.
We are not trademark attorneys and do not pretend to be. We check up front that no obviously similar mark exists in your class, which avoids drawing something unusable for six weeks, then we point you to a firm for the filing itself.
That is the main risk, and it is not solved by a thicker document. It is solved by templates that make the right use easier than the wrong one, and by a handover session with the people concerned. An eighty-page guide nobody opens protects less than a presentation template already set up.
Leave us your website and a word about your project. A director studies it and replies to you personally within twenty-four hours: what holds your visitors back, what we would do, and whether your house can join us. It is the first door of admission, and it commits you to nothing.