Usually less than you fear. We look at the logo, colors, signs, site and social you already have before recommending anything. A full rebrand only makes sense when the old look is working against the business you are now.
Services · 02 · Brand & Creative
Look like onebusiness everywhere.
Some businesses outgrow their identity. Others never had one to begin with. Either way, we work out how the business should look and sound, then carry it onto your website and everything else.
Customers notice when nothing matches.
The sign out front has the old logo and the website has a newer one. Instagram uses its own colors, and the price list is in a font that appears nowhere else. Each one is small, but together they make a good business look less established than it is.
It usually happens because nobody sat down and decided. The logo came from one designer, the website from another, and the posts from whoever had time that week. We make those decisions with you, write them down and work from them everywhere.
What the work can include.
- Brand Identity
- Working out what the business should be known for, and why a customer would choose you over the place down the street or the first result on Google.
- Logo & Visual Systems
- The logo, plus the colors, fonts and photo style that go with it, so people recognize you on a flyer as quickly as on your website.
- Naming & Messaging
- What you call your services, a tagline if you need one, and the few sentences your team uses to explain the business. Written down, so everyone says the same thing.
- Brand Guidelines
- The handbook that keeps the brand intact when other hands touch it: printers, sign shops, future hires, whoever runs your social next year.
- Rebrands
- For businesses that changed while their identity stood still. Maybe you’ve added services or raised your prices, and the look still fits the business you started as.
- Creative Direction
- When you’re making something new, like signage for a second location or a seasonal promotion, we can set the direction and check the work before it goes out.
How a brand project goes.
It starts with a working session about the business. From that, we write a positioning document that says what the brand stands for in plain words, and hand it over for you to argue with. Arguing at this stage is cheap and useful.
Then the visual work. You see each direction applied to real things (a website header, a social post, a storefront sign) rather than on a mood board. Once one direction wins, we build it out into the full system and the guidelines that go with it.
Last, we plan the rollout with you. The website usually goes first, then your profiles and the templates your team uses every day, in an order that doesn’t leave you half-changed during a busy season.
The website comes next.
A new look won’t bring in customers on its own. It pays off on a website that’s clear and easy to use, so we plan the brand with your site in mind from the start.
Our web design & development page covers that part. We’d hold off on digital marketing until the brand and the site are both ready for more visitors.
The things people ask first.
If it’s working, absolutely. Lost & Found Animal Foundation had years of recognition in its paw logo, so we kept it and designed the rest of the site to fit. Maja Salon & Spa’s website redesign kept its established identity, too.
You get logo files in every format you’ll need, the exact colors and fonts, templates for the things you produce most, and written guidelines that keep it all consistent without us in the room.
It depends on how much is changing. Refreshing a logo you’re keeping takes less time than a full rebrand, and naming or a long list of signs and printed pieces adds to it. The dates are agreed in writing before we start.
That’s a big reason to do it here. The people who design the brand also design and build websites, so nothing gets lost in a handoff between two companies. For social, we give you templates and direction your team can post from.