What a Brand Identity Process Actually Includes (and What It Should Cost You)

The most common mistake we see is treating branding as a logo purchase. A logo is a mark. A brand is the set of things that make people recognise you, trust you and remember you: how you speak, how you look, how you behave when something goes wrong.

Good identity work handles all of it, so the business looks like one consistent thing instead of five different attempts.

Everything starts with questions. Who are your customers? Who do they compare you to? What do you do better, and what do you not want to be known for? We also look at competitors, because a new identity that looks like everyone else's wastes the whole exercise.

At the end of this stage you should have a short written summary that you agree with. If you disagree, the design will not fix that later.

• Positioning: one clear sentence about who you are for and why you are different.
• Personality: three or four traits that guide the look and the language.
• Voice: how the brand talks, with a few examples of "we say this, we do not say that".

This is where most people expect to start. By now the direction is clear, so design is faster and less subjective.

• Logo and variations (full, compact, icon, light and dark)
• Colour palette with usage rules
• Typography: fonts for headlines, body and small text
• Imagery and photography direction
• Patterns, icons and graphic elements where useful

For Panda Palooza, a brand-new indoor play venue, we built the identity around a playful panda character and a photography direction that made the space stand out on Instagram. The full story is in our case studies.

A short brand guide is what keeps the identity consistent when other people (a printer, a new designer, your social team) use it. It should cover logo usage, colours, fonts, tone of voice and a few real examples: a social post, a menu, a business card, a website page.

Then the identity has to go out into the world: social profiles, website, signage, packaging. This is where an agency that also does social and web saves you from redoing things.

A proper identity for a small or mid-sized business commonly takes four to eight weeks, depending on how quickly feedback comes back. Be wary of anyone promising a full brand in three days.

When you review work, judge it against the strategy, not against your personal taste. The question is "does this look like the brand we agreed we are?" not "do I like this shade of orange?"