Brand & creative
Identity design
An identity that still works at 16 pixels, in one colour, and embroidered on a shirt, because we design the whole system rather than a logo that only flatters a slide.
The short version
A logo is the smallest part of an identity and the part everyone argues about. What actually decides whether your brand looks like itself is duller: the type you set headlines in, the two or three colours you repeat, the spacing you keep. We design the mark and that supporting system together, then test the whole thing at the sizes it will really be used at — a 32-pixel browser tab, a van door, a black-and-white invoice.
What is included
- A primary logo plus the variants real use demands: a horizontal lockup, a stacked one, a standalone mark for avatars, and a one-colour version for stamps and embroidery.
- A minimum-size rule tested rather than guessed, with the mark proofed at 16px and 24px and redrawn if the detail collapses at either.
- A type system of two families at most, with the licence route for each stated up front so desktop, webfont and app costs are known before you commit to a typeface.
- A colour palette specified in hex, RGB, CMYK and the nearest Pantone, with every text-on-background pair checked against a WCAG contrast ratio of 4.5:1.
- Master artwork in SVG, EPS, PNG and ICO, named so anyone can find the right file, plus a favicon and app icon set drawn separately rather than shrunk down.
- Applied proofs on the things you will need first: email signature, business card, social profile and header image, and a document template.
How we work
Our approach
The stages this work runs through, in order. Every one of them ends in something you can see or sign off.
-
Step 01
Find the one idea
Before drawing anything we settle what the mark has to say and what it must not. That comes from a short session on who you sell to, who you are mistaken for, and the words you want said about you. We also audit your competitors' marks so we can avoid accidental resemblance, which is both a legal risk and a positioning one. The output is a written brief you sign off, and it is what we design against.
-
Step 02
Draw, then draw again
You see three directions, each a genuinely different answer rather than the same shape in three colours. They arrive in black on white first, because colour hides weak drawing. You pick one and we refine it through two rounds: optical corrections so the weights look even, kerning on the wordmark, and a redraw of any detail that dies below 24 pixels. Rejected directions are shelved, not resurrected as a compromise.
-
Step 03
Build the system round it
A mark on its own gets misused within a week. So we set the rest: clear space expressed as a fraction of the mark rather than a fixed millimetre, the type scale, the palette with its accessible pairings, and a short list of things nobody may do to the logo. Then we apply it to a handful of real items so you can watch the system behave before it goes anywhere public.
-
Step 04
Hand over the masters
You get vector masters, not exports of exports, in the formats printers and developers each ask for. Font licences are bought in your name so they stay yours if you ever work with someone else. We include a one-page cheat sheet for whoever ends up making a banner at short notice, and we will answer a printer's question about spot colours long after the invoice is settled.
Before you ask
Questions we get asked first
How long does an identity take?
Three to five weeks for a mark plus its core system, assuming feedback comes back inside two working days. The design work is not the slow part. Consolidating opinions is. If more than one person has to approve, we ask you to nominate a single decision-maker and gather the other views before each round rather than during it. Extended applications such as signage, vehicle livery or packaging sit outside that window and get their own schedule.
How is it priced?
Fixed, against a named list: how many directions you see, how many revision rounds, and exactly which applications we produce. You get that in pounds after one call, before any work starts. Typeface licences are a separate cost we quote at cost and pass straight through, because they belong to you and vary hugely between foundries. If you later want packaging or signage added, we price it as its own piece of work rather than folding it into an open-ended retainer.
What do you need from us?
An honest brief and a decision-maker. Concretely: who your buyers are, three or four competitors you get compared to, and any name or trademark constraints you already know about. If you have existing artwork, send whatever the original files are rather than a logo lifted off your website. And tell us early about awkward applications like embroidery, etched glass or a single-colour rubber stamp, because they change how the mark gets drawn, not just how it gets exported.
How do we judge whether the identity is any good?
Not by whether it is liked in a meeting. We test it against things you can check: does it read at 16 pixels, does it hold up in one colour, does every colour pair pass 4.5:1 contrast, can someone unfamiliar with it place your logo correctly on a new layout using only the rules we wrote. Longer term the measure is consistency. Six months on, do your social posts, your invoices and your site look like the same company. If they don't, the system failed, not the staff.
Want this scoped for your situation?
Tell us the goal and the deadline. You get an honest read on whether this is the right service, a fixed price if it is, and a straight no if it isn't.
Or email [email protected] directly. We reply within one working day.