Branding
A brand is a system, not a logo file.
Most small businesses have a logo and nothing else, which is why the website, the truck and the flyer all look like they belong to three different companies. We build the whole system and write it down.
Brand systems, as built
Each of these is the sheet that gets handed over: the lockup on light and on dark, the palette with its hex values, the type scale at the sizes it is actually set at, and the real button styles. Not a presentation of a logo. The document a printer works from.
The test
Built into the work, not left in a PDF.
A useful identity has to survive a browser tab, a proposal, a truck door, an embroidered shirt and a social post without turning into five different brands.
The same system, running
The identity is built into the website while it is being designed, so nobody receives a logo file and then has to work out how it is supposed to sit on a page.
Sunset DeckThe sheet, and the page it was drawn for.
Collect LincolnThe sheet, and the page it was drawn for.
Selected systems
The same sheet, for the rest of the identities. Each one opens its project page.
What you get
The parts that make it hold together.
A logo on its own cannot tell a printer what your gold is, or a web developer how a heading should sit above a paragraph. These can.
- Mark and lockups
- A primary lockup plus the variants a real business needs: reversed for dark backgrounds, stacked for tight spaces, and a mark that still reads at favicon size.
- A color system, not a color
- A working palette with roles. Which color carries the brand, which one is reserved for the thing you want pressed, and which ones are just surface and ink.
- Type that holds up
- A display face and a body face, set as a scale rather than a pair of names, so a heading, a paragraph and a caption all belong to the same system.
- Built into the work, not left in a PDF
- The identity is built into the website as the website is designed, so you never receive a logo file and then wonder how it is supposed to sit on a page, or hand a sign maker something that was only ever drawn for a screen.
- A written guide
- The lockups, the palette with hex values, the type scale and the button styles, documented, so the next printer or sign maker does not guess.
- Print and signage ready
- Files in the formats a sign shop, a truck wrap installer and a print house will actually ask you for, rather than a single PNG off a website.
Across locations and teams
Written for the people who were not in the room.
A brand rolled out across locations, franchisees or departments breaks in the gaps: the regional flyer, the location page, the vendor who never got the file. Richard spent more than two decades across merchandising, sourcing, product development and multi-location programs, which is a long education in how a brand drifts once it leaves the people who made it.
So the system is built for distribution. Usage rules come with worked examples rather than prohibitions. The pieces that get made most often, from location signage to social posts, arrive as templates. And the guidelines say where local variation is welcome and who decides when something falls outside them.
Working in Central Florida? See branding in Orlando and branding in Tampa Bay, or how a multi-location program runs.
Branding is quoted to scope
There is no flat rate, because a wordmark refresh and a full identity for a new organization are not the same job. Tell us what exists now and what it has to cover, and you get a fixed number before anything starts.
Most branding work here happens alongside a website build, which is usually cheaper than doing them apart and always produces a more consistent result.
Ready to look like one organization everywhere?
Send a few details. We'll take a look at what you have now and reply within one business day.