The First Two Weeks of a Brand Identity

Most people picture brand identity as the moment a logo appears. The truth is less glamorous and more useful: the first two weeks are mostly questions.

We start by trying to understand the business better than the brief does. What does it actually sell? Who decides to buy? What would be lost if the company disappeared tomorrow? The answers rarely match the homepage.

Strategy before style

Only once that is clear do we touch anything visual. A visual identity is a set of decisions made in advance, about tone, type, colour and restraint, so everything made later feels like it belongs. Skip the thinking and you get a logo; do the thinking and you get a system.

We test early and roughly. Ideas are held loosely, argued over, and often thrown out. That can feel slow, but it is far cheaper to change your mind in week two than in year two.

By the time a mark appears, it should feel almost inevitable, not because it was obvious, but because the work that came before earned it.