Your logo is not your brand
Businesses come to us asking for a new logo. Often what they need is the thing that was never built around the old one.
The symptom and the cause
The usual symptom is that everything looks slightly different. The signage does not match the website, the invoices use a different typeface, and the second location has quietly adopted its own colours. The logo is fine. What is missing is the set of rules that tell everyone how to use it.
What a brand system covers
Beyond the mark itself, a working identity needs:
- Colour values for screen and print, with rules for when each is used
- A type scale, so headings and body text relate to each other predictably
- Clear space and minimum sizes for the logo
- Templates for the things you make constantly: social posts, proposals, signage
- A short guide that people will actually read
Design for bad conditions
A mark should survive being printed badly on a cheap sign, embroidered on a shirt, and shown at 32 pixels as a profile picture. If it only works large and in full colour, it will fail most of the places it is used.
When a refresh beats a rebuild
If your existing mark has recognition, keeping it and building the system properly is usually faster, cheaper and less disruptive than starting again. Throwing away equity you have already paid for is rarely the right call.
A logo is one asset. A brand is what happens when everything around it agrees.