Branding & Identity

Branding is one of those services where the best work tends to look obvious in hindsight. The logo, the colours, the typography all feel like the only way it could have been done. That impression is the result of a lot of upstream work — understanding the business, the audience, the competitive landscape, and the practical constraints (will this logo work on a 16×16 favicon? does this colour palette pass WCAG? does this typography render correctly on Windows?).

I work with small and mid-size businesses that need branding to do real work — earn trust on first impression, look credible across digital and print, and hold up as the business grows.

What’s Included

• Brand discovery — understanding your business, audience, competitors, and the role brand needs to play
• Logo design — primary mark, secondary mark, favicon, app icon, monochrome and reversed versions
• Colour system — primary, secondary, accent palettes with proper accessibility contrast ratios and digital/print specifications
• Typography system — primary, secondary, and supporting typefaces with usage guidelines and web-safe fallbacks
• Visual identity elements — iconography style, photography direction, illustration approach, pattern systems
• Brand guidelines document — a working PDF guide your team (or external contractors) can reference for consistency
• Brand asset package — all logo files, colour swatches, fonts, and elements in production-ready formats
• Applied examples — how the brand looks in real use (web, print, social, email signatures, business cards)

How It Works

1. Discovery — 60-90 minute working session to understand the business and what brand needs to accomplish
2. Strategy — written brand strategy document covering positioning, voice, and visual direction (before any visuals are designed)
3. Concept exploration — 2-3 distinct visual directions, presented with rationale
4. Refinement — one direction selected, refined through 2 rounds of feedback
5. Production — full asset library, brand guidelines, and applied examples

Is This Right for Your Business?

Brand work is the right investment when you’re starting a new business and want to look credible from day one, when your current brand was put together quickly years ago and no longer represents the business, or when you’re growing into new markets and need to look the part.

It’s not the right investment if you’re pre-revenue and bootstrapping — a simple logo and a coherent colour palette is usually enough until product-market fit is proven. Don’t spend $10,000 on branding for a business that may not exist in six months.

Why Work With Me on Branding

Most branding agencies do beautiful work but optimise for portfolio pieces, not for businesses. The brand looks great in a case study, then breaks the moment your team tries to apply it to a webinar slide or a sales deck. I design with the application in mind — every element gets tested against real use cases before it ships.

I’m also a developer, which matters more than it sounds. Brands that get designed without anyone considering web implementation often have unrealistic font requirements, accessibility-failing colours, or logos that look terrible at small sizes. I’ll catch those issues during design, not after launch.

Often paired with web design and custom theme development for full brand-to-website projects.

Pricing & Timeline

Brand identity projects start at $3,500 for focused logo and basic identity work, and run $7,500-$15,000 for full brand systems with strategy, applied examples, and guideline documentation. Timelines range from 3 weeks to 8 weeks.

Ready to Talk?

Free 30-minute call to discuss what your brand needs to do and whether a full identity project or a more focused engagement is the right fit. Schedule a call.