Visual identity

A visual identity is a set of decisions written into files: the logo in every version you need, colours with exact codes for print and screen, two licensed typefaces, photography rules and layout principles. A designer builds it with whoever holds the brand strategy, at the start of a company or during a rebrand. The output is not a pretty picture but a folder you can send to a supplier.

We know a hose manufacturer who ordered a catalogue, a website and a fair stand from three firms in one year. They got three shades of green and two different typefaces. Customers never name this, but they feel it as sloppiness. When that company later sorts its visual identity out properly, it pays again for prepress, reprinted packaging and a new photo shoot.

How it runs: an audit of what exists, a workshop on positioning, two design directions, refinement of the chosen one, then production of the files together with brand guidelines. For a small company, four to eight weeks. From you we need one person allowed to decide, a list of the applications you genuinely use, existing files and the exact registered company name.

This is where companies overshoot: paying for a system covering dozens of applications, three of which get used. The other forgotten item is font licensing. A beautiful visual identity is useless if the office cannot open it in Word, or if the licence does not cover the website. Ask how many users the licence allows and whether it includes both desktop and web.

Before the first sketch we ask for a list of everything the company actually printed and used in the past year: an invoice, a stamp, a van wrap, a deck, Instagram. We design the visual identity against that list, not against a moodboard. A habit worth stealing: put last year's printed items on one table. Ten minutes later you see the gaps.