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Brand Identity
That Lasts.

A mark is a decision, and the decision is the work. We draw a lot on purpose: the extra eighty-nine are how the one that survives earns its place. Identity systems, logotypes, type and colour rules, and the file set your team can actually run without us.

Frame 2.667:1 · the ratio of our own portfolio deck

Move your cursor across the word. It is made of the same thing as the mark on your letterhead — points, pressure, and a decision about what to keep.

01The method

Strategy first. Design second. Results always.

Reduce.

Repeat.

Refine.

Then let it breathe.

Four verbs, in that order. Everything else on this page is one of them.

03Five rules

Our Five Brand Principles

Taste is harder to bill than arithmetic, so we write the rules down. They are the parts of the argument that survive a client, a printer and a redesign.

Where the colour comes from ↓
01

Clarity before complexity.

If the wordmark is hard to read at the size it will actually be seen, the drawing is wrong. Beauty is the second test, never the first.

02

Consistency builds recognition.

A system reads as a system when a single idea recurs: one link stroke, one radius, one cropped corner. Two ideas is an argument; three is a mess.

03

Scalable from favicon to billboard.

We draw the favicon and the signage before we approve the lockup, because those are the two ends your audience will actually meet.

04

Works in black and white first.

Colour rescues a weak mark and hides a mediocre one. If it does not work in one ink, it is not finished — see the six surfaces below.

05

A brand system outlasts any single logo.

The mark you ship is one file. The rules around it — type, colour, spacing, tone, motion — are the asset that keeps paying for a decade.

03bWhat lands in the folderRedrawn from the application-branding spread of our own 2017–2021 deck.

What You Receive at Project End

Eight panels, one page. Everything a marketing manager, a printer and a developer need to be told out loud, so nobody has to guess again in six months.

01 · Logo lockups

Horizontal, stacked, symbol only, one-colour reversed

Four builds, each with its clear-space box drawn on the artboard.

02 · Icon set

4 states, one stroke weight, 24 px grid

Default, active, disabled, reversed. Drawn once, exported forever.

03 · Typography
Display — one family, two optical sizes opsz 40 / wght 500 · tracking −0.03em Text — same family, opsz 14, wght 400 one line-height, two weights, no third voice
04 · Colour

One accent, three neutrals. Anything else is a client's own ink.

05 · Brand goal

Written once, in one sentence, and pinned to the top of the file.

06 · Applications

App screens, social avatars, packaging faces, signage — shown on the real substrate, not on a floating mockup.

07 · File set

AI · EPS · SVG · PDF · PNG 16→4096 px · favicon · Lottie. Named, zipped, versioned.

08 · The honest note about type

A pairing is a rule, not a shopping list.

The deck this page is built from pairs Coovettica 300 for display with Helvetica Bold for UI labels — two families, one discipline. This site gets the same hierarchy out of two optical sizes of one variable family, at zero licence cost and zero extra kilobytes. Fewer faces is not a limitation; it is the rule.

04Construction & the rebrandGrind Coffee Co. — script badge to geometric wordmark, from the 2017–2021 deck.

Typography That Fits Your Brand Voice

A coffee shop that had been open for years and looked like a hobby. The fix was not a better script — it was a different claim.

The previous Grind Coffee Co. mark: a script wordmark over a saw-blade ring
Before — script, badge, saw-blade ring
The delivered Grind Coffee Co. logotype: geometric caps with a single continuous cup and baseline stroke
After — one stroke is the cup, the handle and the baseline

Guides above are re-drawn here from the delivered artwork — the deck's vectors are flattened, so nothing was lifted.

LIFT logo
Badge

The circle is 1:1 and the type is inscribed on a smaller radius. Two circles, one argument — nothing is eyeballed.

Lion crest mark
Symmetry

A crest is a balance test. Mirror the drawing and the weak halves show up immediately, so we draw one half and correct it.

Quinn and Sons fleet mark
Tangents

A fleet swoosh has to read on a van at 60 km/h. The tangent where the curve leaves the letter is the whole job.

05The voidOne mark, six states of the archive file.

Hundreds of Concepts. One Perfect Mark.

Every identity we ship has a delete key in it: the second idea, the third, the one your competitor already has, the version with the gradient, the one that only works in colour. Below is the same delivered file in the six states an archive actually keeps — all of them produced in the browser from one artwork, no second asset.

Grind logotype, low-contrast grid state
Grid
Grind logotype as a solid silhouette
Silhouette
Grind logotype in a single reversed weight
One weight
Grind logotype as a one-bit mono version
1-bit mono
Grind logotype in full colour
Full colour
Grind logotype inside its lockup
Lockup
06MaterialThe card below is generated in WebGL from the delivered artwork.

Designed for the Real World — Not Just Screens

Paper first. A 300 gsm sheet with a debossed mark tells you more about the identity than a hundred export sizes: how the counters fill, how much ink the edge can hold, whether the letter-spacing survives an embossing die.

Then screen, where the same weight becomes a hinting problem and a 1 px rule becomes a rounding error. Then signage, where a mark is judged at a distance, in weather, on a surface somebody else chose.

No product photography, no licence risk: the surface is procedural.

07TypeOne variable family, driven on purpose. Move the sliders.

A Complete Type System, Chosen for Your Brand

Hierarchy comes from size, weight, optical size and space — not from a folder of licences. No font jank, 0 kB of extra downloads, and nothing to renew.

The scale we ship

--at-fz-ds-1 · 124Reduce
84Hamburgevons
72One mark, one rule
64Est. 2016
48Coffee Co.
34The ultimate fuel
24for your daily grind
20Body copy, 1.5 line-height
16The size a label is set at
14Secondary text, never a paragraph
12Caps only, ever

Hamburgevons 0123456789 @&*

wght 500
opsz 40
−0.035em

Client projects may pair faces — the application sheet above uses Coovettica 300 with Helvetica Bold. On this site we hold the same hierarchy with one variable family, which is the point of rule 05.

Role 01 · display

Ninety sketches

Two optical sizes and one weight do the whole page.

font-variation-settings: "opsz" 40; font-weight: 500; letter-spacing: -.04em;
Role 02 · text

Body, 16 px

Readable at length; no second voice needed.

font-variation-settings: "opsz" 14; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.55;
Role 03 · label

Caption caps

12 px, 600, uppercase, never a paragraph.

font-size: 12px; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: .14em; text-transform: uppercase;
08ColourEvery value below was sampled out of the artwork, not picked from a moodboard.

Your Brand Colour System

We design in your colour. The orange is ours, and it stays on this page. Tap a value to copy it — the ratios printed on each chip are measured against the void and the plate this site actually uses.

  1. Algonquin Titans
  2. Anchored 2
  3. BoSoxCurse
  4. Donkey
  5. Inspire Rocks Logo
  6. LIFT LOGO
  7. La county Fire Dept
  8. Lion
  9. Moto Club
  10. PHUONG DONG 30 anniversary 2
  11. QUINNS & SONS
  12. Sizzlers
  13. Yellow Earth
  14. car wash final
  15. containerland-logo-01
  16. The deckΓÇÖs groundEvery plate in the archive above sits on this pair: 19.54:1 between void and paper, which is why the marks read as ink.
  17. Cover rule, blueThe portfolioΓÇÖs own spine runs #3981BC into #8D32F6. On this page cool colour is structure only — rules, folios, focus rings.
  18. Occupy violetThe split-complement of orange, and it gets exactly one use in any composition. Here that use is the word this sentence is about.
  19. Facile maroonAnalogous to orange at 5 % lightness: the shadow colour of the light chapters, and the only accent cleared to carry small text on paper.
  20. This pageΓÇÖs accentThe theme token, used here and nowhere else. On paper it measures 3.54:1, so it never sets small text on a light ground.
  21. The dormant tokenThe theme declares a purple-to-aqua gradient that no page in the family uses. Body copy over a cool field is set in aqua or paper white — never in the accent.

The binding

Our orange sits at hue 15°. The portfolio deck's structural blue sits at 203–207° — a true complement, so blue may touch orange only as structure: rules, folios, focus rings. The Occupy violet (256°) is a split-complement and gets exactly one use. The Facile maroon (347°) is analogous to orange at 5 % lightness, which makes it the shadow colour of the light chapters, not a second accent. One saturated hue per composition.

The arithmetic

Orange on the void is 5.52:1 and on #0F0F0F 5.10:1 — text is allowed. On the paper plate it is 3.54:1, so on light ground it is large type and graphics only. Maroon on paper is 9.92:1, the one accent cleared to carry small text on light. The cover gradient's own blue is 4.08:1 — UI pass, body fail — which is why body copy over a cool field here is set in paper white (19.54:1), never in the accent.

Rows 1–15: the dominant inks of the 15 delivered marks, measured out of the files. Rows 16–21: the deckΓÇÖs own system and this pageΓÇÖs accents, sampled from its pages and the theme tokens. Every ratio printed here is computed, none is eyeballed.

09One mark, six surfacesThe same file, no second artwork, no mockup studio.

Tested Across Every Real-World Surface

So the delivery is judged on the surfaces it will live on, in one colour, at the sizes that were measured — and on the plate it has no business being on.

Lion mark on a white plate
Paper #FEFEFE
Lion mark on a mid-grey plate
Mid #B7B7B7
Lion mark reversed on black
Void #0F0F0F
Lion mark as a one-bit mono version
1-bit mono
Lion mark at favicon size
16 px favicon
Lion mark on a campaign plate
On a campaign plate
Theodore Zoo raccoon mark screen-printed on a cotton drawstring pouch with its postcard set
In the wild: the Theodore Zoo mark screen-printed in one colour on a cotton pouch, photographed with the postcard run and the fineliner it was drawn with. From the deck itself — not a mockup.
This page documents its own tokens
TokenLightDarkUsed here for
--at-theme-primary#F0460E#F0460EAccents, folio rules on dark chapters, focus, slider thumbs
--at-neutral-0 / -dark-0#FEFEFE#0F0F0FChapter ground, plate surfaces
--at-neutral-50 / -dark-50#F8F8F8#141414Alternating chapters, sticky rules band
--at-neutral-500 / -700#585959#A5A5A5Micro-copy, captions, secondary text
--at-fz-ds-1124pxTop of the type ladder, hero clamp ceiling
#6D2736 (sampled)9.92:1 on paperFolio rule on light chapters — the only accent cleared for small text there

Our Brand Identity Process

11Process, in six chaptersThe cuts get calmer the closer we get to delivery.
Chapter 01 — Discovery

Discovery & Brand Audit

Who you are when nobody is buying, what your competitor wishes they could say, and which of your current assets are load-bearing. Two rounds of questions, then a written brief we both sign.

1–2 weeks1 interview roundWritten brief
Chapter 02 — Positioning

Brand Strategy & Positioning

The claim, the tone and the thing you will never say. Every later argument — type, colour, illustration — is decided against this sentence, which is why it comes second and not last.

1 weekPositioning lineTone of voice
Chapter 03 — Sculpt

Concept Development & Ideation

You are in the room. Every identity we ship is co-authored in a working session, not presented to you finished — we bring the volume, you bring the veto. The direction is chosen, not voted.

2 weeks1 workshop2 revision rounds
Chapter 04 — Systemise

Design Refinement & System Building

Geometry drawn on a grid, type roles with named sizes, colour with measured contrast, a grid for both print and screen. Anything we cannot write as a rule is not a system yet.

2–3 weeksToken tableGrid & scale
Chapter 05 — Prove

16 px. 16 metres. One colour. A real surface.

We put the mark on the favicon, the pouch, the invoice and the wall before we call it done. Anything that only survives on the artboard comes back to the drawing, and we do not charge you for that lap.

1 weekProof sheetPrint test
Chapter 06 — Handover

Delivery, Guidelines & Ongoing Support

The source set, a guideline page that lives on your own domain, a naming convention for every export, and ninety days of questions answered without a change order.

3 daysSource + exports90 days of support
12What we won't doThis is the part that saves both of us a year.

What We Don't Do (And Why That Matters)

No templates or copied logos.

Nothing we ship starts in a marketplace file or a poll. If a shape has been sold forty times, its only remaining talent is familiarity.

No overwhelming option overload.

A wall of choices is a way of avoiding the argument. We bring a small number of directions, each defended, each complete, each with the reasoning printed next to it.

No “brand identity” that is a font swap.

Re-typing your existing mark into a new typeface is a graphic-design task and we will price it as one. It is not an identity, and we will not invoice it as if it were.

No delivery without a complete brand guidelines document.

If a rule cannot be written down it will be broken in production. Every element that ships has its size, spacing, colour and misuse documented in the same folder.

13ProofFour figures we can actually foot. Every one is countable on this site.

Our Brand Identity Results

2017First client identity deliveredOur own deck is titled Selected works: 2017–2021
Marks & case plates published here15 in assets/imgs/stickers/ + 5 from the deck
Practice areas under one roofIllustration, packaging, UI/UX, brand, marketing, web
Client brands live on our siteThe length of assets/imgs/gallery/manifest.json

“The rebrand did not change our coffee. It changed what people assumed about the room.”

Grind Coffee Co. — rebrand, from the deck

“One mark, one colour, six substrates, and nobody on our team has had to ask what the rules are since.”

Theodore Zoo — identity & packaging set
AIEPSSVGPDFPNG 16–4096 pxFavicon setSocial avatarsBrand book, 24–48 ppMotion logo, Lottie & MP4Guideline page, static HTML

Deliberately absent: “50+ marks”, “24 h turnaround”, “100 % original”. When those can be pulled from production tracking they come back — on this page and on the sticker archive.

14Questions

Brand Identity FAQs

Everything else belongs in the first call, which is why there is one below.

All FAQs →
1

Six to ten weeks for the whole arc — discovery and positioning, sculpt, systemise, prove, handover. A single logotype with no system is two to three weeks, and we will say so plainly when that is all you need.

2

Yes — this site is our own build, and the same team ships front-end and back-end. It is the fastest way to make sure the identity survives contact with a browser, and it means the tokens in the brand book are the tokens in the code.

3

Then we audit it first. Some marks only need a rule set around them — a corrected logotype, a type scale, colour with measured contrast, clear space. That is honest work and far cheaper than a rebrand you do not need.

4

You do, on final payment — sources, exports, fonts licensed in your name where the licence allows it, and the working files with layers named. We keep one copy for our archive unless you ask us not to.

5

Ninety days of questions come with the handover, and after that most clients keep us on a light retainer for campaign artwork and new applications. An identity that is never maintained is an identity that quietly drifts.

15End of deck

Ready to Build a Brand That Lasts?

A vague brief, an outdated logo, a brand nobody remembers — any of those is the right place to start. We turn what you have into a complete identity your team is proud to use.