Brand & Identity Design

This page is the whole picture: what we do, what it costs in the US, how long it takes, what we need from you, and every article we have written on the subject. If you already know what you want, ask for a quote or try us on a couple of files first — both are free and neither involves a sales call.

What Brand & Identity Design covers here

Fourteen disciplines sounds like a lot until you notice how often one job needs three of them. Within Brand & Identity Design specifically, this is the work:

Brand Positioning: The decision about who a business is for, what it offers them, and why that is different from the alternatives.
Logo Design: The primary identifying mark of a brand, and the family of variants it needs to work everywhere it will appear.
Brand Guidelines: The document that tells everyone — internal teams, agencies, printers, partners — how the identity is used.
Color Systems for Brands: Choosing a palette and specifying it so the colors are reproducible across screen, print and product.
Typography for Brands: Selecting and licensing the typefaces a brand uses, and defining how they are set.
Naming and Verbal Identity: The name of a business or product, and the language conventions that go with it.
Rebranding: Changing a brand's identity, name or position, and rolling that change through everything it touches.
Brand Applications and Collateral: The everyday materials a brand appears on: documents, presentations, signage, packaging, vehicles, email.
Brand Voice and Tone: How a brand sounds in writing, and how that shifts depending on the situation.
Brand Photography and Art Direction: The rules governing what imagery a brand uses and how it is made.
Iconography Systems: A coherent set of icons drawn to shared rules of weight, grid, corner treatment and metaphor.
Brand Architecture: How a portfolio of products, services and sub-brands relates to the parent brand and to each other.

That is twelve of 133. The full index is further down this page.

What it costs in the US

Let's do the part everyone scrolls for. The ranges below are US market ranges, not our quote for your job — we haven't seen your files. They're here so you can tell a reasonable number from an unreasonable one.

Typical US market ranges for Brand & Identity Design
Type of work	Typical range	What that buys
Logo and essentials	$2,500 – $12,000	Mark, color, type, basic guidelines, and the files to use them.
Full identity system	$12,000 – $60,000	Positioning, identity, comprehensive guidelines, templates and rollout support.
Brand strategy and architecture	$60,000+	Research, positioning, naming, architecture across multiple brands, and the system to hold it all.

Those are wide ranges, and they're wide for a reason. Here's what moves a job from one end to the other.

What actually drives the price

Number of sub-brands: One brand is a project. A house of six related brands is an architecture problem first and a design problem second.
Breadth of application: Digital only is one thing. Packaging, vehicles, signage, uniforms and environment is another.
Naming and trademark: Naming is its own discipline with its own timeline, and legal screening is a real cost with a real chance of sending you back a step.
Research depth: A competitive review is days. Proper qualitative research with customers is weeks.
Rounds of exploration: More directions cost more. Three good ones usually beat six rushed ones.
Rollout support: Templates, training and asset management are where a lot of identities quietly succeed or fail.

How the money is usually structured

Separately from how much, there's the question of how. Five models cover almost everything in this industry, and the right one depends on how well the job can be described before it starts.

Per unit: A fixed price per image, per minute, per page, per asset. Best when the work is genuinely repeatable and you can describe one unit precisely. It is the easiest model to budget and the easiest to argue about, because everything hinges on whether your idea of one unit matches ours. Settle that on a sample before you settle it on an invoice.
Hourly or day rate: You buy time, and the output is whatever that time produces. Honest when nobody can scope the job yet — a rescue, an unknown archive, an exploratory phase. Ask for a not-to-exceed number anyway. An open hourly arrangement with no ceiling is a budget with no floor.
Fixed project fee: One number for a defined scope, usually with a stated number of revision rounds. The model most clients prefer and the one that punishes a vague brief hardest. The fee is only fixed if the scope is, so expect the scope document to be more specific than feels comfortable. That specificity is what protects you.
Monthly retainer: A set amount of capacity reserved for you every month. Worth it once the work is continuous rather than occasional — a catalog that refreshes, a channel that publishes weekly, a site that keeps changing. Below roughly ten to fifteen hours a month it usually costs more than buying the work as it comes.
Value or outcome based: Pricing tied to a business result rather than to effort. Rare, and rarely as clean as it sounds. It works where the outcome is unambiguous and attributable, and falls apart where it is neither. Treat an outcome-based proposal with the same scrutiny you would give any other claim about attribution.

If you want a real number rather than a range, the fastest route is to send us the actual brief — scope, volume, deadline, and a couple of sample files if you have them. That's usually enough for a fixed price rather than an estimate.

How long it takes

Here's roughly how long each phase runs. The totals are less useful than the shape, because the phases overlap and one of them is almost always the bottleneck.

Typical phase durations
Phase	Usual duration
Listening and positioning	2–4 weeks
Naming, if in scope	4–8 weeks including screening
Exploration	2–3 weeks
Refinement and system	3–5 weeks
Guidelines and rollout	2–4 weeks

One thing worth saying plainly: the most common cause of a late project isn't production. It's waiting — for content, for a decision, for one person to look at something. If you want a project to move quickly, the highest-leverage thing you can do is name one person who can say yes and make sure they're available. That single change is worth more than any amount of chasing.

Rush work is possible and it's genuinely more expensive, because it means real people working real overtime or a job jumping a queue somebody else is in. We'll always tell you what a rush actually costs before you commit to it.

How the work actually runs

A brand & identity design job runs in stages, and the stages aren't interchangeable. Here they are in the order they have to happen.

The stages of a typical brand & identity design project. Brand & Identity Design work sits inside this sequence rather than alongside it.

1. Listen

Interviews with the people who run it, the people who sell it and the people who buy it. Most companies already know what makes them different; they have just never had to say it in one sentence.

2. Position

What you are, who for, and why you rather than the alternative. Written down and agreed before anything is drawn.

3. Name, if it is in scope

Generation, screening and a preliminary trademark look. Names die at screening more often than at presentation, so screen early.

4. Explore

Several genuinely different directions, presented in black and white first. Color hides weak form, and a mark that works in monochrome works everywhere.

5. Refine

One direction developed properly — every lockup, every size, every awkward application you actually have.

6. Build the system

Color with accessible pairings, type with licensed families, spacing, imagery, iconography, tone of voice.

7. Document

Correct and incorrect usage side by side, in a document somebody outside the project can follow without calling you.

8. Roll out

Templates, files and enough hand-holding that the first six applications set the standard for the next six hundred.

Where does Brand & Identity Design fit? Usually somewhere in the middle of that sequence, and it inherits every decision made before it. That's the argument for settling scope early: a change at stage two is a conversation, and the same change at stage seven is a rebuild.

What to send us

This is the part you control, and it matters more than most people expect. A good brief is worth a week.

What belongs in the brief

Who it is for: The audience, in one sentence, in your own words. Not a persona document — a sentence.
What it has to do: The action you want someone to take, or the decision you want them to be able to make.
Where it will live: Every placement, at every size. This is the single most common omission, and it is the one that causes reshoots and recrops.
What already exists: Brand guidelines, prior work, the files nobody likes. Especially the files nobody likes, and why.
What is fixed: Colors, typefaces, legal copy, platform requirements, anything that is not up for discussion.
What good looks like: Two or three references, plus one example of something you actively dislike. The dislike is more useful than the likes.
The real deadline: The date something has to be live, not the date you would like to see a draft. Say which one you are giving.
Who signs off: One name. A brief with four approvers and no decider is a brief that will cost you two extra revision rounds.

Two of those deserve emphasis, because they're the ones that cost money when they're missing. Where it will live — every placement, at every size — is the omission that causes reshoots and recrops. And who signs off is the one that quietly adds revision rounds: a project with four approvers and no decider will always cost more than one with a single name on it.

Specific to Brand & Identity Design

On top of the general brief, this particular job benefits from you having settled the following before anyone starts:

The mark works in one color, at favicon size, and reversed out of a dark background
Every brand color pairing checked for contrast before anyone falls in love with it
Typefaces licensed for every use you actually have — desktop, web, app and broadcast are usually separate
Guidelines show what wrong looks like, not only what right looks like

If you've got files ready now, you can send them straight over — they go to private storage rather than to an inbox, and nothing is public. If you'd rather see the standard before committing to anything, try us on a couple of files first. No card, no commitment, and if it's not what you need you've lost nothing but an afternoon.

How to check what comes back

Most revision rounds exist because of how the previous round was reviewed, not because of how the work was done. Here's how to make a review count.

Check it where it will live: Approve a web asset in a browser, a print asset on paper, an audio mix on a phone speaker. Approving a deliverable in the tool that made it is how problems reach the public.
Check the edges, not the middle: The middle is almost always fine. Look at the corners, the smallest size, the longest string, the darkest area, the last ten seconds.
Check one thing at a time: Color, then type, then spacing, then content. A review that tries to see everything at once sees the loudest thing and misses the rest.
Collect feedback before you send it: One consolidated list beats six emails. Contradictions inside your own organization are cheaper to resolve on your side than on ours.
Be specific about what is wrong: "Make it pop" costs a revision round. "The headline is hard to read against the sky, can we darken the area behind it" costs ten minutes.
Say what is right too: Not out of politeness. If you only flag problems, the next round can lose the thing you liked without anyone knowing it mattered.

The bar we hold ourselves to

So you know what you're measuring against, here's what gets checked on our side before anything reaches you. None of it is optional, and none of it is charged as an extra.

The mark works in one color, at favicon size, and reversed out of a dark background
Every brand color pairing checked for contrast before anyone falls in love with it
Typefaces licensed for every use you actually have — desktop, web, app and broadcast are usually separate
Guidelines show what wrong looks like, not only what right looks like
Source files delivered in formats your other suppliers can open
A preliminary trademark search done before the presentation rather than after the approval

Red flags specific to Brand & Identity Design

If you see any of these in what comes back, say so. They're all fixable, and they're all cheaper to fix now than after it's published.

A name that died at screening
An identity that drifted in a year
A brand color that failed contrast

You can see how we present finished work — including the before and after — in the portfolio. Anything marked as a sample is our own demonstration piece rather than a client project, and it says so on the item.

In house, freelance, studio, or a model?

This is the decision underneath "how much does it cost", and it deserves a straight answer rather than a pitch. There are four ways to get brand & identity design work done, and we're only the right choice for some of them.

A comparison of handling this work in house against using an outside studio — The honest trade-off. Neither column is the right answer on its own — it depends on how spiky your demand is.

Keep it in house

Someone on your payroll does it.

What's good about it: Fastest feedback loop there is, deepest product knowledge, no briefing overhead for small changes.

What's not: You are buying a person, not a job: their vacation, their sick days, their ceiling, and the software. It stops making sense the moment demand is spiky, because you pay for the peak all year.

Hire a freelancer

One specialist, engaged directly.

What's good about it: Cheapest way to buy real expertise, and you get the actual person who does the work.

What's not: One person is one point of failure. No cover, limited throughput, and if they move on mid-project you inherit their files and their conventions.

Use a studio

A team with a process, a review layer and cover.

What's good about it: Handles volume and variety, carries the QC step, and does not disappear when one person is sick.

What's not: More expensive per hour than a freelancer, and you are one client among several. Worth it when consistency across a lot of output matters more than the lowest rate.

Use a model

Generative or automated tooling, with or without a person checking.

What's good about it: Genuinely fast and genuinely cheap on the parts it is good at, and it does not get tired on page four hundred.

What's not: It is confidently wrong in ways that are hard to spot at a glance, and the parts it fails at are the ones a client notices: hands, text, counts, edges, continuity. Nothing should ship without a person having looked at it, which is why our AI work is priced with the review included rather than as a discount.

The short version: if the work is constant and central to what you do, hire. If it's spiky, or it needs a range of skills you can't justify employing, use a studio. If it's one specialist thing and you've found the right specialist, use them. We'd rather tell you that up front than take on a job we're the wrong shape for.

Working with a studio you'll never meet

Most brand & identity design work now happens between people in different places and often different time zones. That's fine — it's been fine for years — but it rewards a few habits and punishes a few others.

Overlap, not coverage: What matters is not whether a supplier is awake at 2pm Eastern, but whether there is a predictable window when you can both talk. Ask for the window and put it in the calendar.
Batch your feedback: Across a time difference, three rounds of one comment cost three days. One round of twelve comments costs one. This is the single biggest lever you have on turnaround.
Send files once, properly: A clean handoff with originals, a written brief and named files saves more time than any amount of chasing. Half of all "slow" projects were slow at the start.
Agree what "urgent" means: Everyone says urgent. Agree in advance what a rush actually triggers — a different queue, a different price, a different set of hands — so the word keeps its meaning.
Keep one thread: A decision made in a direct message is a decision nobody else on either side can find. One channel, one thread per job.

Our hours overlap the US business day, and we'd rather agree a standing window with you than promise round-the-clock availability nobody can actually sustain. If you want to talk it through before committing to anything, get in touch — there's no pitch deck and nobody will chase you.

The US rules worth knowing

This isn't legal advice and we're not lawyers. It's a list of the American rules that come up often enough in this kind of work that not knowing about them gets expensive. If any of it applies to you, it's worth twenty minutes with someone who is a lawyer.

USPTO and federal registration

US trademarks are registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in one or more classes under the Nice Classification. Protection is class-specific and use-based, and common-law rights can exist without registration — which is why a clear USPTO search is necessary but not sufficient.

TM and the ® symbol

The ® symbol may only be used with a federally registered mark. Using it before registration is improper. TM can be used to assert a claim without registration, and SM is its equivalent for services.

The Lanham Act

Federal trademark law turns on likelihood of confusion, not identical names. A mark that merely looks similar in a related class can be a problem, which is why screening happens before the presentation, not after the launch.

And the general commercial stuff

Whatever the discipline, buying professional services in the United States raises the same handful of questions. These are the ones clients ask us most.

Contracts and statements of work: A statement of work that names the deliverables, the number of revision rounds, the ownership terms and the payment schedule is worth the hour it takes to read. Most disputes in this industry are not about quality; they are about two people having understood "done" differently.
Ownership and work made for hire: Under US copyright law, work created by an independent contractor generally belongs to the contractor unless there is a written assignment or it falls into one of the narrow statutory work-made-for-hire categories. That surprises a lot of buyers. Get the assignment in writing; any studio that hesitates is telling you something useful.
Paying an outside supplier: A US business paying a US contractor normally collects a Form W-9 and may need to file a 1099-NEC; paying a non-US supplier usually means a W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E instead. Your accountant will want these before the first invoice, not after the last one.
Sales tax on services: Whether a creative or digital service is taxable varies by state, and several states tax some digital deliverables and not others. It is worth one question to your accountant before a large engagement rather than one letter from a state revenue department after it.
Advertising claims: The Federal Trade Commission holds advertisers responsible for claims made in their marketing, including claims made in images. A retouched product photo that no longer represents the product is an advertising problem before it is a design one, and the liability sits with the advertiser rather than the retoucher.
Accessibility: Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act has been read by US courts to cover websites in many circumstances, and federal agencies and their contractors are bound by Section 508, which points at WCAG. Accessibility is cheaper designed in than litigated out.

Our own terms are published rather than sent on request: you can read the terms and conditions, the payment terms, the refund policy and the confidentiality and NDA position before you talk to anybody. If something in them doesn't work for you, say so early — most of it is negotiable and all of it is better settled before the work than after it.

Questions to ask anyone quoting for this

Including us. If a supplier gets cagey about any of these, that's the answer to the question you were actually asking.

Who is actually doing the work?: Ask whether it stays with the person you are talking to, moves to a team, or gets subcontracted. None of those is wrong. Not knowing is.
What exactly is a revision?: Ask what counts as a revision versus a new brief, and how many are included. This is the single most common source of a bill you did not expect.
Who owns the output?: Get it in writing, including the working files. "You own the final" and "you own everything" are very different positions, and the second one costs more for a reason.
What happens if it is wrong?: Ask what a redo costs and how fast it happens. A studio with a clear answer has had the conversation before.
Can I see work like mine?: Not a showreel — work in your category, at your volume, with the constraints you have. A beautiful portfolio in another category proves taste, not fit.
How do you handle my files?: Where they are stored, who can reach them, how long they are kept, and what happens at the end. If you are sending anything unreleased, get this in the contract.
What do you need from me?: A supplier who cannot answer this has not thought about your side of the job, and you will discover that at the deadline.

One more, and it's the one people are most embarrassed to ask: what would make you turn this job down? A studio that has never turned work away is a studio that takes everything, and that tells you something about how carefully it's going to be handled.

The words people will use at you

Every field has vocabulary that gets deployed as a shortcut and lands as a barrier. Here's what the common terms in brand & identity design actually mean, in plain English. You shouldn't need this to buy the work, but it makes the conversation shorter.

Positioning: The sentence that says what you are, who for, and why you rather than the alternative. Everything else is downstream of it.
Brand architecture: How a group of related brands relate — one master brand, a house of independent brands, or something in between.
Lockup: A fixed arrangement of logo elements — mark, wordmark, tagline — that must not be rearranged.
Wordmark: The company name set as a designed piece of type. Often more useful than a symbol, and always more legible.
Clear space: The minimum breathing room around a logo. The most-broken rule in every set of guidelines ever written.
Brand guidelines: The document that makes the identity reproducible by people who were not in the room.
Tone of voice: How the brand sounds in words. Half of most identities, and the half that usually goes undocumented.
Pantone and spot color: Specific inks mixed to a formula, used where a brand color has to match exactly across processes.
Trademark classes: The categories a mark is registered in. Protection is class-specific, which is why two businesses can share a name legitimately.
Rebrand vs refresh: A rebrand changes what you stand for. A refresh changes how it looks. Confusing the two is how companies spend rebrand money on a new logo.

There's a fuller reference library if you want to go deeper on any of these, and everything in it is written the same way — plainly, with sources.

Three situations you might recognize

Abstract advice is easy to agree with and hard to use. These are the shapes this kind of problem actually arrives in, and what we'd do about each one.

A name that died at screening

The favorite name from a shortlist of five had a near-identical federal registration in the same class. Found in week three instead of week twelve, it cost one round of generation rather than a launch.

An identity that drifted in a year

No guidelines, no templates, no owner. Four people were recreating the logo in four tools. A one-page usage sheet and a shared asset folder fixed more than a redesign would have.

A brand color that failed contrast

The primary brand color as body text was 2.8:1 against white. Rather than change the brand, we defined a darker tint for text and kept the original for large display use — documented, so nobody has to rediscover it.

None of those needed heroics. They needed somebody to look at the right thing early, which is most of what experience buys you in this field.

Everything we have written about Brand & Identity Design

One article per subject, each with the figures, what good looks like, what to avoid and where it all comes from.

Work with us on Brand & Identity Design

Tell us what you are working on and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right studio for it — including when we are not. There is no pitch deck and nobody will chase you.

Try it free — we will do a free written review of your current identity, no card and no commitment. It is a better test than any portfolio because it is your material.
See the prices — published rates and the US market ranges, so you can sanity-check any quote including ours.
Ask for a fixed price — send the brief and a sample and you get a number rather than a range.
Look at the work in this discipline specifically.
Ask a question. That is allowed too.