02 Design
Brand Strategy & Identity
Positioning, naming, identity and the system that keeps it consistent everywhere.
The business problem
A business grows past the brand it started with. The logo no longer matches the ambition, the messaging changes depending on who is in the room, and every new asset is designed from scratch. Prospects cannot tell what makes the company different, so they compare on price.
Brand work that stops at a logo file leaves the hardest part undone. The point of an identity system is that the fiftieth asset is as good as the first, and that someone who is not a designer can produce it.
The GDS approach
Make it clear, make it yours, make it work.
We start with positioning, not colours: who the customer is, what they are choosing between, and the one thing that has to be true for them to choose you. The identity is then designed to carry that message across every surface it will actually live on — a website, an invoice, a booth, a phone screen — and handed over as a system your team can use without asking us.
Capabilities
What this covers
- Positioning and messaging strategy
- Competitive and category audit
- Naming and verbal identity
- Logo, mark and identity design
- Colour, typography and layout systems
- Brand guidelines and asset libraries
Typical deliverables
What you end up holding
- Positioning statement and messaging framework
- Primary and secondary logo assets in all required formats
- Colour, typography and grid specification
- Application examples across digital and print
- Brand guidelines document
- Editable source files and an organised asset library
Process
How the work runs
- Discover Interviews, audit and competitive landscape
- Define Positioning, message hierarchy and creative territory
- Design Identity routes, refinement and application
- Systemise Guidelines, asset library and handover
- Support Rollout assistance as the brand goes live
— Related work
— Next action
Need brand strategy & identity?
Tell us what is happening now and what you need to be true in six months. We will come back with a route, a rough shape and an honest view of the cost.
- Based in
- Minnesota, USA
- Typical reply
- Within one business day