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Plenty of businesses commission a logo, then realise with their first piece of collateral that it isn’t enough. The logo vanishes on a photo, the printed colour looks nothing like the one on screen, every post has its own style. A few months in, the brand no longer looks like anything in particular.
A brand identity is a system: elements and rules that let anyone produce something recognisable. Here’s what it should include before you start communicating, and the order in which to build it.
Start with what the brand has to say
Design translates decisions. Before drawing anything, you need to know who the brand speaks to, what it promises, what sets it apart and the tone it takes. Without those foundations, choosing a logo comes down to “I like it” or “I don’t”, and every opinion from friends and family reopens the debate.
Put these choices on a single page: the audience, the promise, a few adjectives describing the brand’s personality, brands you feel close to and those you want to stand apart from. This short document then lets you judge proposals against shared criteria, not personal taste.
A logo designed for how it will really be used
A good logo is judged in use. It has to stay legible at tiny sizes (profile picture, browser tab icon, app), work in a single colour, on light and dark backgrounds alike, and hold up on a vehicle, a rubber stamp or embroidery if your business calls for it.
Logo design therefore delivers a family of files, not a single image:
- A primary version and a compact or horizontal version
- A standalone symbol for small formats
- Colour, black and white versions
- Vector files for print, web formats for screen
- A clear space and a minimum size
Colours and typefaces: a system, not a palette
A useful palette sets a hierarchy: a primary colour that signs the brand, one or two secondary colours, neutrals for backgrounds and text. Each colour is defined in the references that matter: hex and RGB for screen, CMYK for print, Pantone if you print in spot colours. Check the contrast: light grey on white can be elegant and unreadable.
For typefaces, two families are usually enough, one for headings and one for body text. Check their licence for web, print and apps. Plan a fallback font available in office software, or your Word documents and presentations will never look like the brand.
Graphic elements complete the system: a pattern, an icon style, a way of treating photos. They make the brand recognisable even when the logo isn’t there.
Brand guidelines people actually use
The brand guidelines bring together the rules of use. They don’t need to be thick, but they must answer the questions of whoever produces your materials: which logo on which background, which colour for a button, which typeface for a heading, what style of photo, and what not to do.
The best guidelines are the ones people open. A short version, illustrated with dos and don’ts, is far more useful than an exhaustive document nobody reads. Design them for the people you really work with: a printer, a developer, whoever posts on your social media. Finally, they set the art direction for photos and videos.
Ready-to-use templates
This is the step that makes the difference day to day, and the one most often forgotten. An identity lives through repetitive formats: posts, stories, presentations, quotes, email signatures. Rebuilt by hand every time, each one drifts a little further from the guidelines.
Create templates for what you produce often, in the tools your team really uses: Canva, Figma, PowerPoint or Word. With good templates, a team follows the guidelines without thinking about it, and saves time. When a rule changes, update the templates first: that’s how the fix spreads.
The mistakes that cost you
The most expensive mistake is redoing the identity when the real problem is the offer. An identity won’t fix a vague offer: if your customers don’t understand what you sell, start there. Our article on how to sell your offer sets out the method.
The other mistakes usually surface at the printer or at website launch, when they could have been spotted at sign-off:
- Approving a logo only ever seen large, on a white background
- Choosing a typeface without checking its licence
- Walking away without the source files
- Changing colours with every campaign
- Multiplying logo variants from one format to the next
Creating or evolving a brand identity
An established brand has equity to protect, even if it’s imperfect: customers recognise its colours or its logo. An evolution (a redrawn logo, a tighter palette, modernised typefaces) keeps that recognition. A complete overhaul is justified when the brand changes its audience, its offer or its name, or when the old identity is genuinely holding back sales.
Either way, plan the rollout: website, social media, documents, signage, vehicles, printed materials. A change of brand identity is run like a small project, with a list of everything to update and a switchover date. Tell your customers: a change that’s explained goes down better than one discovered by chance.
- Pin down what the brand has to say before you design.
- Judge a logo on its real uses, at small sizes and in one colour.
- Define colours and typefaces for screen and for print.
- Choose short, illustrated guidelines over an exhaustive document.
- Create templates for the materials you produce most often.
Frequently asked questions
What’s the difference between a logo, a brand identity and brand guidelines?
The logo is the brand’s signature. The brand identity brings together the logo, colours, typefaces, image style and graphic elements. The brand guidelines are the document that explains how to use it all.
Should I create my brand identity before my website?
Ideally yes, because the website applies the identity. If time is short, a solid foundation is enough to launch the site: logo variants, colours, typefaces. The rest of the guidelines can follow.
Can I design my own logo, or use an online tool?
To test a business idea, yes. For a brand that’s meant to last, a generated logo soon hits its limits: no variants, resemblance to other brands, unclear rights. Before using it widely, also check that the name and mark are available with the relevant trademark office (INPI in France, the UKIPO in the UK, the EUIPO for an EU trade mark).
The LaBoîte Studio designs logos, brand guidelines and ready-to-use templates, based on what your brand has to say and the materials you really use.
