Branding & Logo Design, London

Brand identities that hold up at 16 pixels and on a hoarding.

Logos, identity systems and brand guidelines from the same studio that builds your website, so the brand is designed for every place it actually has to work.

Book a Discovery Call → See a full brand project

The working Branding

One we built: HarbourStone.

Each numbered note marks a decision we made on the real site, not a feature list.

Starts with: A written brand discovery questionnaire
You receive: A logo system in every layout and colourway, print and screen files, and brand guidelines
Recent example: HarbourStone: questionnaire to final files in two weeks

Every price, published →

01The four-point North Star from round two. The client tried two other stars, then came back to it.
02The H carries a wave in its crossbar: the harbour is in the letter, not added beside it.
03Laurel and ribbon taken from the shortlisted Crest concept the client asked us to merge in.
04Navy, gold and stone only: Sun Life's secondary palette, never its yellow, so it can sit beside their logo.

The full working: HarbourStone case study →

Range, then rigour

We show real range first, then narrow it with you.

A mark is chosen, not just refined, so the first round has to show genuinely different ideas rather than three variations of one. HarbourStone's first presentation had 19 concepts across five collections, each shown on stationery, signage and screens before anyone was asked to pick.

From there it narrows quickly. The client shortlisted three and asked us to merge them; the final crest combines the strongest part of each, and every revision round arrived as a full presentation rather than a loose file.

Concepts drawn as vectors from the start, never generated by an image model
Every concept shown in use, at favicon size and at full scale
Each revision round answered with a full presentation and our reasoning

HarbourStone: Round one concepts — Our workHarbourStoneRound one concepts

Designed inside the rules

Partner rules, two languages and a submission deadline.

HarbourStone is a Sun Life advisory practice, so its logo has to sit beside Sun Life's under a co-branding specification: only their secondary palette, never their yellow, set lockups, and a file package in their exact folder structure for approval.

We read the specification before drawing anything, then delivered the mark in English, French and a bilingual lockup, each in vertical, horizontal, icon, wordmark and shield-only layouts.

360 logo files across three languages, four colourways and five layouts
AI, EPS, PDF, SVG, PNG and JPEG, in CMYK for print and RGB for screen
Submission packs built to the partner's spec, ready to send for approval

HarbourStone: English, French and bilingual lockups — Our workHarbourStoneEnglish, French and bilingual lockups

Out in the world

A brand is seen on a hoarding long before anyone visits the website.

For Mount St Projects, a London building contractor, we designed the identity as one system across everything a client or neighbour actually sees: site hoarding at two panel heights, a V-board, the van, workwear, stationery, a corporate brochure, neighbourhood leaflets and Instagram, then the website.

Two colours and one typeface, with kerning written into the guidelines so every printer builds it the same way
Large-format artwork sized to real hoarding panels, readable from across the road
The same rules carried onto the website, so the navy on the hoarding and the navy online are clearly one company

Mount St Projects: Hoarding and site signage — Our workMount St ProjectsHoarding and site signage

Product brands

Colour with a job to do, and a mark that survives a home screen.

Software brands live mostly at small sizes and in interfaces. For BuiltUp we redrew the wordmark and app icon so the three-building mark holds up as a 16px favicon, and split the orange in two: a bright one for graphics only, and a deeper one that carries text, so every button and label passes WCAG AA.

Marks tested at favicon, app-icon and social-avatar sizes before sign-off
Colour roles defined by job, with contrast checked rather than assumed
Tokens handed straight to the product team, because we build it too

Our workBuiltUpWordmark, app icon and colour

Written down

Guidelines that let the brand outlive the agency.

A brand that only exists in a designer's head drifts the moment someone else makes a flyer. We write the rules down: clear space and minimum sizes, colour values for print and screen, type roles, what not to do, and how the brand speaks. HarbourStone's guidelines run to 23 pages. Metal Mortgage already had a logo and a voice, but nothing written down, so every new ad was a fresh guess; we wrote an 18-page guidelines document to end that.

Logo usage, clear space, minimum sizes and misuse examples
Colour, typography and imagery rules with real values
Tone of voice and messaging, where the brief includes it

Our workHarbourStone23 pages of brand guidelines

How a brand project runs

From a questionnaire to files you can hand to any printer.

Questionnaire

Your story, audience, competitors and the words you want to be known for, written down before we meet.

Concepts

Genuinely different directions, each shown in use, so you choose a direction and not just a drawing.

Shortlist

You narrow it down; we tell you what each option will cost you in use, at small sizes and in print.

Refinement

Revision rounds, each answered with a full presentation, until the mark is right.

Files

Every layout, colourway and format, named and organised so anyone can find the right one.

Guidelines

The rules written down, so the brand stays consistent after we hand it over.

Branding FAQ

Common questions about branding and logo design.

It depends on how much of the brand is in scope. HarbourStone, a logo with a full file package and guidelines, went from questionnaire to final files in two weeks. A full identity carried across signage, print, vehicles and a website, like Mount St Projects, runs longer because each piece is produced and checked in its real size.

Branding is not on our pricing page yet, because scope varies more than it does for websites: a mark and its files is a very different job from an identity across signage, print and digital. We quote once we have read your questionnaire, and the quote is fixed for the scope it describes.

Enough to show genuinely different directions, each presented in use. HarbourStone's first round had 19 concepts across five collections. We would rather show real range once than drip-feed small variations of a single idea.

Every layout you need (typically vertical, horizontal, icon and wordmark) in full colour, black, white and inverse, as AI, EPS, PDF, SVG, PNG and JPEG, with CMYK files for print and RGB for screen. Files are named and organised so anyone can find the right one without asking.

Yes. HarbourStone's logo had to sit beside Sun Life's under their co-branding specification, using only their secondary palette and delivered in their folder structure for approval. We read the rules first and design inside them.

No. Marks are drawn and constructed as vectors. We sometimes use image models to create the scenes a logo is shown in, such as a sign or a business card, but the logo itself is always our own drawing placed into the scene.

Often that is the better option. BuiltUp's wordmark and app icon were redrawn rather than replaced, keeping the recognition the brand had already earned while fixing how it performed at small sizes and in its colours.

Yes, and that is the main reason to do the brand with us. The same team designs the brand and builds the website, so colour, type and contrast are tested on real screens before the guidelines are signed off.