Branding agency in Newcastle, NSW: one look across everything with your name on it.

A brand identity is the set of decisions that make everything your business puts out look like it came from the same place. The name, the logo, the colours, the type, the photographs and the way you write.

People use brand to mean the logo. The logo is one line item. A brand identity is the whole set of choices underneath it, and the reason the choices are written down is so that everybody who touches your business makes the same ones.

What is actually in one

• The name and how it is written. Including whether it is one word or two, and how it is shortened when there is no room.
• The logo, in its working versions. Full, compact, one colour, and something small and square for a profile picture.
• Colours and type. Two or three colours with exact codes, and one or two typefaces used everywhere.
• Photographs. What your pictures look like, so a stock image never sits beside a real one and gives the game away.
• The way you write. Short and plain, or formal, and what you never say.

Written down, that fits on a few pages. Not written down, every quote, post and sign is somebody guessing.

In a market this size most of your customers see you several times before they call. A consistent look is what makes those separate glances add up to one business rather than several.

Newcastle is small enough that people see the same businesses again and again. The van on the way to work. A post in a local group. A sign at the junior footy. A quote from a friend of a friend.

If all four look like the same business, that is four impressions. If they look like four different ones, it is four strangers.

Why owners do it

• Recognition is free advertising. You are already being seen around Newcastle. A consistent look means it counts.
• It settles arguments. Once the decisions are written down, nobody has to relitigate the colour of a Facebook post.
• It changes the company you keep. A considered look puts you beside the businesses you would want to be compared with.

A short document with the decisions written down, the logo in every working format, the colour codes, the typefaces, and the templates you use weekly. If it is only a logo file, the job is half done.

Ask for this list by name and get it in writing before anybody starts.

The handover list

• A brand kit, which is the set of rules everything follows. A few pages: the logo versions, the colours, the type, and how they are used. Short enough that somebody actually reads it.
• The logo in every format. A vector version, which means it can be printed at any size without going fuzzy, plus flat versions for the web and one that works in a single colour.
• The exact colour codes. The codes for screen and the codes for print. They are not the same, and a printer will ask.
• Editable templates. Quote, invoice, and the social posts you make most weeks.
• Font licences. Which typefaces you are allowed to use commercially, and who holds the licence.

Register the business name properly while you are at it. business.gov.au is where that happens, and the name you register is the one that should appear on everything printed.

A new logo fixes how you look. A rebrand fixes what people think you are. Most businesses asking the question want the first one and can leave the name alone.

These are different jobs and they cost very different amounts.

The jobs, from smallest to largest

• A tidy up. Same name, same logo, but the colours, the type and the templates get fixed so everything matches. Weeks, and it solves most complaints.
• A new identity. Same name, new logo and a full set built around it. Right when the business has changed but the name still fits.
• A rebrand. New name as well. Only worth it when the name is wrong, taken, or hard to say. It costs you the recognition you have already built.

Before committing to a name, search it and check IP Australia for a registered trade mark in your industry. Finding out afterwards is how a signage bill gets paid twice.

One warning about rebrands. Everywhere your business is listed online has your old name in it. Changing the name means changing all of them, or Google spends months unsure which business you are.

Decide what is actually wrong, gather examples of what good looks like, agree the handover list, approve one direction, then roll it out onto the things customers see most before the things they rarely see.

1. Write down what is actually wrong

Not likes and dislikes. What is the business losing? Being mistaken for a competitor, looking smaller than you are, or nothing matching, are all real problems with different fixes.

2. Collect examples, not adjectives

Five businesses whose look you would happily have, and two you would not. Any industry. This is worth more than an hour of describing a feeling.

3. Agree the handover list before work starts

The list from the chapter above, in writing, including who owns the files.

4. Approve one direction, then stop looking

Pick the direction, then give notes inside it. Reopening the choice at round three is what turns a six week job into a six month one.

5. Roll it out in order of what customers see

Google listing photos, website header, quote template, email signature, vehicles, signage. The last two cost real money, so they go last.

6. Put the files somewhere everyone can reach

One folder, current versions only. The usual way a good identity decays is three people using three old logos.

A tidy up is a short job and a full identity is a longer one. A name change is longer again, and most of that extra part is updating every place the business is listed rather than anything being designed.

The order it happens in

• The problem gets written down. References gathered, the handover list agreed. Nothing is drawn yet, and this part decides the length of the whole job.
• The identity is drawn. Directions first, then one round of notes, then the logo and the brand kit finished.
• It gets applied. Templates, website, listing photos and signage artwork, in the order a customer meets them.

A name change carries its own tail: every directory, listing and profile that still has the old one on it.

Ask what is on the handover list, who owns the files, how many directions you will see, and who updates your listings if the name changes. The answers separate a finished job from a folder of pictures.

We do this work in Newcastle, so we are not neutral. These are the questions we would want asked of us.

• What is on the handover list? The brand kit, the logo formats, the colour codes, the typefaces and the templates. Get it in writing before you pay.
• Who owns the files afterwards? Ours go to the business, so they can be handed to another designer without anybody asking permission.
• How many directions will I see? A number. Two or three is normal. Ten means nobody read the brief.
• Who updates my listings if the name changes? It is hours of work and it sits with somebody. On our jobs it sits with us.
• Will the templates be editable by me? Changing a price is a weekly job, so the templates we hand over open in something you already have.

Plenty of Newcastle businesses run a perfectly good look they built themselves. The part worth paying for is the decisions being made once and written down.