● Now booking Q3 brand sprints · 6–10 weeks, fixed-fee, bilingual EN/FR-CA
● Brand strategy · identity design · guidelines
Brand identity design that earns enterprise trust — and ships in ten weeks
We build brand identity systems for B2B and SMB clients who need to look like the company they’re becoming. Strategy, naming, logo design, typography, color, voice and a written guideline document — delivered fixed-fee, bilingual EN/FR, with the source files and IP in your hands at handover.
Identity specimen · sample
live system
Meridian
WordmarkInstrument Serif · italicSystem typeGeist · 300 / 500Color coreVoiceDirect · bilingualGuideline doc78 pages · PDF + NotionSource filesFigma · transferred
62 brand identities shipped · 2012–2026
MeridianHalen & OrdAtlas CargoQuartierNorthkeyCabane
EN · FR · AR
What’s in a brand identity
Nine deliverables. One system your team can actually run.
A brand identity is not a logo — it’s a system of decisions that every future page, deck, contract and ad inherits. We design the system, write down the rules, and train the people who’ll use it after we leave.
D.01 · Strategy
Brand strategy & positioning
A written positioning document: who you’re for, what you replace, what you’ll never be. Anchors every design decision that follows.
PositioningAudience mapManifesto
- Competitive audit
- Customer interviews · 6–10
- One-page strategy
D.02 · Naming
Naming & verbal identity
Product, company, or sub-brand naming with trademark and domain pre-screening. Tagline, elevator pitch, and message hierarchy.
Name routesTaglineTM clear
- 30+ name routes
- USPTO / CIPO check
- Domain availability
D.03 · Logo
Logo system & marks
Primary wordmark, monogram, favicon, social avatar — and the construction grid that lets the team scale every variant correctly.
AaaaA.A
- 3 logo concepts
- Construction grid
- Clearspace + minimums
D.04 · Type
Typography system
Paired typefaces with full licensing, a type scale, headline/body pairings, and bilingual-safe sizing for French extension.
AaAaAA
- 2–3 typeface pairing
- Licensing handled
- EN / FR-CA scale
D.05 · Color
Color system & tokens
Primary, secondary and signal palettes with WCAG-AA contrast checks. Tokens delivered as CSS, Figma variables and a JSON file.
- 10–14 color tokens
- WCAG-AA verified
- CSS · Figma · JSON
D.06 · Voice
Voice & tone
Written voice principles, do/don’t examples, and a vocabulary list. Calibrated separately for EN and FR-CA — French is not a translation.
Voice axesGlossaryEN + FR
- 4 voice principles
- 30+ example sentences
- Bilingual calibration
D.07 · Iconography
Iconography & imagery
Icon construction rules, a 24-icon starter set, photography art-direction, and illustration policy where applicable.
1.5px stroke24 / 32 / 48Photo brief
- 24-icon set
- Construction rules
- Photo direction doc
D.08 · Motion
Motion principles
Easing curves, duration scale, and three signature motion patterns — the moments where your brand should feel like itself.
EasingDurations3 patterns
- Motion tokens
- Lottie source files
- Reduced-motion fallback
D.09 · Guidelines
Brand guideline document
A 60–90 page guideline document in PDF and Notion. The rules — and just as importantly, the worked examples — your team will reference daily.
PDFNotionFigma library
- 60–90 pages
- Worked examples
- Editable Notion copy
Brand strategy first
A logo is a consequence. Strategy is the cause.
We refuse to start with visual exploration. Every brand identity engagement begins with three weeks of strategic work — because the brands that ship and stick are the ones whose visual decisions are defended by a written argument, not a designer’s taste.
Positioning workshop · week 2
01
Position
Who you’re for, who you’re not
A one-sentence positioning statement, validated against three competitor frames, that survives a board challenge.
- Competitive audit
- 3 position routes
- Customer language map
02
Promise
The thing only you can say
A written promise the company can deliver on every Monday — not a slogan. The brief that the rest of the system answers to.
- Brand promise
- Proof points
- Anti-promise list
03
Personality
How you sound at scale
Four voice axes with worked examples in EN and FR-CA, plus a glossary of words you use and a list of words you don’t.
- 4 voice axes
- EN / FR examples
- Words-we-use list
The brand identity process
Five phases. Signed off before the next begins.
Each phase is fixed-fee with a named deliverable and an exit criterion. We stop if a phase isn’t working — we don’t bill through doubt, and we don’t ask you to approve a logo before the strategy is signed.
01
Week 1–2
Discover
Stakeholder workshops, customer interviews, competitive audit, and a written brand-equity scorecard.
- Workshop · 2 days
- Interviews · 6–10
- Equity scorecard
02
Week 3
Position
Strategy document, voice axes, naming routes if needed, and the brief that the rest of the project answers to.
- Strategy doc
- Voice axes
- Creative brief
03
Week 4–6
Design
Three identity routes explored in parallel — logo, type, color, motion. Narrow to one. Refine in context.
- 3 identity routes
- Real-context tests
- Round of refinement
04
Week 7–9
System
Build out the full system — iconography, templates, guidelines document, Figma library, and the tokens file.
- Figma library
- Token file · CSS + JSON
- Guideline doc
05
Week 10
Launch
Internal rollout, team training, and the launch toolkit — investor deck cover, social pack, email signature, hiring page.
- Team training · half-day
- Launch toolkit
- Source-file handover
Engagement models
Three ways to invest in your brand identity. Fixed-fee, not T&M.
Every brand identity engagement is scoped, priced, and signed off in writing before any design begins. No surprise invoices, no design-by-hour.
Refresh
Brand refresh
For brands with equity worth keeping. We re-tune what’s tired — logo treatment, type, color, templates — without throwing away the recognition you’ve built.
- Brand-equity audit · 1 week
- Logo refinement · not rebuild
- Type & color re-tune
- Updated guidelines · 40 pages
- Two presentation rounds
Full identity · most common
Full brand identity
Strategy through guidelines, end-to-end. The right fit for SMBs growing into enterprise sales or post-funding companies preparing to scale.
- Strategy & positioning
- Logo system & type pairing
- Color, motion, iconography
- Voice & tone · EN + FR
- Guidelines · 60–90 pages · Notion
- Figma library handover
Enterprise
Enterprise rebrand
Multi-product, multi-region rebrand with research and stakeholder alignment built in. Includes parallel sub-brand work and migration plan.
- Quantitative research
- Parent + 3 sub-brands
- Multi-language system
- 12-month migration plan
- Internal launch program
- 12 months · advisory included
Sectors we know
Six categories. We’re picky about fit.
We don’t take consumer-app, crypto, or political work. We design for businesses where trust is the conversion metric — and where the brand needs to read as competent before it reads as clever.
Client · Meridian Bank
Route review · week 5
SK
Sara Karam · VP Marketing, Meridian Bank · Toronto
Brand-identity outcomes
Measured in pipeline, not awards.
We close every brand engagement with a written measurement against the goals we set in week one. Numbers below are medians across 62 production deliveries since 2012.
Brand identities shipped
Median time to launch
Avg. uplift in inbound MQLs
Median time before refresh
Selected brand identity work
Three recent launches.
Full case studies — including strategy artifacts, board materials and post-launch metrics — are available on request after a discovery call.
M
Mid-cap commercial bank rebrand. Strategy through guidelines in 11 weeks, plus an ISO 27001-aligned digital launch.
H
A 60-year-old law firm reinvented for a third generation of partners. Bilingual identity and a typographic system that scales.
A
Cross-border freight start-up. Naming, identity, and a Spanish-first website system delivered in nine weeks.
Brand identity FAQ
Before you book.
If your question isn’t here, ask it on the discovery call. We answer honestly even when the answer is “you don’t need us yet.”
How much does a brand identity cost?
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Most of our brand identity engagements land between CAD $18k and $120k depending on scope. A refresh of an existing brand starts at $18k. A full brand identity — strategy, naming, logo, visual system and guidelines — runs $42k–$80k. Enterprise rebrands with multi-product systems are $120k and up. All engagements are fixed-fee, not hourly.
How long does a brand identity project take?
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A typical brand identity sprint runs 6 to 10 weeks from kickoff to final delivery. Refresh projects close in 4–6 weeks. Enterprise rebrands with research and stakeholder rounds run 12–16 weeks. Each phase has a fixed end date that we sign off on before moving forward.
What’s included in a brand identity package?
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Every brand identity delivery includes positioning and messaging, primary and secondary logos, a full typographic system, a color system with accessibility tokens, iconography rules, photography direction, motion principles, and a written brand guideline document. Optional add-ons cover naming, voice and tone, and launch assets.
Do you handle brand strategy or only visual design?
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Both — brand strategy is the first phase of every engagement. We do positioning workshops, competitive audits, customer interviews and a written strategy document before any visual exploration begins. Skipping strategy is the number-one reason rebrands fail to ship.
Can you handle bilingual EN/FR brand identity?
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Yes — bilingual EN/FR-CA is our default. We design wordmarks and taglines that work in both languages, write voice guidelines for each, and ship localized templates. Arabic support is available through our Rabat studio.
Do you offer rebranding for existing companies?
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About 60% of our brand identity work is rebranding rather than greenfield. We start with a brand-equity audit so we keep what’s working — name recognition, color memory, audience cues — and replace only what’s holding the company back. Most of our rebrands ship without disrupting search or sales.
Will I own the rights to my brand identity?
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Yes. Full transfer of intellectual property is included in every contract on final payment — logos, typography licenses where transferable, guidelines and source files. We don’t hold back working files or charge for handover.
How do you handle revisions and feedback?
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Each phase includes two structured presentation rounds with written feedback templates. We don’t do unlimited rounds — that’s the path to a designed-by-committee identity. If a route isn’t working, we’ll restart the phase rather than tweak our way to something nobody loves.
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● Let’s talk brand identity
A 45-minute conversation. No moodboards.
Tell us what you’re trying to do — launch, refresh, rebrand, name a new product — and we’ll tell you honestly whether a brand identity sprint is the right fit, and what the next quarter should look like.
