Shape My Visuals
Our own brand, built as a 39-page system rather than a folder of logos, and the site you are reading it on.
The brief
We had been telling clients that a brand is a system, not a logo, while running on a logo and a rough sense of what looked right. Two people can hold that in their heads. It stops working the moment anyone else touches the work.
So we gave ourselves the brief we give clients: define the roles before the visuals, write it down properly, and treat the documentation as the deliverable.
The guideline was written alongside the design, not reverse-engineered at the end.
What we did
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Positioning
Who the studio is for, what it says no to, and how the work gets described without the usual studio language.
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Identity
Wordmark, monogram, and a script accent used once per page and never twice.
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Colour roles
Every colour given a job rather than a mood-board slot: surface, text, accent, and where the accent is not allowed.
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Type scale
One family across the whole system, with a display script reserved for a single emphasis per screen.
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Website
Designed and built on the system, so the site is the proof that the documentation works.
How it was done
- 01 Step 01
Writing first
Wrote the positioning and the voice notes before opening a design tool. The visual decisions got easier once the words were fixed.
- 02 Step 02
Roles, not palettes
Assigned each colour a job and wrote the rule for when using it would be wrong. That is the part most guidelines skip.
- 03 Step 03
Documenting as we went
Every decision was written up as it was made, which is why the guideline runs to 39 pages rather than nine.
- 04 Step 04
Building on it
Built the site directly from the system. Anything the system could not describe got fixed in the system, not patched in the code.
Handed over
Everything below is owned outright, in editable and print-ready formats, with the source files.
- 39-page brand guideline
- Wordmark, monogram and lockups
- Colour roles with usage rules
- Type scale and pairing
- Component and layout patterns
- Full website design and build
- Social and document templates
- Source files for everything
Tally
A design system for a four-person team rebuilding the same button for the fourth time.
Tell me what
you're
building
A few lines about the business and what you need is enough to get started. Small businesses are what this studio is built for, and you will hear back from me, not a sales team.