What a brand identity project actually includes
Most people come to a designer asking for a logo. What they usually need is a brand identity. The distinction matters because a logo on its own is just a mark. Without the surrounding system, it behaves inconsistently across different contexts, and that inconsistency is what makes a brand look amateur even when the logo itself is well-made.
The logo is the starting point, not the destination
A logo is a single element in a larger system. It needs to work at the size of a favicon and at the size of a shop sign. It needs to work in black and white, in reverse, on a dark background and a light one. A well-made logo is designed with all of those contexts in mind from the beginning, which is why the delivery includes multiple file formats and variants rather than a single image file.
The mark itself is usually the most visible output of an identity project, which is why clients focus on it. But the decisions that make a brand feel coherent, the colour palette, the typeface choices, the spacing rules, are often more important to the day-to-day experience of using the brand.
Colour and typography do the heavy lifting
A colour palette for a brand is not just a set of hex codes. It includes primary and secondary colours, rules about proportion (how much of each colour appears in a typical layout), and guidance on what works against what. Without those rules, the palette gets used inconsistently and the brand starts to look like it belongs to several different businesses.
Typography is similar. A brand typically uses two typefaces at most, sometimes one. The system specifies which face is used for headings, which for body text, what sizes are appropriate, and what the line-spacing rules are. These decisions are made once and documented so that anyone producing material for the brand, a web developer, a printer, a social media manager, can apply them without guessing.
The brand book is what makes it usable
The brand book (sometimes called brand guidelines) is the document that pulls everything together. A good brand book is not a PDF that sits in a folder and never gets opened. It is a working reference that a printer can use to match colours, that a developer can use to set up a design system, and that a new member of staff can read to understand how the brand should look and feel.
At Hexalo, brand books run between 20 and 40 pages depending on the complexity of the project. They cover logo usage, colour specifications in CMYK, RGB, and Pantone where relevant, typography rules, spacing and layout principles, and a section on what not to do. That last section is often the most useful.
What you should ask for before signing a brief
Before agreeing to a brand identity project with any designer, it is worth asking specifically what will be delivered. A logo file is not an identity system. Ask whether the project includes a colour palette with usage rules, a type system, a brand book, and print-ready files. Ask what file formats are included and whether you will own the final artwork outright.
These are not awkward questions. A designer who has done this work before will have clear answers. If the answers are vague, that is useful information too.
- Logo files in SVG, EPS, and PNG (minimum)
- Colour palette with CMYK, RGB, and hex values
- Type system with hierarchy rules
- Brand book in PDF format
- Print-ready files for any collateral included in scope
- Full IP transfer on completion
If you are planning a brand identity project and want to understand what scope makes sense for your situation, the questions people usually ask page covers the process in more detail, or you can write to the studio directly.