What you actually get.
A brand identity isn't a logo. The logo is one artefact in a system. What you're paying for is the system — the rules, the components, the language, the consistency that makes someone recognise you across thirty different surfaces without having to think about it.
For most clients, a full brand identity from me includes:
- Primary logo — wordmark, mark, lockups (horizontal, stacked, single-color)
- Secondary marks — favicon, social avatar, monogram, simplified versions
- Type system — display + body font pairings with usage rules
- Color palette — primary, secondary, neutral with hex/CMYK/Pantone equivalents
- Brand voice — how you sound in writing, with tone examples
- Application examples — business card, letterhead, social media template, sign mockup
- Brand guidelines PDF — the rule book your team or future agency uses
- Source files — Illustrator, Figma, organized and labelled
How we get there.
The same six-step rhythm I use on every project. Brand work spends more time in Sketch and Refine than other services because it's iterative by nature.
- Brief — usually a 45-minute call. Audience, mood, references, what you don't want
- Research — competitive landscape, visual territories, naming check if relevant
- Sketch — three directions, presented with rationale. You pick one to develop
- Refine — chosen direction taken to polish. Two rounds of feedback included
- System — extend the chosen mark into the full system (type, color, voice, applications)
- Hand-off — guidelines doc, source files, organized export pack
What it doesn't include.
Honesty saves time. Things that are usually quoted separately:
- Naming — finding a name for a brand that doesn't have one yet (separate engagement)
- Trademark filing — I'll flag conflicts, but registration is your IP attorney's job
- Photography or video direction — I can recommend partners
- Website — listed separately under Web Design, often bundled with branding
- Print runs — I provide print-ready files, you pay your printer directly
Who this is for.
Honest fit-check: this works best for businesses that have at least one paying customer or a clear path to one within six months. Pre-revenue startups can absolutely commission a brand — but be ready for it to evolve as your product does.
If you're not sure whether you need a full identity yet, I also do logo-only engagements (from R3,500) — get a working mark and come back for the system when the business is more defined.
Examples.
See Selected Work for case studies. Mosotho, Forte Capital Holdings, and the Logo Archive are all examples of brand-identity engagements at different scales.