BRAND IDENTITY
Brand identity design
Initial is a brand identity studio based in Liège, Belgium. We design logos, brand guidelines and complete identity systems, made to be applied everywhere: website, campaigns, decks, product.
An identity has to work across hundreds of touchpoints, for years, in the hands of people who didn’t design it.
THE PROJECT OFFER
Brand identity
A complete, consistent visual system, from positioning to brand guidelines.
- Positioning workshop
- Logo & type system
- Colours, grids & iconography
- Brand guidelines & source files
APPROACH
A system other people can apply
A visual identity is a set of written decisions: the logo, but also typography, colour, grids, iconography and the way images are chosen. Brand guidelines gather them so your team, your printer or a partner agency can produce something new without calling you every time.
Before drawing anything, we look for the idea that will hold everything else. For Trace, which makes performance sensors for athletes, it’s the trace an athlete leaves behind: it gave the symbol and part of the visuals. For GUD, a blockchain platform for gaming, it’s the pixel, common to both worlds. For House of Backbone, a marketing agency in Dubai, it’s the spine that gives the agency its name.
There’s no house style: each identity comes from the brand, its audience and its field. The studio works with startups, scale-ups and brands in sport, culture, technology and entertainment, and also takes over existing identities whose touchpoints have drifted apart. From logo design to a complete brand system, you work directly with the creative direction.
BRAND TOOLS
An identity that produces its own content
Brand guidelines aren’t always enough. A campaign, a new season, a post a day: every asset takes time, and that’s often where consistency slips. The studio can turn the rules of the identity into interactive tools, generators and smart templates that your team uses on its own.
The rules live inside the tool: the grid, the typefaces, the colours, the motion. Your team picks a text, an image or a setting, and gets a visual that belongs to the brand, without going back to a designer for every variation. Content production becomes systematic, and the identity can evolve over the long term without getting diluted, because the same system produces everything.
These tools can be part of the identity project or built later, under the Creative technology offer.
- //TRACE
Visuals drawn from data
Sensor data becomes lines and compositions unique to each session and each athlete. Templates and animated formats let the team publish quickly on social media without leaving the identity.
- //HOUSE OF BACKBONE
A random grid and metaballs
Several interactive tools generate visuals from the spine system. The agency’s team produces the visuals for its own campaigns, in every format.
- //SALOMON
Type as a material
For an experimental project around Salomon, a tool warps, stretches and wraps type in real time. It produces posters, campaign visuals and 3D renders, each one different, all in the same language.
PROCESS
Understand, define, create, evolve
Four stages, the same for every identity.
- //01
Understand
A positioning workshop, then a look at your audience, your competitors and your current touchpoints. We look for what should make the brand recognisable.
- //02
Define
Territory, brand principles and several creative routes. We pick one together before developing it.
- //03
Create
Logo, typefaces, colour, grids, iconography and image principles, tested on real touchpoints before anything is locked.
- //04
Evolve
Brand guidelines, source files, first applications and, if needed, the tools to produce the next ones. The studio can keep working on the identity with you.
DELIVERABLES
What an identity includes
The exact scope is agreed together at the start.
- Positioning workshop
- Logo and type system
- Colour, grids and iconography
- Image principles and key visuals
- Brand guidelines
- Source files and key applications
PROJECTS
Four identities, four starting ideas
Identities created or redesigned by the studio.
FAQ
Brand identity questions
What to know before you create or redo your identity. Another question?
Talk about your identityThe logo is one element among others. A visual identity also covers typography, colour, grids, iconography and image principles, with rules that let you create new assets without the brand changing face.
The document that explains how to use your identity: logo versions, palette, typefaces, grids and examples. It’s what you hand to a new designer, a printer or an agency.
Yes, it’s a common starting point: a brand with a history and clients, whose website, decks and social channels no longer seem to come from the same company.
Source files and usage rights are transferred to you at the end of the project, under the terms agreed at the start.
In the Liège area, Belgium. The studio designs identities for clients in Belgium, Europe, the United States and the Middle East, in French and English.
EXPERTISE
The studio’s four offers
Each project offer can also continue as part of a monthly plan.
- FIG.01
Brand identity
A complete, consistent visual system, from positioning to brand guidelines.
You are here - FIG.02
Digital experience
A website or landing page that extends the brand, designed and launched.
- FIG.03
Creative production
A campaign or launch, from concept to ready-to-publish assets.
- FIG.04
Creative technology
Tools, generators and interactive experiences that put the brand to work.
CONTACT
An identity to create or redo?
Tell us what you’re launching, or what no longer works. We’ll suggest a way to approach it.
Tell us about your project