Free guide
8 steps to a brand identity that holds.
There are a few solid methods for building a brand identity. This one is mine — eight steps, in order, where every step's output is the next step's input.
01
The full eight-step sequence, and what each step produces before the next one starts.
02
How to audit competitors on design, tone of voice, logo type and colour — and read the gap they left.
03
Why the logo is decided at step five, and what has to be settled before anyone draws.
Why the order is the method
Every step feeds the next one.
Purpose produces the words. The words produce candidate forms. The competitor audit decides which form your market has left open.
8
Steps, in order
Purpose, audit, adjectives, direction, drawing, type, graphics, system.
4
Decisions before the logo
Drawing is step five, not step one.
1
Document at the end
The brand guide, so it still matches in three years.
You can’t judge a mark you have no criteria for. The sequence is what gives you the criteria.
What’s inside
The sequence, plus one step in full.
01
The sequence, end to end
All eight steps with the output each one produces — and why skipping one leaves the next with nothing to work from.
02
The competitor audit
Four rows across five competitors — design, tone of voice, logo type and colour. The empty cell is your opening.
03
Where the logo gets decided
The twelve recognised logo types, set against your own market, so you take the one nobody there has claimed.
This is the sequence I actually run.
It’s the order I work in on every identity — brand, web and signage — and the reason revision notes come with a reason attached instead of a preference. The free guide gives you the sequence and one step in full. The paid guide gives you every worksheet, the twelve logo types against your own market, the four type registers, and the full brand guide contents.
Julio Cornavaca · cornavaca.com