Should your brand stand out or fit in? The answer is both. This article explores why successful brands first need to belong in their category before they can become memorable.

A successful brand should connect with your customers, but it should also feel like a genuine reflection of you. Here's why that matters more than you might think.

A strong brand doesn't just look good. It should be easy to use, flexible enough to grow with your business and designed for the real world.

Before you think about logos and packaging, ask yourself one simple question: why would somebody choose your product? This article explores how four food brands use story, trust, understanding and desire to connect with the right customers.

Many business owners say they’re “not creative” when what they really mean is “I’m not artistic”. I’m not convinced those things are the same. Creativity often looks much more like problem solving than painting.

AI has changed parts of the creative process, but perhaps not in the way I expected. Rather than making me focus more heavily on efficiency or technical skills, it’s reinforced the importance of conversation, judgement and the human side of design. Reflecting on a question from a first-year design student, I explore what AI has clarified about where I think my value really sits.

By sign-off stage, my client and I have often looked at the same project so many times that we ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’. That can be exactly when small details become easier to miss.

A structured proofing process helps reduce the risk of those details being overlooked. This guide explains how that process works.

Simple logos often look effortless, but the real work usually happens behind the scenes. This article explores why simplicity in branding is rarely as simple as it appears, and why refinement, restraint and clear thinking often take the most time.

You shouldn’t need to know the “right” design language to confidently talk about your own business. This article explores why I choose to keep communication jargon-free and how clearer conversations often lead to better creative outcomes.

A well-designed event brand shouldn’t need reinventing every year. With the right structure in place, it can grow, adapt and keep doing its job over time.

Small tweaks to your logo can feel harmless. A colour change here, a slight adjustment there. But over time, those changes add up and start to erode something far more important: recognition. Before long, your brand becomes something that’s different everywhere you see it.

Clients often ask to “talk about colour”, but colour isn’t fixed, objective or shared in the way we often assume. Here’s why words alone usually aren’t enough, and what works better instead.

Many businesses start out with a single logo. That’s a great first step, but in practice one logo rarely works for every situation.

Your brand appears in lots of different places. Your website header, social media profiles, packaging, invoices, signage, email signatures and more. Each of these spaces has different size and shape requirements and a single logo design can struggle to fit them all properly.

As a designer, I naturally think about brands from a visual point of view. But when it comes to naming your business, there are some practical considerations that matter just as much as how it looks on a logo. Here are a few things I often talk through with clients.

Food labels might look small, but they carry a lot on their shoulders. Ingredients, allergens, nutrition information, serving sizes… every single word has a job to do. And while the design might look polished and professional, the proof you get from your designer isn’t just about checking colours and fonts.

It’s your last chance to make sure everything is 100% right.

Thinking about a brand refresh? Here’s how to know it’s time.

If you’re running an established business and have already invested in your branding, you’ve probably come across the term brand refresh. It’s not a full rebrand—it’s more like a strategic tidy-up. You’re keeping the essence (name, recognition, the good stuff), but updating what no longer fits. That might mean tweaking your colour palette, refining your logo, or sharpening your messaging to better reflect where your brand is now.

Thirteen years ago, I did a weird little experiment.

Before I’d even had my breakfast, I started snapping photos of every logo I saw in my home. Cereal box. Toothpaste tube. Clothing labels. Milk packaging. Nappy pack. The works.

Why does it matter, and how can you make it work for you?

As a small business, you’ve probably heard that branding is important. And while that’s true, it’s consistency that really makes branding work hard for your business.

Your business is hitting a milestone—make sure people notice.

You've done the work, you’ve built the brand and you’ve stayed the course. Whether it’s five, ten, twenty or even sixty-five years—you’ve earned the right to celebrate. Now it’s time to own it.

Well designed logos are clearly recognisable in any colour and can function in simple black and white, however there is strong evidence to suggest that colour has a huge influence on brand recognition - most likely because it’s the first thing that a potential customer notices.