Visual Identity
BRINGING YOUR BRAND TO LIFE
Humans have used images to make sense of their world since they first stood upright. From Lascaux to Leonardo, visual art connects us to our ancestors across thousands of years, and there's still no more immediate way to communicate than the image. Catchword will bring your brand to life through rich visuals that map beautifully to your strategy and resonate with your audiences. By integrating design considerations into every step of our branding process, we create fully realized brands that get noticed and make an impact.
Logos & Wordmarks
Logos (and wordmarks) and names are the most recognizable elements of any brand. And that’s a good thing, because they complete and support each other to express who you are and why people should take notice. Catchword will create an engaging logo or wordmark that clearly and authentically communicates your brand to the people you want to reach.
Identity Systems
The visual identity system is your logo or wordmark in all the contexts you’ll need to run your business. It includes color palettes, typography, and instructions for how to consistently deploy your visual identity in a simple, easy-to-understand guide.
Templates & Touchpoints
To help ready you for brand rollout and what comes next, we can create icon libraries, templates for presentations and reports, marketing collateral, and just about any other communication you might require.
Brand Style Guides
Consistent brand visuals are key in everything you put out to the world that has a design component: logo, letterhead, website, packaging, and more. And key to ensuring brand consistency—and consistent recognition by customers—are clear and detailed guidelines for everything from color palette to photography to logo use.
Selected Work
Tivly
Denim
Lumerate
When you love what you do, it shows in the work.And people notice.
MUSE Creative Awards | 2019–2022
Corporate Identity
X6
Clutch | 2019–2021
#1 Branding Agency Worldwide
X3
Transform Awards | 2018–2022
Naming Strategy
X5
Influencer Marketing Hub | 2020–2022
Top Branding Agency
X3
FAQ
Creating visuals that communicate your brand beautifully while mapping to strategy isn’t easy, and isn’t something even seasoned marketers do every day. Our two decades working and thinking about brand and visual expression have yielded some wisdom, which we share below and in our Insights & Resources. If you don’t find what you’re looking for, reach out. We’re happy to chat.
Visual identity is typically part of a complete branding package including brand strategy and naming, though we are happy to offer it as a standalone service. Although the visual identity step is last in the full branding timeline, design considerations are part of our thinking from the start and rely on the research, positioning, and creative development from those steps.
For a standalone project, the process includes:
- Discovery (brand immersion through interviews and review of materials)
- Visual Stylescape (defining the visual world the logo and other visual elements will inhabit)
- Logo/Wordmark (creative development of multiple concepts and narrowing to the one)
- Corporate Identity System and Templates (optional)
- Brand Style Guidelines (creating detailed guidelines for how the visual identity lives in the real world)
Although projects can vary in scope, we generally allot 4 weeks for the visual identity phase of a full branding project. More time is needed for standalone projects to allow for the initial brand immersion and strategy work
Yes! Though it’s most common for our design work to be part of a full branding package, clients who come to us with an existing name that they want to bring to life visually can expect the same thoughtful, creative, client-centered experience.
Visual identity fees depend on the scope and complexity of the project as well as the level of client management and other considerations such as an accelerated timeline. Contact us so we can scope your project and provide you with an accurate estimate.
At this time, Catchword focuses on visual identity services only. That is, we can provide you with just about any branding-related design you need that relies on traditional graphic design expertise alone. Services that require other skillsets, such as website design and development, are outside of our wheelhouse, but we’re happy to recommend creative partners you can talk to.
First, we aren’t lawyers! That said, we can offer some thoughts. When most people talk about trademarking something, they mean registering it with the relevant government body/bodies in order to protect it from being used by a competitor. In the US, that body is the USPTO, and you can register a word, phrase, symbol, or image with them to communicate your brand. We recommend every brand register its mark formally rather than rely on common law trademark (the little ™), particularly in highly competitive spaces
