Ownership Defined
Who decides, who approves, and who to ask.
Corporate Branding
Corporate Branding Where Governance Matters as Much as Design
A corporate identity is applied by dozens of people across divisions, agencies and regions, most of whom will never speak to the designers. Corporate branding therefore has to solve a governance problem as well as a design one — because an identity without an owner and a process drifts within two years.
We Build for Distributed Use
The identity will be applied by people who were not in any of the meetings.
Architecture Decided
How divisions and products relate to the master brand.
Assets Distributed
Findable by people outside the marketing team.
Robust in Application
Works in a spreadsheet template as well as on a report cover.
Rollout Planned
Because a phased change is what actually happens.
Corporate Branding, Explained
What Makes It Different?
Four constraints that rarely apply to smaller organisations.
Discuss Your Brand →- 1
Many Applications
From signage to spreadsheets, most of them unglamorous.
- 2
Many Users
Applied by people with no design training and no contact with the team.
- 3
Brand Architecture
How divisions, products and acquisitions relate to the master brand.
- 4
Multiple Audiences
Customers, investors, regulators, candidates.
What Corporate Branding Covers
Identity, architecture, governance and rollout.
A change to an existing corporate identity is covered by rebranding.
How We Approach Corporate Branding
Architecture first, then identity, then the governance that keeps it.
Map the Organisation
Divisions, products and how they should relate.
Decide Architecture
Master brand, endorsed or standalone.
Design the System
Including the unglamorous applications.
Build Governance
Ownership, approval, exceptions.
Plan the Rollout
Phased and prioritised.
Application
Why the Spreadsheet Template Decides Consistency
Most brand application happens in documents nobody designed.
Where does the brand actually appear?
In internal presentations, quotation documents, spreadsheets sent to clients, email signatures and reports generated by systems. Overwhelmingly more often than on anything a designer produced.
These are made by people with no design training, under time pressure, using whatever template they were sent by a colleague years ago.
Supplying good templates for exactly these formats does more for consistency than any amount of guideline detail, and it is usually the last thing scoped.
What does brand architecture decide?
Whether divisions and products carry the parent name, are endorsed by it, or stand alone — which affects everything from marketing efficiency to what happens when one part of the business has a problem.
It is frequently inherited rather than decided, accumulating through acquisitions and departmental initiatives until nobody can explain the logic.
Deciding it explicitly is uncomfortable because it involves telling some parts of the organisation that they will lose their independent identity. That discomfort is the work.
Questions,answered.
Corporate branding builds and governs an identity across a large organisation — brand architecture, an identity system that works in every application, guidelines, templates and a governance model.
Because the identity is applied by dozens of people who never met the designers. Without an owner, an approval route and findable assets, it drifts within about two years.
How divisions, products and acquisitions relate to the master brand — carrying its name, endorsed by it, or standalone. It is frequently inherited rather than decided.
Templates for documents, presentations and spreadsheets. That is where the brand actually appears most, and it is usually the last thing scoped.
It is phased, and the timeline depends on the estate — signage, systems, documents and digital all move at different speeds. Planning the sequence matters more than a completion date.
Still deciding if corporate branding is right for you?
Talk to UsThe Real Brand Was a Spreadsheet
Corporate identity projects produce a system designed for the visible applications: the website, the report covers, the signage, the campaign work.
The brand appears far more often in a quotation document, an internal presentation, or a spreadsheet emailed to a client — made by someone in finance, under time pressure, from a template a colleague sent them in 2019.
Nobody designed that template. It carries an old logo and the wrong typeface, and it reaches more customers in a month than the campaign work does in a year.
Free Brand Review
Talk Through Your Corporate Identity
Tell us how many divisions and teams apply your brand. We will look at architecture, governance and where consistency is actually breaking.
Claim Your Free Marketing Audit
Enhance Your Brand Potential At No Cost!
- Expect a response within 24 hours
- NDA available upon request
- Dedicated product specialists