BRAND IDENTITY DESIGN
Brand identity design that makes people choose you.
Vicarel Studios is a brand identity design studio based in Denver, Colorado, working with brands worldwide. We build brand identity systems that help people recognize you, remember you, and trust what you're building.
WHO THIS IS FOR
When is it time to hire us to build a brand identity?
Most of our brand identity clients come to us in one of four situations:
They're launching something new and want to get the foundation right the first time.
They've outgrown their current identity or their audience, category, product/service, position or offer has changed.
They realize that their current brand identity was built quickly and cheaply, and it's now costing them credibility and sales.
They look like everyone else in their category, and they're ready to stand out.
We often work directly with founders, or we work with brand teams for national CPG, food and beverage, spirits, hospitality, and culture-forward lifestyle categories.
If you're here comparing studios right now, the rest of this page is written to answer the questions you should be asking every one of us. 🙂
OUR APPROACH
Strategic, artful, and commercially viable.
A lot of studios are strategically sound but visually safe (i.e. boring). Others make beautiful mockups, but the actual work doesn’t function in the real world. We sit at the sweet spot between these two: beautiful work, that works.
01) You work with the founder.
Adam Vicarel is on your calls, designs or directs your project, and presents the work. Nothing gets lost between an account manager and a design team you never meet. We stay intentionally small and pull in specialists from a trusted network when your project calls for them.
02) Strategy before design.
Most studios will say this. For us, this means: before we design anything, we get clear on what your product/service is, who you’re for, what sets you apart, and what you stand for. We then build a written, strategic foundation that you approve before we touch visuals.
03) Real craft, made by hand(s).
When your brand calls for it, we create custom lettering, hand-drawn illustration, fonts and typography built specifically for your brand. We don’t call in specialists – we are the specialists. In a world drowning in templated design and AI slop, work that’s visibly human-made is what stands out on shelf and on screen.
OUR PROCESS
From an idea to a visual system made for your brand.
Six phases, roughly 8-12 weeks from kickoff to final delivery.
01
Kickoff + Discovery
This is where we learn, absorb and ask questions. We align on goals, intended audience, competitive landscape and more.
We define scope of work, project objective, timeline and budget.
02
Creative Brief
Info from the Kickoff + Discovery is paired with market research. We explore your category and find the gaps worth owning.
We provide a documented overview of who you are, where you’re going, and where competitors cluster and where you can stand apart.
03
Mood Boards + Art Direction
Explore creative territories before committing. We build distinct visual directions and pair them with rationale.
These Mood Boards are added to your Creative Brief creating one succinct document that captures the strategic creative overview of your project.
04
Design Sprint(s)
Iterative design rounds building the brand identity system: logo suite, color and typography palettes, graphics, icons, patterns and textures, photo styling, and various supporting collateral assets that show how your brand actually works in the real world.
Each round is shared realtime or with a recorded video, allowing for structured revision rounds with clear feedback checkpoints.
05
Brand Guidelines
Document how the identity works so anyone can use it correctly. Here we capture the rules, usage, application suggestions, do’s and don’ts of your brand.
This is a practical document that gives you what you need, and can be handed off to any team member or vendor.
06
Final Files + Handoff
You get all of the approved assets in every format you need.
Organized in your project folder.
*Your exact process may differ slightly based on SOW
SELECTED WORK
A few brand identities that we’ve built.
WHAT’S INCLUDED
Unique, ownable, and beautiful brand identity system.
(Trust, recognition, clout and legacy included)
Each engagement is scoped to your needs, with all files delivered upon final payment. Brand identity design projects are often inclusive of:
Logo suites: multiple versions of your logo. Horizontal, vertical, glyph, favicon etc.
Color & typography palettes: not only the color codes and typefaces, but how to use them, hierarchy and ratios.
Custom lettering & wordmarks: as specialists in illustration and lettering, the majority of the projects we delivery have custom drawn or crafted typography.
Brand assets: patterns, textures, graphics, icons and more. These additional pieces are where brands go from good to great.
Art direction: the layout of everything above. It’s one thing to have your assets, but it’s another thing completely to understand how to apply and use them consistently.
Brand and marketing collateral: the application of your brand identity system across real use cases for your business. Examples include website, billboards, fliers and announcements, business cards, signage, ads, packaging and more.
Brand guidelines: having all of the above assets is one thing, but knowing how to use them is what’s really valuable.
FAQs
Questions? Here’s a few answers.
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A logo is one mark. A brand identity is the full system built around it: the typography, color, illustration style, art direction, and (maybe most importantly) the rules for how they work together. The system is what makes you recognizable everywhere you show up.
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Most of our brand identity projects run 8 to 12 weeks from kickoff call to final delivery, depending on scope. We’ll confirm a week-by-week timeline before kickoff, including exactly when we’ll need your feedback.
Rush projects are available for an additional service fee.
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Both, and we’d argue you shouldn’t separate them. Strategy is where every brand identity project should start. If you already have solid strategy work done, we build on it. If you don’t, that’s the first phase.
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We’re based in Denver, but our collaborative team is global, and so are our clients. Most of our work happens over calls, video chats and shared reviews, and we travel when a project calls for it.
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While every project is different, most brand identity projects include:
A logo suite: multiple versions of your logo (often 5-7). Horizontal, vertical, glyph, favicon, secondary lockups, etc.
Color palette: your color codes (HEX, RGB, CMYK, and PMS) and color hierarchy ratios.
Typography palette: your brand fonts, fallback system fonts, and most importantly: how to use them.
Brand assets: developed project-by-project, we often create patterns, textures, graphics, icons and more.
Brand and marketing collateral: the application of your brand identity system across real use cases for your business. Examples include website, billboards, fliers and announcements, business cards, signage, ads, packaging and more.
Brand guidelines: A single source of truth that captures everything above.