Visual identity: what a complete package includes
What a visual identity package contains, at three levels: deliverables, file formats, the working process, and the mistakes that cost you a rebrand.
Visual identity is almost always confused with the logo. The confusion is understandable — the logo is the visible part — but it produces incomplete projects: the company gets a handsome mark, puts it on a business card, and three months later already has four shades of blue, three different typefaces, and a leaflet that looks nothing like the website.
A visual identity package solves exactly that problem. It does not give you a drawing; it gives you a system: which colours, in what proportions, with which typefaces, on which materials, under which rules. This article explains what each level of package contains, what files you should receive, how the process runs, and why prices vary so much.
Contents
- Visual identity does not mean logo
- What a visual identity package contains
- Level 1: the minimum viable
- Level 2: a complete identity
- Level 3: a brand system
- The process, from brief to files
- What files you get, and why the formats matter
- What it costs and why it varies
- How to write an identity brief
- How to evaluate a logo concept
- Rebranding: when and how
- Six mistakes that cost you a rebrand
Visual identity does not mean logo
Three terms are used as synonyms and are not:
- The logo is the mark. A drawing, a symbol, a stylised word.
- The visual identity is the complete visual language: logo, colours, typography, photographic style, graphic elements, and the rules for using them.
- The brand is what people believe about you. It is built from everything you do — product, service, price, communication. The visual identity expresses it; it does not replace it.
Why the distinction matters
Because it explains why a logo on its own solves nothing. The mark is a letter. The identity is the alphabet. With one letter you cannot write even a coherent business card, let alone a website, a package and a liveried van.
The sign that you are missing an identity, not a logo
You have a logo, but every time a new piece of material is needed someone asks “which blue was it?” or “which font do we use?”. If the answer has to be hunted for in old emails, you have a logo and no identity.
What a visual identity package contains
A visual identity package contains the logo in every variant it will be used in, the colour palette defined in every colour space, the typographic system, the auxiliary graphic elements, applications on the material you actually use, and the document setting out the rules. A complete package has between 10 and 14 deliverables; a minimal one, four.
| # | Deliverable | Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Primary logo | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 2 | Variants: horizontal, vertical, icon | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| 3 | Monochrome and dark-ground variants | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 4 | Colour palette, in every colour space | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 5 | Typographic system | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 6 | Auxiliary graphic elements | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| 7 | Stationery: business card, letterhead, envelope | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| 8 | Email signature | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| 9 | Social media templates | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| 10 | Presentation and proposal templates | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| 11 | Brand guidelines | — | short | complete |
| 12 | Applications: signage, vehicles, textiles | — | — | ✓ |
| 13 | A system for packaging | — | — | ✓ |
| 14 | Photographic and illustration style | — | — | ✓ |
Level 1: the minimum viable
The logo with its basic variants, the palette, the typography. Source files handed over.
Who it is for: a company starting out, with a limited budget and an immediate need for a business card and a website.
What is missing and what that means: you have no applications and no written rules. The first time you order a banner, the decision about how it looks is taken by the printer.
The honest recommendation: it is a reasonable starting point, as long as you know it is a starting point. The mistake is treating it as a finished product and improvising for three years.
Level 2: a complete identity
Everything from level 1, plus stationery, an email signature, templates for social and presentations, auxiliary graphic elements and a short set of guidelines.
Who it is for: most small and medium companies. It is the level with the best ratio of cost to result.
What it solves concretely: anyone in the company can produce a new piece of material — a proposal, a post, a leaflet — that looks like the rest. Without asking anyone and without inventing anything.
The practical difference from level 1: level 1 is a set of files. Level 2 is a set of files plus the ability to produce new material without a designer.
Level 3: a brand system
Everything above, plus complete guidelines, applications on signage, vehicle fleets and textiles, a system for packaging, and photographic direction.
Who it is for: companies with a physical presence in several places, with products on shelves, with a large team, or with a network of partners.
What it solves: consistency at scale, when material is produced by different suppliers, in different towns, with no central coordination. The guidelines become the quality control instrument — a subject covered in Brand guidelines: what they are for and what they contain.
The process, from brief to files
1 · Brief and research (3–5 days)
What the company does, who it addresses, who the competitors are and what they look like, what you want to communicate, what has to be avoided. The visual landscape of the field is analysed — if every competitor is blue, you have either an opportunity or a good reason to be blue too.
2 · Concept directions (7–10 days)
Two or three distinct directions, not variations on the same idea. Each presented in context — on a business card, on a screen, on a package — because a logo on a white ground says nothing about how it behaves in reality.
3 · Refinement (5–7 days)
One direction is chosen and worked on in depth: proportions, optical spacing, behaviour at small sizes, variants for each context.
4 · Extension (7–14 days)
The approved direction is applied to every deliverable in the package.
5 · Handover
Source files, exports in every format, guidelines. All the source files are handed to the client. If a supplier keeps the sources, you have not bought an identity, you have rented one.
What files you get, and why the formats matter
| Format | What it is | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| AI or EPS | the vector source file | any later change; given to the printer |
| SVG | vector for the web | the logo on the site, at any screen density |
| portable vector | sent to print, opened by anyone | |
| Transparent PNG | an image with a transparent ground | documents, presentations, internal material |
| JPG | an image without transparency | general use, where transparency is not needed |
The basic rule: vector, not image
A logo has to exist in vector format. A vector is a mathematical description of shapes: it scales to the size of a building façade without losing sharpness. An image is a grid of dots: enlarged, it goes blurry.
If all you have is a PNG, you do not have the logo — you have a photograph of it. The first time you order large lettering, the printer will ask for the source, and someone will have to redraw it.
The handover test
Open the archive you received and check: is there an .ai or .eps file? Is there an .svg? Are the colours given in HEX, RGB and CMYK? If anything is missing, ask for it before you close the project.
What it costs and why it varies
Prices for visual identity vary enormously, and the main reason is not talent but the number of deliverables and the number of revision rounds.
| Level | Indicative range | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 — minimum viable | from a few hundred euros | 2–3 weeks |
| Level 2 — complete identity | the middle range, where most projects sit | 4–6 weeks |
| Level 3 — brand system | a major project, quoted individually | 8–12 weeks |
The ranges above are indicative. For a price on your own situation, ask for a quote — the real variables are the number of applications and whether this is a new identity or a rebrand with a transition.
What pushes the price up
- The number of applications (every new piece of material is a separate job).
- A rebrand with migration — more expensive than a new identity, because the transition has to be managed.
- Trade mark research and availability checks.
- Complete guidelines, with many chapters.
- A large number of decision-makers on the client side.
What brings the price down
A clear brief and a single decision-maker. More than anything else.
How to write an identity brief
The quality of an identity is determined overwhelmingly by the quality of the brief. A good brief takes two hours to write and shortens the project by weeks.
The eight questions
1. What does the company sell, in two sentences, with no marketing words. If you cannot answer without “integrated solutions” and “excellence”, neither will the designer.
2. Who buys? Not “everyone”. Age, type of company, who takes the decision, what budget. An identity for an industrial buyer looks different from one for a consumer.
3. What should someone believe about you after seeing your material? Three adjectives, not ten. And adjectives that could be contradicted: “solid” is useful because someone might choose “innovative” instead. “Professional” is not useful — nobody wants the opposite.
4. Who are the competitors and what do they look like? Gather five competitors’ logos into one document. It is the most useful material in the whole brief: it shows where the free space is in the visual landscape of the field.
5. What has to be avoided? Colours, forms or associations that are off limits — for a market reason, a cultural one, or a clash with a competitor.
6. Where will the identity appear? The concrete list of material. It determines directly which deliverables are needed and therefore the price.
7. Are there inherited constraints? A colour customers already associate with you, a mark with history, a name that is not changing.
8. Who approves? One person. The rest consult.
What not to put in a brief
Solutions. “We want a logo with an eagle, blue, with heavy lettering” is not a brief, it is a production order. If you already know the solution, you are paying a designer to draw, not to solve a problem.
A folder of examples with no explanation. Ten logos you like, with no statement of why, convey nothing. A single example with “I like it because it reads from a distance” is worth more than ten without comment.
How to evaluate a logo concept
The moment two or three directions are presented is where clients most often go wrong — because they evaluate with “I like it / I don’t like it”, the one criterion that does not matter.
The six criteria that do matter
1. Does it work at 24 pixels? Shrink it to the size of a browser icon. If it becomes a blob, you need a simplified variant. Ask for it now, not in a year.
2. Does it work in black and white? Stamps, fax, engraving, single-colour printing, photocopying. A concept that depends on a gradient does not survive.
3. Can it be described over the phone? “A square with one corner cut off” is memorable. “A sort of abstract shape, with some lines” is not.
4. Does it look like your field, or like anything? A logo that could equally belong to an accountancy firm, a clinic and a haulier says nothing.
5. Does it resemble a competitor’s? Put it on a sheet alongside five competitors’ logos. If it melts into them, it is not doing its job.
6. Will it survive three years? A visual effect that is fashionable today dates the concept within two. Simple forms age best.
What is not a criterion
- The owner’s personal preference. The identity talks to customers.
- A staff vote. An identity chosen by vote arrives at the least objectionable option, not the best one.
- “It should contain everything we do.” A logo is not an infographic. It does not have to communicate the services, it has to be recognised.
- What people at home think. They are not your customers.
The right question to ask the designer
Not “why did you choose this colour”, but: “what have we gained with this direction over the other two?” A good designer answers with arguments about positioning and the competitive landscape, not with aesthetic ones.
Rebranding: when and how
When it is justified
- What you sell, or who you sell it to, has changed.
- The current identity limits you — a name or a mark tied to a service you no longer provide.
- A merger or a change of ownership.
- The identity is visibly dated and it is affecting credibility.
- There is a trade mark conflict.
When it is not justified
- Somebody in the company got bored. You see the logo daily; the customer sees it a few times a year.
- A new director has arrived and wants to leave a mark.
- Things are going badly and something must be done. A rebrand does not fix a product or a price.
What to keep
The most frequent error is changing everything. The recognition built up disappears, and loyal customers get the impression the company has been taken over.
Keep at least two of: the dominant colour, the shape of the mark, the typography, the characteristic graphic element. Enough to be recognised, changed enough to be seen as new.
The transition
| Stage | Duration | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Preparation | 4–8 weeks | all the new material produced, nothing published |
| Switchover | one day | site, social, signage, signatures — all at once |
| Coexistence | 3–6 months | stocks of printed material run down |
| Consolidation | 12 months | any new material, exclusively in the new identity |
The switchover happens all at once. A new website with old business cards, for two months, looks like disorganisation, not a rebrand.
Six mistakes that cost you a rebrand
1. A logo chosen because “I like it”. The identity talks to your customers, not to you. Personal preference is a poor criterion.
2. Too many colours. Three or four working colours are enough. Seven means nobody will know which is the main one.
3. A free font with no commercial licence. Many free fonts do not permit commercial use or embedding in files. That gets checked beforehand, not after 5,000 leaflets have been printed.
4. A logo that only works large. Test it at 24 pixels high, the size of a browser icon. If it becomes a blob, you need a simplified variant.
5. No trade mark check. A mark resembling somebody else’s in the same field is a legal problem, not an aesthetic one. The check is done before refinement.
6. No written rules. Without guidelines, an identity erodes in six to twelve months. Not out of ill will: simply, nobody remembers exactly.
We have 61 branding projects in our portfolio — logos, identity systems and material for companies in Constanța and across the country. You can see them in the branding and identity portfolio.
For a quote on your own situation, see what the visual identity service includes, or write to us directly.
Read next: Brand guidelines and Packaging design.