The identity session

Spoken words only - one hook counted, captions and notes excluded, at 130 wpm.

Hook

• Cover up the Nike logo and you still feel Nike. Cover up yours and there's nothing there. That's the real test.
• A founder just told me their brand looks cheap, so they're buying a new logo. That's the one thing that won't fix it.
• Two brands, identical logo. One feels premium, one feels cheap. Proof your logo was never your brand.

Body

The session (top-down on the sofa, the founder's own words, first person)

So, our brand doesn't reflect who we are any more.

We've grown up, the work has got so much better, and the whole thing just looks cheap now. Dated. A bit embarrassing next to the people we're pitching against.

So I think we need a new logo. New colours, maybe. A proper refresh. That'll sort it, right?

The diagnosis (sit up, straight to camera)

Right. Put the chequebook down.

You don't have a logo problem. You have a perception problem, and a new logo can't touch it.

Here's the thing nobody tells you. Your brand isn't your logo. It isn't your colours or your font either. Your brand is the feeling that turns up in someone's head the second they hear your name. The logo is just the reminder. If the feeling has gone flat, a shinier reminder changes nothing.

That's why you can cover up the Nike logo and still feel Nike. The feeling arrives first. The mark only points at it.

So when you say you look cheap, you're not describing the drawing. You're describing the feeling people get, and that feeling comes from everything. How you speak, how you show up, how you reply to a DM, the photos, the spacing, whether any of it actually feels like you. Change the logo and leave all of that untouched, and you'll feel fresh for about a week. Then you're back on this sofa, three grand lighter, same problem.

The treatment (cut to the desk, working on screen)

So here is what we actually do. No new logo yet.

I open a blank doc and write three words. The three feelings you want someone to have when they meet you. Confident, warm, expensive, whatever is true for you. That is the target.

Then we walk through everywhere you actually show up. The site. The packaging. The last five things you posted. The way you answer an email. And for each one we ask one question: does this make someone feel those three words?

Watch what happens. Same logo, untouched. But we tighten the words, calm the layout, sort the photography, slow the tone right down. And the cheap feeling just lifts. I have not redrawn a single thing. I have changed the feeling around the mark.

That gap, between the feeling you want and the feeling you are giving, that is your actual brand. The logo is maybe five per cent of it.

The prescription (to camera, one line)

So the prescription is this. Stop redesigning the logo. Redesign the feeling.

A brand isn't drawn, it's remembered. Get the feeling right and the same logo you were embarrassed by starts to look expensive.

Homework

A one-page brand audit you can fill in tonight. This is the sheet I hand a founder before we design a single thing.

1. Write the three words you want someone to feel when they meet your brand.
2. List the five places people actually meet you: site, packaging, inbox, socials, in person.
3. Score each place one to five on how well it delivers those three words.

Anything scoring three or below is your real brief. Not the logo. That is the free version of ordering a brand from us, and it tells you exactly where the perception is leaking.

CTA

• Comment BRAND and I'll send you the one-page audit from this session, then tell me the three words you want people to feel.
• What's the one word you want people to feel when they hear your name? Drop it below and I'll tell you if your brand is delivering it.
• Send this to the founder you know who keeps redesigning the logo and wondering why nothing changes.

Post image text

• your logo is not your brand
• a brand isn't drawn, it's remembered
• cover the logo. is anything still there?