Brand identity
The color of the logo is the last thing we decide.
In twenty years I have watched dozens of companies redo their logo hoping to change the numbers. It almost never works. An identity is not drawn: it is reasoned through — and the color comes at the end, like a signature at the bottom.
Recognition
Your brand is what other people say about you when you are not in the room.
So brand identity is not how you see yourself. It is how others recognize you.
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THE POINT
WHY
Almost every rebrand starts from the wrong question.
In 2005 I put one of the first Italian ecommerce stores online, and since then the scene repeats itself unchanged: the numbers are disappointing and the first request is “can you redo my logo?”. As if repainting the shop window brought more customers inside.
Logo, colors, type are the tip you can see. Underneath there is everything else: who you are, what you believe, who you are talking to, how you get recognized in a market where everyone is shouting. If that “underneath” is confused, no restyling fixes it. If it is clear, the logo almost draws itself.
WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS
Brand identity does not mean logo and colors. It means being recognizable.
It is a broader, deeper concept than aesthetics: a physical part (the mark, the name, the palette) and a psychological part (the values, the personality, the promise). Translating one into the other without skipping steps is the craft.
Which is why, here, brand identity lives in the Analyze phase of the ADAM method: first you understand, then you design. Never the other way round.
IDENTITIES THAT LAST
Marks made recognizable.
MTTMTT
60 years of textiles told online: from the trade fair to the web.
Read the case →
EsaoteEsaote
From technical leader to a story of care, consistent across some 100 countries.
Read the case →
DuesseDuesse
From “the label company” to a global partner: rebrand and a site built on processes.
Read the case →
THE POWER OF A VISION
In 1959 Volvo invents the three-point seat belt. And gives it to its competitors.
It releases the patent for free, because it has a clear view: “safety is more important than profit”. That is not a claim written by an agency: it is the reason why, sixty years later, “Volvo” and “safety” are still the same word in people’s heads.
That is the power of a clear vision — it is not about what you sell, it is about what you stand for. And it is the thing that gets you chosen, when the product next to yours is almost identical.
THE COMPASS
We do not invent your mission and vision. We put them down in black and white.
The mission is the present — what you do every day to keep the thing running. The vision is the dream — where you want to get to when you win the game. They are intimate reflections: nobody can write them for you.
But putting them in black and white, with method and without shyness, changes the way you look at the future. And it gives a compass to every choice that follows, the logo included.
Identity · the compass
“I build rockets” to go to the moon.”
Mission and vision are the heart of an identity — and they get confused constantly. The mission is today: what you do and how. The vision is the dream: where you want to get to. One without the other leads nowhere.
“I build rockets.”
The formal statement of your reason for existing: what you do and how, day after day, to stay focused. Concrete, practical, about today.
“To go to the moon.”
The company dream: an ambitious, inspiring description of what you want to become. But a dream stays a dream without a plan and a deadline.
Three brands compared — one Italian, one German, one American:
Ferrari — mission & vision
THE TOOL
To put all of this in order we use Kapferer’s prism.
Since 1994 it is, in our view, the tool that explains better than any other what an identity really is: six facets — personality, culture, relationship, reflection, self-image, physique — to be read in the right order, from the inside out. The logo is only the last facet, the consequence of all the others.
It is a subject that deserves its own space: we will give it a whole page. Here the principle is enough — you start from who you are, you finish at the color. It is exactly what we did with Esaote.
THE PRISM APPLIED
Esaote is a world leader in medical imaging. It came to us to ask whether its identity was still its own.
It does not happen often that an international company — research across Genoa, Florence and Maastricht, subsidiaries from the United States to China — stops and asks: “does our mark still say who we are, in the same way across the whole Group?”. That was the opening question, back in 2017, and it is the deepest brand identity work we have done.
No hunches: a study of international competitors, a large-scale survey with internal and external stakeholders, and observing the brand in the flesh at ECR in Vienna — the European congress of radiology. Only then, with Kapferer’s prism, did we put the six facets of the identity back in order and translate innovation, reliability and specialist expertise into consistent guidelines for every market. The logo, once again, came last.
Related story
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THE DIFFERENCE
TWO APPROACHES
Cosmetic restyling vs strategic identity.
Strategic identity
Restyling and nothing else
Starts from
Who you are
What you like
The logo
Last
First
Built on
Data and method
This month’s taste
It lasts
Years
A season
Result
They recognize you
They redo your site
Facet 1 · Personality · the MBTI method
Four axes to give the brand a character.
Born in Michigan in 1944, MBTI crosses four axes and gets 16 personality types out of them (from ESTP to INFJ). We do not take it as absolute scientific truth — it is debated — but as a valuable prompt for giving a brand a character people recognize. Tap the poles to read them.
What “type” is your favorite brand?
Tap one: the sliders snap to its personality profile.
Tap a brand to see what “type” it is.
Reserved: it “charges up” in time spent alone, it works through substance more than noise.
Concrete and pragmatic: it trusts sensory data, facts, what can be verified.
Logical: it decides on facts and reasoning, with objective criteria.
Organized: it plans, structures, likes having everything under control.
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QUESTIONS
FAQ
The questions we always get.
Will you redo my logo?
If it is needed, yes. But it is the last step, not the first. Often, once we understand who you are, we find the logo is perfectly fine and the problem was elsewhere.
Do I need this if I am B2B?
Especially if you are B2B. In a niche sector culture is everything: they choose you because you understand their world, not because you have the right colors.
How long does it take?
The identity analysis is quick. The longest work is usually agreeing internally on mission and vision: haste does not help there.
And if my identity is already strong?
We tell you, and we leave it alone. Changing an identity that works is the fastest way to throw away value built over years.
We start from who you are.
The logo comes after.
If you want to understand where aesthetics end and strategy begins, we start from your data and your words — not from a color palette. And if your identity is already clear and brings you clients, I will be the first to tell you not to touch it.