Brand and identity
Why the category converges on one look, naming, the brand book that gets used, packaging and shelf presence, and rebranding without losing your clients.
Brand in this category is usually treated as a design project with a beginning and an end. It behaves more like a set of rules that either survive delegation or do not. The pieces in this section are about the decisions that make a business recognisable to somebody who has not visited it: what to commit to, what to write down, what to name and what to leave alone once it is working.
Two of them deal with the physical brand, since a product line puts your identity into an environment where it has about a second to be understood. One deals with the point at which an identity has to change, which is the moment a business is most likely to spend recognition it took years to build.
Why so many beauty brands look the same
Beige type, arch motifs, the same three adjectives. Why beauty and wellness brands converge on one look, what it costs, and how to leave without being weird.
Brand · 9 min readNaming a beauty business without painting yourself into a corner
Descriptive names are easy to find and hard to grow out of. Abstract names cost more to build. How to choose, with the trade mark register open.
Brand · 8 min readA brand book a small beauty business will actually use
Forty-page identity manuals go unread. Six pages of rules that a printer, a freelancer and a receptionist can follow will hold a brand together for years.
Brand · 8 min readPackaging and shelf presence for a first product line
Packaging is a legal document, a shelf advertisement and a unit cost at the same time. How to design a first line that survives all three demands.
Brand · 9 min readRebranding a salon group without losing the clients you have
A rebrand puts existing bookings, search visibility and staff confidence at risk at the same time. How to sequence one so the downside is contained.
Brand · 9 min readThe trade newsletter
For people who build beauty and wellness brands. Sent when there is something worth sending, not when the calendar says so.
One email when something changes that affects a pricing, packaging or claims decision. No schedule, no third party advertising, no sharing of your address.