Brand identity and design

Our brand identity and design services start with your brand strategy

Brand identity is the system that makes your company recognizable wherever buyers come across your business. The system covers the logo, color, type, voice, and the rules that hold them together. Our team builds your identity from your brand strategy, so each design choice traces back to that strategy.

Book a free fit call or see recent identity work

We design identity systems, logos, brand guidelines, packaging, and the print and digital work that follows.

Billings Symphony season identity designed by Let's Canoe
Billings Symphony, season identity system

1st

Brand strategy comes first on each project

100%

Senior-led, with no handoffs to mid-level staff

35+

Years of brand and design work

8–14 wks

From kickoff to delivery

Forbes

Featured in Forbes

Scope of services

Our brand identity services cover design from your logo to your packaging

Brand identity systems

Your identity system covers how your brand looks and sounds. The logo sits inside the system, along with color, type, voice, and the rules that keep each application looking like the same brand.

Logo design

We design a mark that stands out among your competitors and scales from a favicon to a billboard. Our team tests the logo in the places it will appear, like your website and signage, before we deliver the files.

Brand guidelines

Your team and outside vendors use the guidelines to keep the brand consistent. We cover color, typography, voice, and usage rules, and we keep the document short enough that people open it when new work comes up.

Visual identity design

Visual identity covers the color palette, typography, and photo style, along with rules for how your team uses each piece. Together they make your brand recognizable before anyone sees the logo.

Graphic design services

Our team handles the ongoing print and digital design once your identity is in place, including posters, brochures, ads, social posts, sales decks, and web graphics.

Product packaging design

We design packaging for retail shelves, covering the structure, the label, and what a shopper takes in during the two seconds they spend with the package.

Signage and environmental design

We design vehicle wraps, building signage, trade show booths, and event spaces, where the brand needs to be clear from across a parking lot.

Social and motion graphics

LC Studios, our in-house production team, creates social campaigns, motion identity, 3D animation, and video graphics built for phone screens.

How we work

Brand-led design starts with your strategy

Design built only to a brief can look good at launch. Nobody can say what made that design distinctive six months later, because no strategy guided the choices.

We start by looking at what your brand promises and who your buyer is, then at what the identity has to do in the two seconds a buyer spends scrolling past your brand. Each design decision traces back to those answers.

Our identity systems hold up for years because each piece fits the strategy, which saves you from paying for a redesign eighteen months later.

Identity design builds on our brand strategy service, so start with a brand strategy engagement if your business doesn’t have a clear strategy yet.

One brand across four touchpoints

Website hero

Sales deck

Social campaign

Trade show booth

Brand-led identity system

Four different brands

Website hero

Sales deck

Social campaign

Trade show booth

Brand drift in eighteen months

What goes wrong

Brand identities usually break down in the same places

We see these problems when a company brings us in to rebuild an identity that isn’t working.

Nobody documented the system

Someone made a logo and picked a few colors and fonts, but nobody documented the reasoning or the usage rules. The team improvised the next time it needed a new application.

The agency designed the identity for its own portfolio

The identity won design awards, but buyers found it confusing or didn’t notice it, so the company paid for a design that brought in no new customers.

Nobody followed the guidelines

The company had a system on paper, but the marketing team and outside vendors reinvented the brand each quarter. The guidelines and the brand’s marketing looked nothing alike after three years.

Our identity systems solve these problems. We document the strategy behind each design choice and build the design for your buyer, and the guidelines stay useful enough that your team opens them when new work comes up.

The process

You approve each of the five stages in our brand identity design process

Stage 1

Discovery

We look at your business, your buyers, your market, and what your competitors already say. Discovery ends once we know what the brand needs to promise and which buyers it needs to reach.

Stage 2

Strategy

We document the brand strategy, including the positioning, value proposition, personality, and voice. Our designers work from that document.

Stage 3

Visual identity

Our design team builds the visual system from the strategy, including the logo, typography, color palette, graphic language, and photo direction.

Stage 4

Guidelines

We document the system in guidelines your team can work from, with rules, worked examples, decision trees for edge cases, and templates for the formats you use each week.

Stage 5

Activation

We put the identity to work across the applications you need, from print and digital to packaging, signage, and social. Our team adjusts the system when an application needs more flexibility.

Identity systems

Our brand identity systems grow with your company

A brand identity system is the full kit of visual and verbal elements that shape how a brand looks and sounds. The kit includes the logo, color, typography, photography, illustration, voice, and messaging, along with the places buyers see those elements.

An identity covers far more ground than a logo, because the brand’s look and voice have to work in places as different as a cart abandonment email and a trade show booth.

We build identity systems for small and middle-market companies that have outgrown a starter logo. Most of our clients come to us after they’ve proven the business model and built steady revenue, and they need an identity that holds together as the company adds new products and markets.

Each identity engagement covers strategy alignment, the visual system, the verbal system, and the guidelines your team uses to maintain the identity after handoff.

Identity system · spec project

Lumen

Power that goes where the grid doesn’t.

Lumen is a spec brand for off-grid solar energy storage. Its identity system includes primary, secondary, and reversed lockups for use on screen and in print.

Lumen
Horizontal
Lumen
Stacked
Mark only
Lumen Wordmark only
Lumen
Reversed
Lumen
Monochrome
Lumen
On brand color
Lumen
Small / favicon

Logo design

We design logos that work from a favicon to a vehicle wrap

Buyers recognize your brand by its logo more than by any other element, and the logo shows up in more places than anything else in the system. The mark has to work as a 32-pixel favicon and as a six-foot vehicle decal, in full color and one-color print, and on both light and dark backgrounds. A logo that fails in one of those places weakens the whole identity.

Our logo design starts with the brand strategy and ends with a mark that stands out among your competitors and scales cleanly. We test the logo in the places it will appear during the design process and refine the design based on those tests.

The rest of the visual identity supports the logo. Color sets the tone, and typography gives the brand its voice on the page, while the graphic language and photo style add texture. Together these elements make the brand recognizable before the logo appears, which matters because buyers scrolling a feed see the supporting elements first.

An identity is the whole language a brand uses with its buyers, and the logo is one part of that language.

Brian Murnion, co-founder and chief strategist

Brand guidelines

We build brand guidelines your team will use

Most brand guidelines sit unopened in a folder after delivery. Nobody on the team uses the document, so marketing and outside vendors reinvent the brand each quarter and the brand drifts within eighteen months.

Our guidelines give your team clear rules, worked examples for the applications you use, decision trees for the edge cases most guidelines skip, and templates for recurring formats so nobody starts from scratch.

We deliver the guidelines in the format that fits how your team works. A PDF works for teams that need one place to look, and a web-based brand portal helps teams with many outside partners. In-house designers get design system files in Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD so they can work with the components directly. Many clients use a mix of formats, since designers and outside vendors need different things from the guidelines.

Lumen color palette

Solar Blue

#0F83D3

Twilight

#0F2540

Sky

#E8F2FA

Dawn

#F4ECE3

Granite

#1F1F1F

Paper

#FFFFFF

Lumen typography system

Lumen

Power, where the grid won’t reach.

Solar storage built for off-grid living, with systems designed to last through hard winters and rough roads.

Brand asset · 2026 · v1.0

Design execution

Our team puts your identity to work in print and digital design

Graphic design puts your brand in front of buyers each week once the identity is finished.

We design posters, brochures, magazines, annual reports, sales decks, pitch documents, social campaigns, paid ad creative, web graphics, presentations, white papers, infographics, and email templates. Each format has its own constraints, and the identity system has to flex without losing the brand’s look.

Each piece comes from the same system and the same strategy, so your design builds recognition over time. Buyers start to recognize the brand from the design pattern before the logo appears. That recognition helps in search and paid media too, where a brand people know earns more clicks for the same spend.

Lumen portable power packaging design with blue trim and brand mark
Lumen packaging, structural and label design

Packaging

We design product packaging for the shelf and the online listing

Buyers decide whether to buy in the two seconds they spend looking at a shelf or a product listing. Most product brands underinvest in packaging, and they lose sales at that moment.

Our packaging design covers the structure, the label, how the package competes with the other products in the aisle, and how the brand appears on the package. Buyers glance at packaging for a second or two, so the package has to make its case quickly.

We work with food and beverage brands, consumer products, ecommerce-first brands, and regulated industries that have to balance brand expression with required labeling. The design accounts for the retail shelf and shipping, along with how the package photographs for mobile listings on Amazon and Shopify. We coordinate with your production partners and printer on materials and finishes, and on the cost trade-offs that decide whether you can produce the design at your unit economics.

Trusted by

Billings Symphony Yellowstone Art Museum 60th anniversary Altana Federal Credit Union Kibler and Kirch MINT Film Festival Northern Hotel

Strategy first

Your brand strategy gives our designers a clear brief

Brand identity work starts with the strategy, which spells out what you promise and what your buyer needs to believe before acting. Design that skips the strategy has to guess what the brand should express.

Our brand strategy service comes first. We find what sets your business apart and document the value proposition, brand personality, and voice, and that strategy becomes the brief our designers work from. Even good designers fall back on personal taste or industry habits when they work without a strategy.

Our case studies show how strategy and identity work fit together. If your strategy is settled and you have a brief, identity design is the right place to start. If you’re not sure your strategy can support new identity work, start with a brand strategy engagement. Most of our clients do both in one continuous engagement, with no handoff between teams.

Engagements

Pick the identity engagement that fits your brand right now

We scope and price each engagement on the fit call, once we know what your identity work has to cover.

3 to 4 weeks

Brand Refresh

We update an identity that has a solid foundation but needs to feel current.

  • Identity review and recommendations
  • Color palette refresh
  • Typography update
  • Logo refinement
  • Updated brand guidelines
Book a free fit call

8 to 12 weeks

Brand Identity System

Most brands that need a full system start with this tier, which builds a new identity from your strategy.

  • Strategy alignment
  • Logo design
  • Core visual identity system
  • Working brand guidelines
  • Full file kit
Book a free fit call

10 to 14 weeks

Identity System and Funnel Activation

This tier adds the launch work to the full system for brands that need the identity and the funnel activation at the same time.

  • The full Brand Identity System
  • Landing page graphics
  • Sales materials, including deck and one-pagers
  • Social and email templates
  • Paid ad creative
  • Launch-day execution
Book a free fit call

Ongoing design support

Our design team grows with your brand

Month to month

Design Retainer

Our design team works on your account each month, and you get the same people who would handle a project engagement.

Book a free fit call
  • All your design work delivered each month
  • Designer, creative director, copywriter, researcher
  • The same team each month
  • Pause or cancel on 30 days
  • Scales with volume

A word on subscriptions

A design retainer keeps the same people on your brand

Unlimited design subscriptions depend on junior designers and template libraries, with whoever is free picking up the next ticket. A different designer handles each request, so nobody learns your brand. The designs arrive fast, but they look generic and drift away from the identity system you paid for.

Our retainer puts the same designer, creative director, copywriter, and researcher on your account each month. The people you meet on day one are still your team in month twelve, and they know your identity system and your buyer. The designer builds each asset with the creative director keeping it on brand. Our copywriter handles the writing, and our researcher digs into the market when a project needs research.

We scope the retainer to your monthly design volume, so it covers what your business needs each month.

Next step

Let’s talk about your brand

Book a free fit call, and we’ll look at your current brand and tell you whether you need a new identity or a refresh, or whether strategy work should come first. We’ll also tell you on the call if we’re not the right team for your project.

Book a free fit call or call 406-998-7901

Common questions

Clients ask us these brand identity questions most often

These answers cover cost, timeline, process, and what you own at the end. For the wider picture, see our marketing services. If we didn’t cover your question, book a free fit call and ask us directly.

Cost and timeline

How much does brand identity work cost?
We scope and price each engagement on the fit call, once we know what your project has to cover. Price depends on the number of applications, whether your strategy is already done, how much content and photography we produce, and whether you need launch activation with the identity. A refresh of an existing identity costs less than a new system.
How long does brand identity work take?
A brand refresh takes three to four weeks, and a full identity system takes eight to twelve weeks. Adding funnel activation brings the timeline to ten to fourteen weeks. The schedule depends on how quickly your team approves each stage, so we set review milestones at kickoff.
What’s the difference between the tiers?
A refresh updates an identity that already has a working foundation. The Brand Identity System tier builds a new identity from your strategy, including the logo, visual system, and guidelines, and the third tier adds launch work like landing page graphics, sales materials, social and email templates, and paid ad creative.
Is there a return on brand identity work?
Yes, and you can measure the return. A consistent identity lowers the cost of each campaign because your team doesn’t rebuild the look each time, and buyers who recognize you move through the sales cycle faster. A system that holds up also saves you from paying for another redesign two years later.
What if my budget is limited?
Tell us on the call, and we’ll tell you whether we can do useful work at that budget. A refresh might make more sense than a full system, or strategy work might need to come first. If we’re not the right fit yet, we’ll point you to a better option.

Process

What’s your brand identity design process?
Our process has five stages, and you approve each stage before the next stage starts. Discovery looks at your business and market, and the strategy stage documents what the brand promises and which buyers it serves. Our design team builds the visual identity from that strategy, then we document the system in working guidelines. The activation stage puts the identity to work across your applications.
How many revisions do I get?
The standard scope includes three revision rounds for each major deliverable, and most engagements use two. We present two or three logo directions, since a dozen concepts make it harder to pick a strong direction. Design grounded in a clear strategy usually lands on the first or second pass.
How involved do I need to be?
We need you most during discovery and strategy, when your input on the business and the competition shapes the plan. You’ll mainly join at the approval milestones after that, and our team handles the design between reviews.
What happens after delivery?
You get the full file kit and the guidelines, and your team can use them on its own. Many clients move to a design retainer so the same team keeps applying the identity to new projects. We’ll recommend the option that fits your situation.

Brand identity fundamentals

What’s the difference between a logo and a brand identity?
A brand identity is the full visual and verbal language a brand uses, which includes the logo, color, typography, photography, illustration, voice, and the rules that hold them together. The logo is one piece of that identity.
What’s the difference between branding and brand identity?
Branding is the broader work of finding what makes a business marketable and how it should compete. Brand identity expresses those decisions through the brand’s look and voice.
What’s the difference between brand identity and visual identity?
Visual identity covers the logo, color, type, photography, and graphic language. Brand identity includes the visual identity along with the verbal side, meaning the voice, messaging, and the way the brand sounds in writing.
When should I refresh my brand identity?
Refresh your identity when the business has changed and the brand still describes the older version of the company. A company that moved upmarket or added services usually needs a refresh, and so does a brand whose applications have drifted so far apart that nothing looks related.
What if I already have a logo?
We’ll review your logo and tell you whether it’s worth keeping. Plenty of logos work fine, and the problems sit in the system around the logo. We build the new system around your current mark when the mark works.
Do I need a brand strategy before identity work?
Yes, because design needs a strategy to express. If your strategy is already clear, we can start with identity. If it isn’t, we start with brand strategy so the design has a clear direction.
What industries do you work with?
We work with hospitality, food and beverage, arts and culture, financial services, professional services, home services, nonprofits, and consumer products. Our process translates across industries because it starts with your business and your buyers.

Logo and files

How do you design a logo?
We start from the brand strategy and explore two or three directions, then test each direction in the places the logo will appear. Our designers refine the mark as a favicon, on a vehicle, in one color, and on dark backgrounds before delivery.
What goes into the cost of a logo?
Most of the cost goes into the strategy behind the mark and the exploration to find the right direction. The rest covers testing and revisions, along with file preparation for each format your team needs.
Who owns the logo and the files?
You own the logo files and the guidelines when the engagement ends. We hand over the full file kit, so you never depend on us to use your brand.
Will my logo look like other logos you’ve made?
No, because our design starts with your business. Our portfolio includes a century-old hotel, a symphony, an art museum, and a credit union, and those identities look nothing alike.
What file formats do I get?
You get vector source files in AI and EPS, SVG for the web, PNG with transparency at multiple sizes, JPG for general use, and PDF for print. Each format comes in full color, one color, and reversed versions, plus favicon and social profile sizes.

Guidelines and consistency

What’s included in brand guidelines?
Our guidelines cover logo usage and clear space, the color palette with values for print and screen, the typography system, photo and illustration direction, voice and tone, worked examples for your applications, and templates for recurring formats.
How do teams use brand guidelines?
Your team opens the guidelines when new work comes up, as long as the document is short and the rules come with worked examples. Teams stop opening guidelines that fill a hundred pages with principles.
Can our in-house team take over after launch?
Yes, and many of our clients’ teams handle the identity on their own after launch. We hand over the file kit, guidelines, and design system files so your designers can work with the components directly. We also walk your team through the reasoning behind the system so they can make good calls on projects we never see.
How do we keep the brand consistent over time?
Brand consistency depends on discipline, so name one person who owns it and make sure the team opens the guidelines when new work comes up. Review your marketing once or twice a year to catch drift before it spreads.

Design retainer

What’s included in the design retainer?
The retainer puts a designer, creative director, copywriter, and researcher on your account each month. They handle social campaign creative, sales presentations, landing page graphics, email design, print collateral, paid ad creative, infographics, and whatever else your business needs that month.
How is the retainer different from a design subscription?
Subscriptions depend on junior designers and template libraries, and a different person handles each request, so nobody learns your brand. Our retainer puts the same four people on your account each month, and they know your identity system and your buyer.
Can I pause or cancel the retainer?
Yes, with 30 days’ notice and no annual contract. Some clients pause during a slow quarter and restart the retainer when campaign season starts.
How much design work does the retainer cover?
The retainer covers as much as your business needs each month. We scope it to your volume and mix of projects, since a social post takes less time than a full sales deck. You pay for the team’s output, with no hourly billing.

A brand agency in Billings, Montana. We set the brand strategy, then build the marketing on top of it, with one senior team from strategy through production.

406-998-7901
team@letscanoe.com
119 N 29th St, Billings, MT 59101

As seen in

Forbes

Strategy

Production

Marketing

Company

Montana

Free tools

Locations

© 2026 CANOE, LLC dba Let’s Canoe. All rights reserved.

Made in Montana Privacy policy