Branding & Graphic Design
A brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room. A logo is the smallest part of it. We do both, from identity systems and logos to the ongoing graphic design that keeps a business looking like one business. And we publish what it costs, because almost nobody else in this market will.
A logo from a UK studio typically runs £300 to £1,500, and a full identity with colour, type, usage rules and applications £1,500 to £6,000. We quote fixed per project and tell you which file formats are included, because that is where two quotes really differ.
See what everything costsWhat brand work includes
Branding searches split cleanly in two: people asking what a logo costs, and businesses looking for a designer. The first group is researching and hitting "contact us for a quote" on every site they open. That is why the numbers are on this page, and why the researchers tend to become the enquiries.
Brand strength is a ranking signal
Branded search volume (people typing your name into Google) is one of the clearest trust signals a search engine has. Branding and SEO are far less separate than the industry pretends, so money spent on one quietly helps the other.
A logo is a deliverable, an identity is a system
Most disappointment in this market comes from paying for the first and expecting the second. We price them separately so you can see the difference before you spend, not after.
What a logo actually costs in the UK
Almost nobody publishes this, so here is the honest range. A logo from a UK freelancer or small studio typically costs £300 to £1,500. A full brand identity (logo, colour system, typography, usage rules and applications) typically costs £1,500 to £6,000. Marketplace and template logos start at £20 and are worth about that.
The spread is not random. It comes down to three things: how much discovery happens before anyone draws (understanding your market and competitors, versus reading a brief), how many directions you see and how many revision rounds are included, and what you actually get at the end. A single PNG and a full file set with guidelines are not the same purchase.
The middle is where people get burned. A £400 logo from someone who did no discovery and hands you one file is not cheap, it is unfinished. You pay again the first time you need it embroidered on a polo shirt or reversed out on a dark background. Ask what file formats are included before you compare two prices.
Logo, identity, or brand: which do you need?
People selling these three things use the words interchangeably, and the confusion costs you money.
- 01
A logo
is a mark. One deliverable, answering one question: what goes at the top of the page. A new sole trader who needs to look legitimate on a van and an invoice needs a logo, and buying more than that is money wasted.
- 02
A brand identity
is a system: the logo plus a colour palette, typefaces, image direction, and rules for how they fit together. It is what stops a business looking like four different companies across its website, its signage and its Instagram. Most businesses need it by the time they have more than a couple of people.
- 03
A brand
is the whole reputation: what you promise, how you sound, and what customers say about you. Nobody can sell you that. It is the result of everything else you do. What a designer can do is make sure the visible half is not working against you.
Why branding matters for search
Most design studios cannot explain this and most SEO agencies do not think about it, yet it is one of the stronger reasons to spend money on brand.
Branded search is a trust signal. When people type your business name into Google instead of a generic term, that is direct evidence of demand, and it cannot be faked with content. Search engines can see it, and a business with real branded search volume gets treated as an entity rather than a website.
It lifts click-through rate on everything else. Put two results side by side for "roofer Sheffield": one from a name the searcher has seen on a van locally, one they have never heard of. Recognition wins the click, and click-through rate feeds back into position.
It is what lets AI assistants cite you. Assistants recommend entities they can identify and confirm across sources. A consistent name, look and story across your website, your Google Business Profile and everywhere else you are mentioned lets an assistant join those mentions into one business it can recommend. The mechanics are here.
We wrote up the search half of this in full in the importance of branded search.
When to rebrand, and when not to
Rebranding is expensive and disruptive, and a lot of it is done for the wrong reasons. It is worth doing when the business has changed what it sells, when the name or mark actively misrepresents you, when you are merging or being acquired, or when the identity is dated enough to cost you credibility with the customers you now want.
It is not worth doing because you are bored of it. That is the commonest reason and the worst one. You see your logo a hundred times more often than your customers do, and the recognition you have built is an asset you would be throwing away.
One warning worth taking seriously: change your business name and you restart your branded search volume, your reviews stay attached to the old name, and every citation across the web becomes wrong at once. You can recover from that, but it costs real money and months, so it should be a decision, not a side effect of a design project.
How we work
Discovery first: a proper conversation about what the business does, who it competes with and who it needs to reach. This is what separates a logo that fits from a logo that is merely nice, and skipping it is how cheap studios stay cheap.
Then several directions rather than one option, revisions with a defined limit so the project actually ends, and a full file set at the finish: vector originals, web and print formats, light and dark versions, and a guidelines document, so whoever prints your signage in three years does not have to guess the colour.
Because we are also a search and paid agency, the identity is built for the jobs it has to do. It has to work at favicon size, on a vehicle, reversed out on a dark website header and inside a Google Business Profile. Designing for those constraints up front is cheaper than finding them when the van is already at the signwriter.
Design, web and marketing together
Branding, web design, SEO and paid search work as one system when the people doing them talk to each other. The identity shapes the website, the website carries the campaign, and the campaign tells you which parts of the message are landing, so nothing gets designed twice.
We quote branding as a fixed price per project, so the number you agree is the number you pay. If you want the identity and the website together, ask for a quote and you get a figure and a timeline. Here is what the website half costs, band by band.
Discovery, then decisions
Most bad logos are not badly drawn. They were commissioned without anyone asking what the thing had to do.
- Step 1Discovery
Who you sell to, who you are up against, and where the brand has to work: a van, a polo shirt, a phone screen, an invoice. This is the step cheap logos skip, and it is why they need replacing.
- Step 2Routes
A small number of genuinely different directions rather than twenty variations on one idea. You pick a direction, not a picture.
- Step 3Refinement
The chosen route worked up properly: colour, type, spacing and the awkward cases like reversed out on dark or embroidered at 3cm.
- Step 4Handover
Every file format you will actually need, plus usage rules so the brand survives contact with other people. Yours outright.
£300 – £6,000
A logo from a UK studio typically runs £300 to £1,500.
A full identity with colour, typography, usage rules and applications runs £1,500 to £6,000. Ask what file formats are included before comparing two quotes, because that is where they really differ.
Straight answers to the usual questions
How much does a logo cost in the UK?
A logo from a UK freelancer or small studio typically costs £300 to £1,500, and a full brand identity with guidelines and applications runs £1,500 to £6,000. Marketplace logos start around £20 and usually give you one file and no usage rights worth having. What matters most is what you receive at the end. Ask which file formats are included before you compare two quotes, because a logo you cannot get embroidered is one you pay for twice.
What is the difference between a logo and a brand identity?
A logo is a single mark; a brand identity is the system around it: colours, typefaces, image style, and the rules for how they combine. The identity is what stops a business looking like four different companies across its website, its van and its social media. A new sole trader often needs only a logo, and paying for more is waste; a business with staff and several touchpoints usually needs the system.
Does branding help SEO?
Yes, more than most people expect, mainly through branded search. When people search for your business by name it is direct evidence of demand that cannot be manufactured, and search engines treat businesses with real branded volume as entities rather than websites. Recognition also lifts click-through rate on ordinary results, and click-through feeds back into position.
How long does a branding project take?
A logo alone takes two to three weeks; a full identity with guidelines takes four to eight. The variable is how fast you give feedback. Projects stall waiting for a decision far more often than they stall in design, so we agree a revision limit up front. The process has an end, and both sides know when it is.
Should I rebrand?
Only if the business has changed, the identity misrepresents what you now sell, or it is dated enough to cost you credibility with the customers you want. Being bored of your logo is not a reason: you see it far more often than your customers do, and recognition is an asset you would be throwing away. Changing your business name is a much bigger decision than changing your look, because it resets branded search and makes every citation you have wrong.
Do I get the original files?
Yes: vector originals, web and print formats, light and dark variants, and a guidelines document, all yours outright. Check this with any designer before you commission, because being handed a single JPEG and no vector is common and expensive. Without the vector you cannot scale the mark for signage or hand it to a printer, so you end up paying someone to redraw it.
The other services we run
- Web Design & DevelopmentBrochure and service sites · Booking and member sites · E-commerce builds
- Technical SEOFull technical audits · Crawling and indexing fixes · Core Web Vitals
- SEO ConsultantIndependent SEO audits · Strategy and roadmaps · Second opinions on your current agency
- Local SEO ServicesGoogle Business Profile, completed properly · Map pack rankings · Citation building and clean-up
- National SEOBusinesses selling UK-wide · B2B and professional services · Manufacturers and wholesalers
- Link Audits & Link BuildingBacklink audits and risk reviews · Disavow files, done carefully · Recovering from bought links
Ready when you are
Tell us what you are trying to rank for and we will look at the site and the search results before we reply. You get a straight answer, including if SEO is not the right spend for you yet.