Most of my projects don’t start with clean sketches or polished drafts. They start messy. I’ve got folders full of “final-2” and “final-Phil-3” files because I couldn’t leave them alone. Sometimes the version I thought I’d killed off sneaks back in weeks later. That loop—research, try it, bin it, repeat—isn’t a mistake in the process. It is the process. Some call it “design thinking.” I just see it as the rhythm of design. Brands don’t arrive in straight lines; they grow in circles.
The myth that branding is a logo or a colour palette still pops up all the time. People love the idea that one graphic can carry everything. But anyone who’s had to stretch a brand across multiple platforms knows how quickly that illusion falls apart. A mark that feels solid on a letterhead can look flimsy on a Twitter banner or disappear completely in a 200-page report. Without a system behind it, the brand crumples. A design system is scaffolding—it keeps the structure standing even when you add new floors or knock a few walls down.
Research First, Always
I don’t jump straight into Illustrator. Starting without research is like heading off on a road trip without a map—you’ll end up somewhere, but not where you planned. So I dig first. What do audiences in that industry already expect to see? Which colours or layouts whisper “authority” or “luxury” or “trust”? And then, where’s the space to stand out?
With Strategic Intelligentia, this was critical. They came with an emblem. It looked fine on paper but it wasn’t built to survive the contexts they operate in. In the world Strategic Intelligentia works in, how you’re seen can matter just as much as what you actually say. That first emblem they had? It was fine on a letterhead, but it collapsed the moment we tried stretching it into bigger, heavier contexts. So we looped. I’d send over a draft, get feedback, throw half of it out, and start again. The typography probably went through six or seven lives—too sharp at one point, too soft the next. Colours were the same story: one version looked too corporate, another felt too flat, so I kept nudging, toughening, softening, tweaking. It only really started to click when we mocked it up in real places—a dense report, a digital dashboard, even a live briefing deck. Seeing it there gave the identity weight. Each round made it sturdier, until the system felt like it could finally stand on its own two feet.
Circling Back, Again and Again – The Iterative Process
Iteration often looks like running in circles. Clients sometimes see it and wonder why we can’t just “get it done.” But circling back is where the strength comes from.
Take Escorts of Distinction. The brand needed to balance exclusivity with trust. First attempts leaned too far one way or the other: too cold, or too friendly. Neither worked. So we circled back. I tweaked typography, shifted tonal cues, mocked up how it might look in a printed brochure versus a website. A lot of drafts ended up in the bin. But the repetition paid off—the final system feels effortless, when in truth it’s built on trial, error, and those messy loops.
Once the system is in place, it needs guardrails. Otherwise, as soon as multiple hands touch it, the whole thing splinters. That’s what guidelines are for—not to restrict, but to keep everything consistent.
With Shamsaha, the work was less about reinventing and more about protecting. As an NGO, they rely on lots of third-parties, and their brand was being pulled in different directions. Reports here, campaign assets there—nothing aligned. I built them a brand bible. Not just “logo usage” rules, but tone, typography, imagery, the whole framework. That way, whether it was an advocacy campaign or a partner print job, Shamsaha looked and sounded like itself. It wasn’t glamorous work, but it gave them control and consistency.
Brands don’t sit still. They move between platforms—social posts, keynote decks, press ads, white papers. A single logo might hold in one or two places, but it won’t travel. Systems do.
That’s the thread connecting these projects. Strategic Intelligentia grew from an emblem into a full identity that could survive high-stakes geopolitical contexts. Escorts of Distinction found the balance between refinement and trust across both print and digital. Shamsaha gained the framework to stop its identity being diluted by external partners. The specifics differ, but the principle is always the same: the system, not the style, is what keeps a brand coherent.
Why Systems Stick Around
Trends come and go. A flashy font, a hot colour palette, a design style that’s suddenly everywhere—it feels fresh, then it dates almost overnight. I’ve seen it happen too many times. Systems don’t behave like that. They’re designed to flex.
That’s the heart of the iterative approach. You don’t lock a brand in one perfect moment; you give it bones it can grow with. New campaign? No problem. A new platform or market shift? Bend the system, don’t break it. That’s the difference between something that fades and something that endures.
And sure, I’ve been tempted to skip the circling back, to just push a design through and call it done. But the truth is, the durability lives in those loops. Each pass, each scrap-and-redo, is what makes the brand hold steady when it’s tested. After twenty years, across NGOs, luxury brands, and geopolitical consultancies, the one constant I’ve found is this: brands that last are built on systems. The stakes change, the audiences change, but the need doesn’t.
The funny part is you rarely see the graft in the final product. You see the polished line, the confident brand, the neat PDF of guidelines. What you don’t see are the “final-FINAL” files, the colours tested and rejected, the drafts that ended up in the bin. But those hidden loops are what make the system strong enough to scale.
So if you’re at the stage where a quick logo refresh won’t cut it, and you want a brand that can stretch, bend, and still feel like itself five years down the line—that’s where I come in. It’s not the glamorous part of design, but it’s the part that makes brands live.
