“I love beautiful visuals and have good taste, should I make my own company’s brand?” Graphic design is a fascinating field. Just a quick look at Pinterest will make your eyes sparkle. One gorgeous brand after another appears, and that’s exactly what you’re looking for your company. How can you resist diving into a world of possibilities, colors, and shapes to create your own brand inspired by those ideas? If you’re not a professional designer, it’s worth taking a deep breath and reflecting before embarking on this task yourself.
“Design is the silent ambassador of your brand.”
Paul Rand
We’ve been working exclusively with brands for over 15 years and have met many people who decided to create their own visual identity. Most of the time, these people come to us later, after struggling to finish the process or spending too much time without reaching the results they wanted. In this article, we’ll propose some points for reflection. With care and listening, we want to help you understand if this path makes sense for you and, most importantly, for your company.
1 – Is there a method?
Maybe you like design, have helped close friends with visual identities, or enjoy playing around with colors and shapes. That’s great! Having an affinity for the visual world is a wonderful start. But when it comes time to take care of your own company’s brand, it’s worth taking a moment to ask yourself: “Is there a method behind all this?” It’s common to be enchanted by what you see on Pinterest or Instagram: fully formed, well-executed brands that seem to have appeared out of thin air. But what’s often hidden in those posts is the journey behind them. Every charming visual identity has a long process supporting it, full of listening, research, and careful choices. And perhaps the most important thing: this process doesn’t start with searching for inspiration, but with gathering information.
Creating a visual identity begins with a deep understanding of the company’s plans. This is usually done through focused questions, interviews, or a thorough dive into the company’s objectives and essence. After that, each design professional has their own methods and tools to organize the path between strategy and visuals, until the brand takes shape in a coherent and meaningful way. If you’re thinking about creating your own brand, reflect: can you visualize this step-by-step process from beginning to end? If the answer is no, that’s okay. Recognizing this is an act of care for your company. After all, starting without a process can turn what should be a creative and enjoyable moment into something confusing and exhausting.
+ Also read – How Does a Visual Identity Come to Life? Our Step-by-Step Methodology
2 – What will the time investment be?
It’s tempting to imagine that the perfect idea for your brand will come like a lightning bolt, in a moment of sudden inspiration. But the truth is, creating a visual identity that truly represents your company requires time, care, and space to mature. To give you an idea, a complete Beloved Brand project takes, on average, three months from start to final delivery. And that’s because it’s what we do every day, with total focus on it. Now imagine fitting this dedication into an already busy routine: taking care of products or services, thinking about sales, responding to customers, dealing with bureaucracy, among other tasks. We know how intense an entrepreneurial routine can be. That’s why it’s worth reflecting carefully: do you have the available time to dive into this process with the attention it deserves? If it’s not possible right now, that’s okay too. Maybe it’s a good idea to seek support or rethink the deadlines. The most important thing is that the creation of your brand is something light and meaningful, not just another source of stress amidst so many demands.
The story of Piece of Paper illustrates this well. This fine stationery company, which creates handmade notebooks with the utmost care, started with a brand developed by the partners themselves. It was a simple design, made with the knowledge they had available. But when the time came to open the first physical store, they realized that the visual identity didn’t reflect the delicacy and value of the products. That’s when we developed a new visual identity together, with paper cuts forming images, ideas, and sensations, among other elements. The result was a brand worthy of what Piece of Paper truly offers.
+ Also Read – Naming Your Brand Is Like Naming a Baby (or a Pet)?
Piece of Paper’s brand started out created by the partners themselves, but gained in perceived value and professionalism with the Beloved Brand project. See the full project.
3 – Do you know the technical aspects of a logo?
When we see a polished brand working well on social media, printed materials, and even packaging, it’s easy to forget that behind each application there’s a whole technical world, invisible, but essential. Things like how the brand scales down, contrast with different backgrounds, the clear space around the design, and even choosing the right file formats for different uses all make a big difference. A brand that overlooks these details can end up looking blurry, unclear, or hard to read, especially in smaller formats. Have you ever seen a logo that disappears when it gets small or looks kind of fuzzy on an image? That’s more common than you might think and it can hurt your business’s image without anyone being able to pinpoint exactly why.
If you don’t work in design, it’s worth taking a bit of time to understand at least the most basic technical aspects. Not to become an expert overnight, but to make sure your brand avoids preventable issues right from the start. Remember: a visual identity isn’t just about looking good, it also needs to work well in all the places your brand will show up.
+ Also read – Is my brand looking good? How to evaluate your company’s visual identity
4 – And what about your visual background, how solid is it?
Creating an inspiration board is a great first step when you’re dreaming about your company’s brand. But there’s one thing you won’t find on Pinterest: your own visual background. People who work with design gradually develop a more trained eye, one that notices patterns, overused trends, and market clichés. And even with that experience, designers still occasionally create something that feels a bit too familiar. Now imagine how challenging it is to do everything from scratch without that kind of radar.
In this scenario, it’s easy to come up with something that feels original, but actually ends up blending in with existing brands. And when that happens, your business runs the risk of not standing out, or worse, being mistaken for another. Further down the road, this can lead to a forced rebrand before your first year is even up. And let’s be honest: starting over isn’t usually what you were hoping for, especially after putting in so much effort.
That thoughtful mindset was what led the founder of Förena to decide it wasn’t worth spending her time trying to do everything on her own. She trusted our process to take care of the name and visual identity of her cosmetics brand. Meanwhile, she focused on what she loves most: developing the product formulations. The result was a Beloved Brand that clearly communicates one of Förena’s biggest strengths, products that deliver more than one benefit in a visible and consistent way.
+ Also read – Pantone Colors: what they mean and how they can help your brand
Förena was born with a name and visual identity custom-crafted to match the soul of the brand. See the full project.
5 – Do you feel like you need a brand to get started?
A lot of people, as soon as they have the idea to start a business, immediately begin thinking about the brand. And we get it, there’s a strong desire to see your dream come to life with colors, visuals, and personality. But sometimes, that excitement can turn into a roadblock. Without a brand, you might feel stuck, like you can’t move forward. So everything stalls: products or services aren’t defined, social media stays silent, and the project doesn’t quite take off. With limited resources, doing it all yourself might feel like the only option. But is that really the best path?
In our experience, it’s often better to begin with what’s already in your hands: get your business up and running, test things out, learn along the way, use a temporary brand, and observe how everything behaves in practice. Once sales start to come in and your strategy becomes clearer, that’s the time to invest in a visual identity crafted with care and intention, one that truly reflects what your business stands for.
That’s exactly what happened with the founder of Opulim, a business focused on charming party decor for children. In the beginning, she created the brand herself and chose a name inspired by her son. But when the business grew and she tried to register the brand with the INPI (Brazil’s trademark office), she found out the name was already taken. That turning point, and the desire to take a more professional step, brought her to us. Together, we created Opulim’s Beloved Brand: a playful, joyful, and legally registrable name, paired with a soft, charming visual identity that brings out the magic in every party theme.
Opulim grew and with this new chapter came a new name and a new brand. See the full project.
Conclusion: Is it worth creating your brand on your own?
Designing your company’s brand by yourself will require time, organization, and a good amount of learning. It’s important to be clear that it’s not just about choosing a pretty color or a cool icon: it’s a process that involves method, strategy, and technical decisions. Before anything else, there’s the structure of your business and your brand needs to translate, with care and intention, everything that already exists at the heart of your company. One key reflection is about the image your business is projecting today. If things are already taking shape, if you’re putting care and professionalism into what you do and investing in growth, then a DIY brand might no longer reflect this moment. Visual identity speaks too, and it might be saying something very different from what you truly want to express.
If that sounds like your situation, know that you don’t have to do everything on your own. Building a brand isn’t just work, it’s also about listening, sensibility, and meaning. And that’s exactly how we love to create each Beloved Brand. If you’d like, we’re here to walk this path with you.
+ Also read – Cents or Millions? How Much Should I Expect to Pay for a Brand Design?
And you? Have you ever found yourself in the position of having to create your company’s brand with your own hands? What was that experience like? We’d love to hear your story in the comments! Does your business need a truly Beloved Brand? Let’s create it together, request a proposal.