Writing the rebrand story first forces us to confront whether it’s needed – and gives the creative work something solid to express.
Rebrands have a funny habit of starting with the fun bits. A new logo. A new typeface that looks like it has opinions. Everyone can say: “That feels more modern”.
Then, just maybe, someone asks the question that should have been first. What changed?
They won’t mean what changed visually. They’ll mean what changed in the company or the offer that made a rebrand necessary? If we cannot answer that, we wasted our time.
There is a better way to begin. Write the explanation first.
I’ve seen this called a ‘rebrand narrative’. It should say what we were; what we are now; and why this needed to be reflected in the branding. It should sound like something we would say to a client who has known us for years and is politely asking why the website feels different.
That explanation does two jobs.
Firstly it forces clarity. If we cannot explain the change without hand-waving, the problem is not branding. The problem is something else. A new look cannot solve that. It can only hide it, and not for long.
Secondly, it becomes a design brief that’s actually useful. Designers can be brilliant, but they are not mind-readers. If we give them a vague direction like ‘more premium’ or ‘more human’, we get the visual equivalent of a shrug. If we give them a clear story about what changed, their ideas will have gravity.
For example, we were known for X. That is still true. But our clients now need Y, and we are better at it than our old story suggests. We want to present ourselves differently, so the outside matches the inside.
The ideas should be usable in LinkedIn summaries, sales intros, the first paragraph of the About page, even in how we describe ourselves in pitches. If they don’t land, that suggests we should go for the cheaper option of rewriting a web page rather than creating a whole new visual identity.
Writing the explanation first stops the identity becoming a series of isolated design choices and turns it into an expression of something real.