Usually keep
Name recognition
If customers can already find you by name, that is an asset. Changing it starts the clock again.
Colour association
Colour is remembered before shape or word. Abandoning it discards the cheapest recognition you own.
Founding story
Where the business came from cannot be manufactured later. It stays, even when everything around it changes.
Existing goodwill
Reviews, referrals and relationships are brand equity. A rebrand should carry them across, not sever them.
Usually change
A mark built for print only
Marks designed before mobile rarely survive a 32px favicon. This is the most common real reason to redraw.
Positioning you outgrew
When the business now serves a different customer than the identity was built for, the gap shows in every pitch.
An inconsistent system
Five versions of the logo and no rules is not a brand. Usually this is the fix, not a redesign.
Borrowed visual language
If it could be any competitor with the logo swapped, it is costing you the ability to charge more.
When we will tell you not to
Most rebrands fail because they change the surface and leave the reason underneath untouched. We start with the reason, then let the visuals follow it.
A brand audit tells us which of the eight points is actually leaking before anyone touches a logo. Often the answer is that the identity is fine and the money belongs somewhere else — and we would rather say that than take the brief.
Beyond Rebranding
This works harder alongside
Elsewhere in Branding
