A brand system for a launch: three formats, prices and what each includes
The launch of a bar, a clinic or an online store almost always starts with «we only need a logo for now». Three months later it turns out you also need a menu, signage, packaging, social templates and a website, and the logo made in a week survives none of those carriers. We packaged brand work into three formats so that a founder chooses between the volumes of work a launch actually involves, not between «cheap now» and «done properly».
Why «logo first» costs more
A logo is a tenth of a brand, yet it is ordered first because it is tangible. The problem is that a logo without a system does not answer the questions that arrive a month later: what the menu looks like, what goes on a limited-edition label, which typeface carries a price, how the brand speaks in stories.
Each of those questions gets solved again, by different people, and by opening day the brand has five versions of itself. Reprinting the menu, remaking the signage and new social templates together cost more than the difference between a logo and a brand system. We have seen this on bar and restaurant launches often enough to offer a format by task rather than by first-month budget.
Format 01 — Identity, from €3,000
For whom: a launch with one or two carriers, when you need to look established from day one. What is included: logo and mark, brand colours and typography, basic rules in a mini-guide, three or four key carriers of your choice — a business card, signage, a social cover, a label.
Three to four weeks. Not included: positioning as a separate piece of work and a full brand book. If the business outgrows this format in six months, the identity becomes the base of a brand system without being redone.
Format 02 — Brand System, from €6,000
For whom: a bar, a restaurant, a clinic, a skincare brand, a small chain — everything the customer sees and touches every day. What is included: positioning and tone of voice, the full identity, a brand book with rules, carriers for the task — menu, packaging and labels, presentations, post and story templates, point-of-sale materials.
The main value of the format is a single author. The menu on the table, the Instagram feed and the label on the shelf look like one system because one person built them by one set of rules, not three contractors by their own.
Format 03 — Brand + Site, from €12,000
For whom: a launch where the website is the brand's main carrier: e-commerce, a clinic with online booking, real estate, services with a long sales cycle. What is included: everything in the brand system plus the website as its continuation — structure, copy, design and development.
The website in this format is built by our AI Systems track: multilingual out of the box, fast, ready for AI search. Brand and site do not drift apart because one team makes both in one project, and that is the only way to get a site that looks like the brand rather than a template with a logo.
How to choose: three questions
How many carriers will appear in the first six months? One or two — Identity. Menu, packaging and social — Brand System. How many markets and languages? A multilingual brand needs rules that survive translation, and that is already a system. Is there a website and will it sell? If the site is a point of sale, the third format is cheaper than the second plus separate development.
And one question for any studio: who is the author and what do you get in hand. Source files, licensed fonts, a brand book in a format a printer can use. Without that the brand stays with the contractor, not with you.
Key Takeaways
- 01A logo without a system solves one task in ten; the other nine get solved again and cost more
- 02Identity from €3,000 is for a launch with one or two carriers, three to four weeks
- 03Brand System from €6,000 is for when the customer sees the brand on the menu, packaging and feed every day; one author for every carrier
- 04Brand + Site from €12,000 is for when the website sells; the AI Systems track builds it in the same project
- 05The format is chosen by the number of carriers, markets and the website's role, not by first-month budget
- 06Ask any studio who the author is and what is handed over: sources, licences, a print-ready brand book