The 5 Best Branding Agencies in Manchester

A logo and basic identity from a small studio runs £3,000 to £10,000. A proper identity with strategy, naming input, a full asset set and guidelines is £15,000 to £50,000. A strategy-led repositioning for an established business, with research, architecture and internal rollout, starts around £50,000 and goes well past £150,000. The website rollout is usually separate and frequently costs more than the identity. Anyone quoting £500 for a "brand package" is selling you a logo, which is not a brand, and you will pay twice.

Strategy is what you stand for, who you are for, what you say and why anyone should care. Identity is what that looks and sounds like once decided. Doing identity without strategy is why rebrands get rejected by boards and quietly abandoned by staff, because nobody agreed what was being expressed. Two firms here sell strategy as its own engagement with its own fee, which is the honest way to do it. If an agency goes straight to moodboards in the first meeting, you are buying decoration.

Eight to twelve weeks for an identity with a small studio. Four to six months for a strategy-led rebrand of an established business, and longer if research or stakeholder consultation is involved. The rollout is the part people underestimate: website, signage, vehicles, uniforms, packaging, templates and every third-party profile can run six months beyond the launch. Ask for a rollout plan with owners against each item before you sign, not after the identity is approved.

Only if the contract says so, and it frequently does not by default. Under UK law the designer owns copyright in commissioned work unless it is assigned in writing. You want a full assignment of intellectual property on final payment, covering the logo, the identity system and the source files. Watch two things specifically: fonts are licensed, not owned, and the licence is usually yours to buy and maintain; and stock photography or illustration may carry usage limits that expire.

A studio gives you better design and a sharper strategic argument, from people who do this and nothing else. A full-service agency gives you rollout capacity, so the identity actually reaches the website, the campaigns and the channels without a second procurement round. The common failure is buying a beautiful identity from a studio and having nobody to implement it, so it sits in a folder. Decide which half is your real constraint before you shortlist.

When the actual problem is distribution, pricing, product or sales. A rebrand is frequently bought because growth has stalled and the brand is the most visible thing to change, which makes it an expensive way to avoid a harder conversation. Also avoid rebranding while a merger or a funding round is unresolved, because the answer will change. If you have real brand equity, a refresh that keeps recognition usually beats a reinvention that discards it.