WHY SPADE FOR BRANDING
Brand and website built by the same team
Most branding agencies hand over a logo file and a style guide, then you hire someone else to build the website and hope it matches. We do both, because a brand only matters where buyers meet it: your website, your Google listing, your trucks, your signage and your reviews. Matthew leads every brand project personally.
Spade Design offers the highest quality available when it comes to web design and social media. This is an amazing group of people....they go above and beyond when it comes to getting the job done!
RECENT WORK
Brands and sites you can click through
Work for businesses we have branded and built for. Click any one for the full project.
Brand Strategy and Identity
A brand has one job: help the right buyer trust you faster
Branding gets sold as color palettes and mood boards. Those are the output. The point is what happens in the few seconds when someone compares you with two competitors and decides who to call. A strong brand makes that decision easy, and it lets you charge what your work is actually worth.
OUR APPROACH
How we think about branding
A brand is not a logo. It is the set of decisions that makes a business recognizable and hard to substitute: what you stand for, who you are for, how you sound, and what you look like everywhere someone encounters you.
What a branding engagement includes
- Positioning. Who you serve, what you do better than the alternatives, and what you deliberately are not.
- Messaging. The words: what you lead with, how you describe the work, the language that makes the right customer feel understood.
- Identity. Logo system, color, typography, and how they behave across print, web, vehicle, sign and screen.
- Guidelines. Written rules so the brand survives contact with other people, including the next designer and the sign shop.
Why positioning comes first
Most rebrands that disappoint started at the logo. A new mark on unchanged positioning is a coat of paint, and it does not change who calls or what they expect to pay. When the positioning is right, the design decisions get easier and the whole thing holds together.
Built to last, not to trend
We think about brand the way a maker thinks about a well-built object: honest construction, finished on the inside, built to outlive the trend cycle. A brand you have to redo in three years was not a brand, it was a style choice.
Who this is for
Founders at day zero who need to look credible before they have proof. Established businesses whose identity no longer matches the work they do now. Companies that have grown past the logo someone’s cousin made, and firms entering a market where the incumbents all look the same.
Brand and website together
Brand work and the website are best done together, because the site is where most people meet the brand first. Our launch packages include identity work, and relaunch often includes a brand refresh when the existing identity is the thing holding the company back.
What you walk away with
Positioning and messaging documented, a logo system with the files you will actually need, color and type specifications, usage guidelines, and a brand that a stranger can apply correctly without calling us.
Let’s talk
Book a call and tell us what your brand is failing to do right now.
How to tell if your brand is the problem
Not every business needs a rebrand. Plenty need a better website, sharper messaging or more reviews, and a new logo would not fix any of it. These are the signs the brand itself is holding you back:
- You compete on price because buyers cannot tell you apart. If your site, truck and proposal look like every other firm in town, the only thing left to compare is the number.
- Your best clients came through referral, and strangers do not convert. People who already trust you forgive weak branding. People who do not know you judge it in seconds.
- The business changed and the brand did not. You moved upmarket, added a practice area, or grew from one location to three, but the identity still reads like year one.
- Nobody on your team can say what makes you different in one sentence. If your own people cannot, your website cannot either.
What a brand system includes
A logo is one piece. The system is what keeps every page, sign, email and social post consistent without you policing it. A full Spade brand system covers positioning and messaging, the primary logo and its variations, a color palette with exact values for screen and print, typography for headings and body, photography and image direction, and written usage rules your team and vendors can follow. We design it all with the website in mind, so the brand works in the place most buyers meet it first.
Branding for regulated and trust-heavy industries
Law firms, dental and medical practices, and contractors share one problem: the buyer is nervous and cannot judge the actual work before hiring. The brand has to signal competence and calm before a single conversation. For law firms, that means respecting the advertising rules in your state bar while still sounding like a person. For practices, it means warmth without looking cheap. For contractors, it means looking established enough to trust with a roof or a renovation. We have built brands for all three, and you can see the work in our projects.
What happens after the brand is done
Most brand projects end with a PDF and a folder of files. Ours flow straight into the website build, because we design both. That removes the most common failure we see: a strong identity that falls apart the moment a different vendor builds the site. If you start with the Launch path, the Brand Blueprint becomes the foundation of the build, and its fee is credited against it.
WHAT A BRAND HAS TO DO
The four parts of a brand that works
A brand is more than a logo. These are the pieces we build, in this order.
- A clear position: Who you are for, what you do better than anyone nearby and why a buyer should believe it.
- A name and mark people remember: Distinct from competitors, easy to say on the phone and readable on a phone screen, a truck door and a Google listing.
- A voice that sounds like a person: How the business talks on the site, in emails and when replying to reviews. Plain and confident beats corporate.
- A system, not a file: Colors, type, photography direction and templates so the brand looks the same everywhere without calling a designer for every flyer.
Branding in the markets we know
We have built brands for businesses in Dallas, Tyler, New Orleans, Houston and Baton Rouge, and for clients in Costa Rica, El Salvador and Italy. In 2016 we helped the City of Tyler with branding for its Wine Swirl event, and more recently a New Orleans makeup artist moved from an old studio name to a brand built around her own.
Starting a new business? See how Launch takes you from name to live website.
WHAT IT COSTS
Where brand projects start
Most brand work starts with a $2,500 Brand Blueprint: research, positioning, naming direction and visual direction. It is credited in full against a Launch build if you move forward within 90 days. Full brand and website builds through Launch start at $12,000.
What Clients Say
I have worked with Spade Design on multiple occasions in the past. They have always been fast to complete the work I requested of them and they are always giving great incite on things I don’t even use them for. I would give 6 stars if I could.
Jarred Hamilton, Trustpilot review
WHAT A BRAND PROJECT INCLUDES
Research on your buyers and competitors, positioning, naming support when needed, logo and mark, color and type system, voice and messaging guidelines, photography direction and templates. Then the website, Google Business Profile and signage carry it into the world. See also logo design.
We build for businesses across Texas, Louisiana and beyond, with dedicated pages for Dallas, Tyler, New Orleans, Houston and Baton Rouge.
FAQS
Questions about branding
Straight answers before you book a call. If yours isn’t here, ask us directly.
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Brand work starts with a $2,500 Brand Blueprint, credited against a Launch build within 90 days. Full brand and website builds start at $12,000.
Most take four to six weeks from research to final identity, then rollout to the website and profiles follows.
Yes. We check domains and social handles before anything gets presented.
When the business has outgrown its name, buyers confuse you with a competitor, or the brand makes you look smaller than you are. If the real problem is that nobody finds you, better search will help more than a rebrand.
Not if it is handled properly. We update your Business Profile, redirect any old domain and keep your reviews connected.
Yes. Logo files, color and type specs and templates are yours to use.
Yes, though it works best as part of a full brand. See logo design.