FAQ

Branding, Agencies and Choosing the Right Partner

What does a branding agency actually do?

A branding agency helps define how a business is perceived, experienced and remembered. This goes beyond visual identity.

Branding includes positioning, audience understanding, narrative, systems and behaviours that shape how a brand shows up over time. At its best, branding creates clarity, credibility and long-term brand value.

What makes a branding agency good?

A good branding agency does more than produce strong creative work. It should understand the commercial and cultural context behind the brief, make clear strategic decisions, and build systems that hold up as the business grows.

The strongest agencies connect brand thinking directly to behaviour, relevance and performance.

How do I choose the right branding agency?

Look beyond aesthetics. The right agency will ask sharper questions than you expect, challenge assumptions rather than defaulting to what is familiar, and speak clearly about outcomes, not just deliverables.

You should feel confident they understand your ambition, your audience and the cultural space you operate in.

Is branding just about logos and visual identity?

No. Visual identity is one expression of a brand, not the brand itself.

Branding also includes strategic positioning, audience and cultural insight, narrative and tone of voice, and systems that guide behaviour across touchpoints. Without strategy, even the strongest identity rarely delivers lasting value.

How long does a branding project take?

It depends on the scope and ambition of the work.

Strategic brand projects typically run from several weeks to a few months. More complex engagements, involving multiple markets, platforms or phases of rollout, can take longer. A good agency will adapt its approach to the realities of the business rather than force a one-size-fits-all timeline.

How much does branding cost?

Branding is an investment, not a commodity.

Costs vary based on the depth of strategy, complexity of the system and scale of application. Serious branding work reflects the level of thinking, collaboration and long-term value involved. A clear agency will always be transparent about scope, cost and expectations.

Is branding important for growth?

Yes. Strong brands are chosen more easily, remembered more clearly, and can scale without losing meaning.

Branding plays a critical role in building trust, preference and long-term commercial advantage.

Do branding agencies specialise by industry?

Some do. Others don’t.

Many of the strongest agencies specialise in moments of change, when a business needs to reposition, scale, enter a new category or redefine how it shows up in culture. These moments require judgement, clarity and cultural understanding as much as category familiarity.

Read about our approach to building brands

Why Studio NARI

What makes Studio NARI different from other branding agencies?

Studio NARI builds brands from emotional truth, not surface expression.

We believe brands succeed when they behave credibly and feel authentic to the people they’re trying to reach. That requires deep insight, cultural understanding and strategic judgement, not just creative instinct.

Our work is designed to help brands remain coherent, culturally relevant and human as they grow.

How does Studio NARI approach strategy?

We don’t treat feeling as intuition without rigour.

For us, emotional clarity is the outcome of insight, cultural context and strategic judgement. It’s how brands earn trust, preference and loyalty over time. Strategy at NARI is about defining how a brand should behave in the world, not just what it should say.

What types of clients does Studio NARI work best with?

We do our best work with organisations at a point of real transition or ambition.

This often includes repositioning or redefining a brand, scaling into new markets or audiences, building a category-defining presence, or establishing credibility in a crowded or sceptical market.

These are moments where brand decisions have lasting consequences.

Do you work with startups or established brands?

Both. We work with startups, scale-ups and established organisations. What matters most is ambition and readiness to engage in meaningful strategic thinking.

Do you only work with clients in London?

No. While we’re based in London, we work internationally across markets, cultures and time zones.

How do I start a project with Studio NARI?

We usually begin with a conversation. That allows us to understand your business context and ambition, where you are experiencing friction or opportunity, and whether we are the right partner for the challenge.

From there, we’ll advise on the most appropriate way forward.