Branding
Branding and identity design in Kuala Lumpur.
Most people mean a logo when they say branding. A logo is the part you can point at — the work is everything that has to stay consistent around it: the typography, the colour, the way a headline is set, and whether all of it still holds up on a business card, a product package and a signboard as well as on screen. We design identities and the graphic work that carries them, for businesses in Malaysia.
Brand identity
An identity starts with the requirements rather than with a sketch. What the business does, who it is talking to, where the brand will actually appear — a company whose logo will mostly be seen at 24 pixels in a browser tab needs different decisions from one whose will be cut into a signboard.
What gets handed over depends on what the project needs. Usually that is the logo in the formats you will actually use, the colour and typography the brand holds to, and enough guidance to apply them without us. We will advise on tone of voice where it affects the design, but we do not write it as a separate deliverable.
Graphic design and collateral
Identity work that exists for one moment rather than forever: a launch, an annual event, a campaign. It still has to look like the organisation it belongs to, which is the part that is usually missed.
We have done this for corporate events — REA Asia Group's internal innovation hackathon and iProperty Malaysia's annual kick-off both needed a full set of graphics, promotional collateral and merchandise developed with the organising committee — and for product launches, where Kingsoft's entry into Malaysia needed a localised print identity across its whole product range.
Still a real part of the work, and worth being specific about because most studios have quietly stopped. An annual report, a Chinese New Year red packet, a custom Touch 'n Go card, product packaging, signage — all of it designed to the print specifications the production actually requires rather than exported and hoped for.
Where the line sits: we design, you print. We do not take on the print job itself. If you do not already have a printer we will recommend a few who can handle the specification, and we will prepare the artwork so that whoever you choose can run it without coming back with questions.
What we do not do
Naming, and brand strategy workshops. Both are real disciplines and neither is ours, so a project that needs them needs somebody else for that part.
Packaging engineering — the structural design of a box or container — is also outside what we take, though we design the artwork that goes on it.
Who this is for
Businesses in Malaysia, usually at a point where the identity has to do something specific: a company whose website and identity are being built at the same time, a product entering the market, or an event that needs to look like it belongs to the organisation running it.
We do not take unpaid work, or projects offered in exchange for exposure. We also do not publish fixed prices, because the cost depends on what the work has to cover. Tell us the budget you have and we will tell you honestly what it covers, and what it does not.
Work
Capimon
CAPIMON
An application service that needed a distinct identity to position the product, built with the lead developer — the clearest example of identity work taken on its own rather than alongside a website.
Kingsoft Malaysia
Kingsoft Malaysia Launching
A global software developer entering the Malaysian market, needing a localised print identity across its product range. Executed with the local master distributor, through to print production.
Systech Bhd
Systech Bhd 2014 Annual Report
A corporate annual report — financial performance, milestones and strategic direction set as a publication. The print work with the least room for approximation.
SysArmy
SysArmy
A Malaysian cybersecurity company where the identity and the website were designed together, which is how most of this work arrives.