Services
A brand identity, drawn rather than generated
Brand identity design is the work of giving an organisation a mark, a typeface, a palette and the written rules that hold them together everywhere they appear. At ShepherdUX one person draws that by hand rather than generating or licensing it, starting at USD 1,800 for a mark and system and USD 4,500 to 9,000 for a full identity. The rights transfer to you outright on final payment.
- What it is
- A drawn mark, and the type, colour and pattern system that holds it together
- Who it is for
- Museums, hotels, heritage brands, foundations, authors and founders naming something new
- Where it starts
- USD 1,800 for a mark and system, 4,500 for a full identity
- Turnaround
- A written reply usually inside a day, a fixed written quote after one short call
What it is
A brand identity is the mark an organisation is recognised by and the system that keeps it consistent everywhere it appears: the typefaces, the colours, the patterns, and the written rules that say which of them to use when.
Drawn rather than generated is a description of the method, not a slogan. Every mark here starts in pencil, as four or five routes on paper, and the one that survives is redrawn as vector curves by hand, node by node, at the size it will actually be seen. Nothing is picked from a marketplace of ready-made logos, and nothing is generated and tidied.
The system is the part people underestimate. A mark on its own survives about a fortnight before somebody stretches it or sets a headline in whatever the office computer had. So the deliverable is a set: the lockups, one typeface pairing with real licences named, a palette with values for screen and for print, and a use guide short enough that the person who joins next year will read it.
Who it is for
Buyers are usually one of four kinds. An organisation with a story older than its logo: museums and galleries, foundations and charities, societies and trusts, heritage brands whose current mark was drawn in a hurry in the nineties. A business where the identity is the product: hotels, wineries, restaurants, small luxury goods, where the label is the thing the customer holds. A person who is the brand: authors, musicians, architects, consultants. And founders naming something that does not exist yet.
A good number of enquiries come from people searching for a branding agency in their own city, in London or Toronto or Dubai, and finding this instead. There is no office to visit and no account manager to call. What replaces both is that everything is written down, and the person who draws the mark answers the email. Clients are mostly in the Gulf, Europe, the United Kingdom and North America, and the work runs in English across time zones.
What it costs
Three rungs, published so you can rank this studio against others before you write to anyone. What moves a project up a rung is how much drawing it needs: a mark with a clean type pairing at the bottom, an illustrated system in the middle, custom lettering at the top.
| Rung | Price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Mark and system | from USD 1,800 (about AED 6,600) | A drawn mark, one typeface pairing, a palette, a two-page use guide, files in every format you will be asked for, and the rights assigned to you. |
| Full identity | from USD 4,500, typically to 9,000 (about AED 16,500) | The mark, an illustrated system of patterns and motifs, full written guidelines, and the templates the work is used in: cards, decks, signage, social. |
| Heritage and luxury | from USD 9,000 (about AED 33,000) | Custom lettering rather than a licensed face, an illustration suite, bilingual Arabic and Latin lockups where the work needs them, and print specifications. |
USD is the anchor on every page, quote and invoice. The figure in parentheses is the same price in dirhams at the pegged rate of 3.6725 to the dollar, given as one local equivalent rather than a currency list, and correct as of 5 September 2026. Prices exclude any VAT, sales tax or withholding your own country applies to imported services.
Why it costs more than a contest
The honest comparison is the one buyers actually make. A logo contest on the large marketplaces runs from USD 249 to 1,050, and a packaged brand kit from the same platforms runs from USD 599 to 2,499. The floor here is USD 1,800, and that gap is worth answering before you spend either amount.
A contest buys volume: dozens of concepts from designers who will never read your board papers or learn why the founder is stubborn about the colour green. You choose from what arrives, and what arrives is shaped by what tends to win contests. This buys an author instead, who takes the brief, draws a small number of routes, commits to one, writes the rules, and assigns the rights in writing rather than leaving them in a platform's terms. If the pile of concepts is what you want, the marketplaces do that job properly.
Who owns the work
You do, outright, from final payment. The quote names the assignment before any drawing starts: the final mark, every lockup, the drawn system and the editable source files transfer to you with no licence period, no renewal, and no fee for using the work in a market nobody thought of at the time.
Two things do not transfer, and it is better to say which now. Typeface licences are bought in your own name rather than mine, so they stay valid whatever happens to this studio, and the quote names the family and the licence tier it assumes. And I keep the right to show the work in the portfolio, which you can remove in writing at any point, including before launch.
How it runs
- You write the brief in a sentence. The card below takes it. What is needed is the organisation, whether this is a new mark or a rebrand, and roughly when.
- I reply in writing, usually inside a day, naming the rung it sits on, what would move it, and anything in the brief that looks like a problem rather than a preference.
- One call, thirty minutes, then a fixed quote. The call is for the parts that do not survive being typed. The quote names the scope, the revisions and the exclusions.
- Pencil first, and you see the pencil. Four or five routes on paper, photographed and sent as they are. Choosing here is cheap. Later it is not.
- One route drawn out. The chosen direction is redrawn as vector curves, tested at signage size and at favicon size, and set against the type and palette in real use.
- Handover. The files, the source drawings, the written guide, the typeface licence details and the assignment of rights, in one package with an index.
What it has proved
Not yet, and this page is not going to pretend otherwise. There is no client identity anywhere on this site: no mark, no guidelines spread, no before and after. The portfolio shows websites, and the signs along the portfolio street carry each client's own existing logo, drawn by somebody else before the work here started, because that is what they arrived with.
What stands in its place is the identity you are looking at. The mark in the corner, the wordmark, the typeface pairing and the palette on this page were drawn and set here, and every route on this site is that system in use across illustration, interface and long-form text. That is a harder test than a page of a guidelines PDF, because a system that only works on its own presentation is not a system.
Be clear about what that does and does not prove. It shows the drawing, the consistency and the range. It does not show that a mark drawn here moved anybody's revenue, and no page on this site claims one. The marketplace comparison above stands in for a case study that does not exist.
Who it is not for
If you want thirty options by Friday for under a thousand dollars, this is the wrong studio and the marketplaces are the right one. The same goes if you want a logo alone, with no system and no rules about what happens when the first person outside the room uses it.
It is also wrong for a brief that already knows the answer and wants a mark resembling the category leader's. Looking unlike your competitors is most of what an identity is for, and a project that starts by naming the brand it wants to be mistaken for ends in a redesign two years later, paid for twice.
Questions people ask before they write
Why is this six times what a design contest costs?
Because it is a different transaction. A contest at USD 249 to 1,050, or a brand pack at USD 599 to 2,499, buys concepts from people who will never speak to you, and the winner is the one that survived a lottery rather than a brief. This buys an author who reads the brief, argues with it, and is still reachable a year later.
Who owns the work?
You do, in full, from final payment. The quote carries the assignment in writing: the mark, the lockups, the drawn system and the source files transfer to you outright, with no licence period and no renewal. Typeface licences are the exception, because they are not mine to give, so you buy those in your own name.
Do I see more than one direction?
You see the pencil routes, usually four or five, and then one of them is drawn out properly. Three finished directions spends most of the budget on work that gets thrown away, and tends to produce a committee vote rather than a decision. The choosing happens early, on paper, where changing your mind is cheap.
Is a rebrand priced differently from a new brand?
It sits on the same rungs, and what moves it is how much has to be carried over. A rebrand keeping a name, a colour people recognise and printed materials still in circulation is often more work than a blank page, not less. The quote names what is kept and what is replaced.
Do you draw Arabic and Latin lockups?
Yes, at the heritage and luxury rung, where the lettering is drawn rather than set. A bilingual lockup is not a translated logo: the two scripts have different rhythms, baselines and ideas of weight, and making them sit together is drawing work. Say so in the brief, because it changes the rung.
Can I buy the identity without a website?
Yes. The layers are sold separately on purpose, and identity work here often goes on to be built by somebody else. The guidelines are written to be handed to another studio or a developer rather than to be readable only by me.
Sources
- Identity deliverables shown for clients on this site: none. ShepherdUX research note 07, section 1.3, September 2026, which audits what the portfolio pages and the street signs actually carry.
- Marketplace comparison prices, contests at USD 249 to 1,050 and brand packs at USD 599 to 2,499, ShepherdUX research note 18, finding 6, September 2026, from published platform rates.
- The client Search Console exports handed over on 28 August 2026, cited on the services hub, cover websites and search work, and are deliberately not quoted here: none of them measures an identity.
- United Arab Emirates dirham pegged at 3.6725 to the United States dollar, Central Bank of the UAE, rate as of 5 September 2026.