A brand identity that ships as a working system, not a PDF
Corporate brand identity design is the work of fixing your logo set, colour, typography, spacing and usage rules — and then delivering them as a design token file your web team can import. You receive the guideline document and the code that enforces it.
Who owns the brand system once the website is built?
Nobody, in most projects. The studio hands over a PDF, the web team retypes the values by eye, and the two versions drift apart within a year. We treat the identity and its code representation as one deliverable, so the rules that are written are the rules that ship.
| Responsibility | Design studio | Web or software agency | Baki Bilisim |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who converts approved colour and type decisions into a design token file? | Not covered | Partly | Covered |
| Who verifies every brand colour pair against WCAG 2.1 AA contrast before it is approved? | Not covered | Partly | Covered |
| Who keeps print, website and app reading the same brand values a year later? | Not covered | Not covered | Covered |
The split is structural rather than a matter of talent: a studio is commissioned for artefacts, an agency for a build. Nobody is contracted for the layer in between. Read how we close that gap and what we publish as evidence.
What does an identity that lives only in a PDF actually cost?
It costs consistency and rework. A guideline PDF cannot be imported by a browser, so every new page, dealer flyer and app screen re-enters the values manually. Each manual entry is a chance to pick the wrong red, break contrast, or ship a logo at an unapproved size.
The failure is rarely dramatic. It looks like this: the catalogue cover uses the printed brand colour, the website uses a hex value someone sampled from a JPEG, and the mobile app uses a third value that a developer picked because the first two looked wrong on an OLED screen. Three departments each believe they are on-brand.
The second cost is accessibility. Brand colours are usually chosen on a large white presentation slide, where almost anything reads well. The same colour then has to work as a 15 px label, as a button fill, and on a dark background. If nobody measured the contrast at approval time, the problem is discovered by an accessibility audit years later, after it has been printed on a thousand items.
The minimum contrast ratio WCAG 2.1 requires between normal-size text and its background — a threshold a brand palette either meets or does not.
Source: W3C — Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Success Criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) · Accessed 2026-07-29 · w3.org (opens in a new tab)
The third cost is time. Every review meeting that begins with “which red is the correct one?” is a meeting the token file would have prevented. See the glossary definition of a design token.
What exactly is delivered in a corporate brand identity project?
Nine deliverables: a logo system, a contrast-checked colour system, a typography system with licence notes, a spacing and motion scale, iconography rules, a token file with matching Figma variables, written usage guidelines, print and office templates, and — where there are subsidiaries — a brand architecture map.
| # | Deliverable | Format | Delivered in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Logo system: horizontal and vertical lockup, monogram, single-colour and inverse versions, clear space and minimum sizes | SVG, PDF, PNG | Phase 2 |
| 02 | Colour system with a contrast matrix for light and dark surfaces, plus print equivalents | Token file, PDF table | Phase 2 |
| 03 | Typography system: families, weights, type scale, and a licence note per channel (web, app, print, office) | woff2 subset, specimen PDF | Phase 2 |
| 04 | Spacing, radius, border and motion scale — the rules that make layouts recognisable without a logo | Token file | Phase 3 |
| 05 | Iconography rules and a starter set drawn on one grid with one stroke weight | SVG sprite | Phase 3 |
| 06 | tokens.css plus Figma variables using identical names on both sides |
CSS, Figma library | Phase 3 |
| 07 | Usage guidelines: what is fixed, what is flexible, what is forbidden, with correct and incorrect examples | Web page and PDF | Phase 4 |
| 08 | Print and office templates: letterhead, business card, presentation, signage sheet, catalogue cover | Source files and PDF | Phase 4 |
| 09 | Brand architecture map: group, subsidiary and product naming, and which entity may use which mark | Diagram and written rules | Phase 4, where subsidiaries exist |
What does a delivered token file look like?
It looks like the file this page is rendered from. Each value is named once, carries its measured contrast ratio as a comment, and is referenced everywhere else — so no screen contains a loose hex code.
:root{
--ink-900:#1C1E1C; /* logo anthracite — body text, 16.2:1 on paper */
--red-700:#861619; /* logo red — primary action, 9.5:1 on paper */
--red-300:#E4595C; /* dark-theme accent, 5.3:1 on ink-950 */
--paper:#FBFBFA; /* page background */
}
:root[data-theme="dark"]{
--text:#EEF0EF; /* 16.4:1 */
--accent:var(--red-300);
--accent-solid:#A81D21; /* white text on it: 7.3:1 */
}We do not publish client identity work, so the only identity system we can show in full is the one this site is built from — including its measured contrast ratios. See the measured scores for this site.
How is the identity system built, step by step?
In five phases over five to seven weeks: audit and inventory, core system, token layer, guidelines and applications, then handover. Each phase closes on a named deliverable and a check anyone can repeat — not on a subjective approval meeting. The client contact and the decision maker are named at the start.
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Audit and inventory
We collect every place the brand currently appears: website, app, catalogues, signage, dealer material, templates and social profiles. Then we extract the colour values and fonts actually in use and measure their contrast. The output is a list of conflicts, not an opinion.
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Core system
We fix the load-bearing decisions: logo system, colour system and typography. Every colour pair is checked against WCAG 2.1 AA before approval, so a colour that fails on a button never enters the palette in the first place.
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Token layer
We translate the approved decisions into named values: a CSS token file plus Figma variables that use identical names. From this point a designer and a developer refer to the same token instead of to two similar values.
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Guidelines and applications
We write the rules that govern reproduction and prove them on real material: letterhead, business card, presentation, signage sheet, catalogue cover and social templates — plus the brand architecture map where subsidiaries or product lines exist.
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Handover and enforcement
We hand over source files, tokens and licences, then agree who may change what, how a new application is approved, and when the system is reviewed. Without this phase a guideline decays into a folder nobody opens.
The same phase logic, contract terms and exit conditions apply to every engagement. Read the full working model, including what happens if you stop the project.
How do you know the identity work is finished and correct?
Six acceptance criteria, all of them repeatable by someone else: text contrast at or above 4.5:1, non-text contrast at or above 3:1, zero colour values in the codebase that are not tokens, legibility at the smallest defined size, both themes passing, and a written font licence for every channel.
| Criterion | Threshold | Measured with |
|---|---|---|
| Text contrast, for every approved text and background pair | ≥ 4.5:1 | Contrast calculation against WCAG 2.1 SC 1.4.3 |
| Non-text contrast: UI boundaries, icons, form borders, focus rings | ≥ 3:1 | Contrast calculation against WCAG 2.1 SC 1.4.11 |
| Token–code match: no colour, size or spacing value outside the token file | 0 loose values | Repository search on the delivered code base |
| Logo legibility at the smallest size defined in the guideline | Monogram readable at the stated pixel and millimetre minimums | Screen test plus a printed proof |
| Light and dark rendering of every brand surface | Both themes meet the two contrast thresholds | Same contrast calculation, run per theme |
| Font licence coverage for web, app, print and office use | Written licence for each channel in use | Licence documents collected in the handover archive |
These criteria are written into the proposal before the work starts, so acceptance is a check rather than a negotiation. The same contrast thresholds are enforced on any site we build — see the acceptance criteria for corporate website delivery.
Which companies need a token-level identity most?
Companies whose brand is applied by people they do not employ. A factory with a distributor network, a retail chain with store teams, a franchise system, an exporter with foreign agents, a holding with subsidiaries: in each case the brand is reproduced far from head office, so the rules must travel as files.
- 01 Manufacturing and factories Technical datasheets, catalogues and exhibition material are produced by different suppliers in different years; without a token file each one re-invents the typography.
- 02 Retail chains Store signage, seasonal campaigns and the mobile app change on different cycles, so the brand only holds if every cycle reads from the same source of values.
- 03 Franchise networks Franchisees produce local material with local printers; a guideline that states what is fixed and what is flexible prevents both brand drift and constant approval requests.
- 04 Export industry Foreign agents and distributors present your brand to buyers who have never met you; a bilingual guideline and template set is what keeps that presentation consistent.
- 05 Corporate holdings Brand architecture decides how far a subsidiary may go on its own; without it, every acquisition adds another visual language to the group.
What do buyers ask before commissioning identity work?
Seven questions come up in almost every identity conversation: what is included, why a guideline is needed, when a rebrand is justified, whether the existing logo survives, what a design token saves, whether identity precedes the website, and how international delivery works. Direct answers follow.
What does a corporate identity include?
A corporate identity includes the logo system, colour system, typography, spacing and layout rules, iconography, application templates and the written rules that govern all of them. In a token-based delivery it also includes the machine-readable version: a CSS token file and matching Figma variables, so designers and developers use the same values.
Why is a brand guideline necessary?
A guideline is necessary because most brand material is produced by people outside the design team: agencies, printers, dealers, distributors and internal staff. Without a written rule set, each of them decides alone. The guideline replaces those decisions with defaults, and the token file makes the defaults automatic in digital channels.
When is a rebrand justified, and when is it not?
A rebrand is justified when the company's structure or market has changed: a merger, a new business line, a shift from domestic to export sales, or a name that no longer matches what is sold. It is not justified when the real problem is inconsistent application. In that case a system, not a new logo, is the fix.
Can my existing logo be kept?
Usually yes. If the mark is recognisable and registered, replacing it discards accumulated recognition for no gain. More often we redraw it cleanly as vector, define minimum sizes and clear space, add single-colour and inverse versions, and build the system around it. Our own logo was kept and redrawn on exactly that basis.
What is a design token and what does it save me?
A design token is a named value — a colour, a size, a spacing step — stored once and referenced everywhere instead of being retyped. It saves the review cycle: when a value changes it changes in one file and every screen follows. It also removes the error class where two teams use two slightly different reds.
Should identity work happen before the website?
Ideally yes, because the website consumes the identity's token file; building the site first means rebuilding parts of it later. When the timeline does not allow it, the two run in parallel and the colour and typography decisions are locked in the first two weeks, so the build starts against a stable token file.
Do you work with companies outside Turkey, and in which languages are guidelines delivered?
Yes. We work with companies based outside Turkey and with the foreign subsidiaries of Turkish exporters. Guidelines are delivered in Turkish, English or both; the token file itself is language-neutral. Meetings and written reviews run in either language, and contracts are handled from our office in İzmit, Kocaeli.
See the measured state of your website within five working days.
The audit is free and creates no obligation to work with us. The report itemises findings on AEO answerability, AI crawler access, lab-measured Core Web Vitals, structured data validity and accessibility (automated scan); that scan also measures the contrast ratio of text on the scanned pages.
We work with corporate-scale, multi-location or multilingual organisations. A single logo or a one-off poster falls outside our scope; in that case we point you to smaller studios that do it well.