A brand you can see from the street
I built the company's first brand in 2019, then carried it into everything people actually see: signs on buildings, emails, the website and printed pieces. In 2026 I led a full refresh with an outside studio. Along the way I designed and hand-made the property signs myself.
The problem
In 2019 the company had no visual identity, and nothing on a building said who managed it. Owners and tenants had no consistent way to recognise us.
Constraints
Small budget
Signs and collateral had to be affordable to make and replace.
Many hands
Others would install signs and create content, so the system had to be easy to follow.
Brand must travel
The same look had to work on a building, a phone, a website and a printed guide.
Key decisions
Build the brand system once.
With a freelance designer I developed the emblem, logo set and colour palette over five months, then a library of icons, patterns and templates anyone could use.
Make the signs ourselves.
I designed the property plaques and cut the lettering on a Cricut, mounted on rigid blanks. That kept them affordable and consistent.
Track every sign as data.
I built a signage table in Airtable in Nov 2019 and wrote the signage procedure, so the team always knew which property had which sign.
Refresh with a partner, deliver in house.
In 2026 I led a refresh with a studio (strategy, fonts, illustrations) and then carried it into Canva, the website, email and the monthly deck myself.
How it works
Sample signs
A few of the signs I designed. The property plaques were cut from vinyl by hand and installed at the buildings themselves.
Outcome
- About 120 signs designed, made and placed by hand.
- Google reviews grew from 24 to 215.
- A sub-brand for leasing, a property photo library, business cards, an e-book, headshots and a property investor's guide.
- Built tools so others could stay on brand: an Instagram post generator and an icon generator.
What I'd do differently
- Write down the brand rules as a short guide in 2019, not just the files. The refresh would have been faster with a record of why each choice was made.