Why Every Brand Needs a Story Before It Needs a Logo

Most brands start with a logo. I think that’s backward, and I said so on stage at Circles.

The room was full of designers, and I stood in a spot where I once sat in the crowd as a new hire. I told them one thing. Build the story first, then build the look. Here’s what I shared, and why I believe it.

The Oldest Pattern in Storytelling

Every culture tells the same story. Some of you know it as the hero’s journey. You have a character. A loss or a threat sends that character out on a path. A guide shows up along the way. The character beats the conflict and comes home changed.

I shrink it to four beats. Character, conflict, guide, conclusion.

Take The Odyssey. Odysseus wants to get home to his wife and his son. Poseidon, the god he angered, keeps wrecking his trip. Athena guides him out of one jam after another, and he finally makes it back.

Now jump ahead about three thousand years to a galaxy far, far away. Luke Skywalker starts as a nobody on a desert planet. The Empire destroys his farm and kills his aunt and uncle. Ben Kenobi becomes his guide and teaches him the Force. Luke destroys the Death Star.

You can run the same check on Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games. Once you see the pattern, you can’t unsee it.

Where My Story Starts

I’ve lived inside that pattern my whole life. As a kid, I told stories at the dinner table with my mom. I grabbed a stick in the woods and became a wizard or an elf, whatever the story needed. Lego and Bionicle gave me a canvas for huge battles and long sagas between my action figures.

Then came a creative writing assignment I was excited about. I wrote a character who stood apart from every other character in my story, and I handed it in with pride. It came back covered in red ink. Every time I’d written “’cause” instead of “because,” my teacher marked it as a spelling mistake.

That lesson was probably not the one my teacher meant to teach. It dampened my creative spark in school. I kept doodling on my assignments, but I stopped believing creativity had a place there. I took AP Art in high school and painted and drew a lot, yet a gap remained. I didn’t believe my ability could do anything for the world.

How I Found Logos, and Then Found More

I took the reasonable route and studied business management. Most of those classes didn’t feel right. Then I took marketing, and the spark came back. In every case study, I was the one who named the business, designed it, and drew the logo. My first one was for the Goat Cafe, a business simulation where we wanted to be the greatest of all time. I’m pretty sure I made that logo in PowerPoint.

That led me to graphic design. I taught myself over the summers of my last years in college, took on logos for a few bucks here and there, and grew into full logo suites and visual guides. Then I landed a job at an agency, and it finally felt like a calling.

In my first months there, I attended Circles for the first time. A speaker talked about logo design, and I was hooked. I went to my boss and said I wanted to be the best logo designer in the world.

I loved the craft. One logo for a brand called Hercules grew out of the hero’s original name, Alcides, and I built the emblem from the Hercules knot. That project showed me what happens when you join storytelling with visual design. Another project took seventy-two logo concepts for a single brand. That’s a lot of reps.

But the more I worked, the clearer it got. A brand goes far beyond a logo.

The Brand Identity Pyramid

So I built a framework. I call it the Brand Identity Pyramid, and it keeps my team locked on the story. It has four layers. You build from the bottom up.

1. Strategy. This is your base. I break it into three Ps. Position is where you sit in the market. People are the ones you serve. Purpose is the reason you exist.
2. Identity narrative. This is where the story comes alive, through three Cs. Character, conflict, and conclusion.
3. Verbal identity. How your brand sounds. Tone of voice, name, and slogans live here.
4. Visual identity. How your brand looks. Logo, color, type, imagery, patterns, motion, and sound.

Here’s the key to the narrative layer. In your brand’s story, the customer is the hero and your brand is the guide. Think Athena. Think Ben Kenobi. Your customer is Luke Skywalker, and you hand them the lightsaber. Your job is to help the hero win.

Case Study, Quip

Quip began with a group of entrepreneurs who wanted a drink for what we called the pleasant high performer. These people work hard at the office and in the gym, on the golf course, or on the pickleball court. They wanted one drink for the workout and the same drink to enjoy at the end of the day.

For position, we studied the alternative soda space, where Olipop and Poppi lead. Nearly every brand there had a feminine feel, and none spoke to a masculine audience. We saw an opening.

Naming took a couple of weeks. We tried mythological, space, funny, and serious themes, with names like Gambit, Morph, Fusion, and Riff. Each one pointed to a combination of performance and pleasure. We landed on Quip.

The character came from the jester, the one person who can critique the king and live to tell the tale. A quirky, funny brand fit that role. Punny flavor names followed, including Berry the Hatchet, Beach Please, and Hannibal Nectar. Then we built a label system that could hold its own on a crowded shelf.

Look at how it maps to the pyramid. Position was a masculine brand in alternative soda. People were the pleasant high performers. Purpose was a drink that blends enjoyment with performance. The narrative was the jester. The verbal identity was the name and the flavor puns. The visual identity came last. Each layer stood on the one below it.

Case Study, Credence Genomics

Credence Genomics reads pathogens in DNA. Their purpose is to remove uncertainty for doctors so they can diagnose with confidence. They were moving from Southeast Asia into Europe and the US, so their position was growing and their brand had to grow with it.

Their people are doctors who face diagnostic uncertainty and want to trust their own judgment. Their story uses DNA sequencing and machine learning to turn DNA into readable, reliable data. Look at who the hero is. It’s the doctor. Credence is the guide.

The verbal identity gave us a clear tone of voice and a tagline that sums up the story, “Eliminating doubt, elevating care.” I like to put tone of voice in a table, because brand guides leave a lot of gray area and a table makes the rules black and white.

The new logo mark combines three symbols. A pentagon represents the five protein complexes they track. A shield adds protection. A bullseye stands for pathogen detection. For the visual identity, we chose a glass DNA style so Credence wouldn’t look like every other life science brand.

Build From the Ground Up

Most people hyper focus on the visuals. They walk in and say they need a new logo. My first question is always the same. What story are you telling?

Build strategy and narrative first. Purpose, people, and position give you direction, a plan, and a clear sense of who you are. Character, conflict, and conclusion turn that direction into a story. Verbal and visual identity come after, and every piece of them should answer one question. What’s the story?

Tell a Story

I closed the talk with a clip of me as a kid, telling a story at the dinner table. Some things never change.

So here’s my challenge to you. Make the shift. Put brand at the center of your business, your marketing, and your design. It’s a huge opportunity, even in the age of AI, and AI will be the hot topic everywhere you go. Tell a story anyway. Creativity matters now more than ever.

If you’re ready to build the story behind your business, explore our brand strategy work.

Frequently Asked Questions About Brand Storytelling