Your business has outgrown your brand.
Let's fix that.
I work with one type of client: founders who've built something real but whose brand still looks like day one. I'm Michael. I bring the strategy and the design. No handoffs. No account managers. You get consistent thinking, from first conversation to final result.
Braeface is a brand strategy and identity design studio based in Scotland, working with scaling founders who've outgrown their early branding.
Founded by Michael Barlow, a brand strategist and identity designer with over 20 years of experience, the studio offers brand strategy, brand identity, and brand clarity sessions, all designed to give founders the positioning, visual system, and confidence their business needs.
You built the business.
But the brand got left behind.
You started fast. You picked a name, made a logo in Canva, chose some colours that felt right, and got on with the hard work of actually building a business.
And it worked. Revenue grew. You hired people. You started winning bigger deals.
But now something feels off.
Every time you send a proposal, update your website, or hand someone a business card, there's a hesitation. A quiet sense that what people see doesn't match what you've built.
You're second-guessing your own brand.
That uncertainty is costing you more than you think - in the clients you're not converting, the talent that scrolls past, and the confidence you're leaving in the room.
The brand that got you here, won't get you there.
What changes when the brand is right.
You stop explaining yourself and start being understood. The pitch lands differently. The proposal doesn't need defending. You walk into the room already positioned.
Your team stops improvising and starts amplifying. New hires get it on day one. Existing people feel it too.
The right clients find you. The wrong ones self-select out. That alone changes everything about how you spend your time.
This is what brand strategy actually does. Not the logo. The whole system working.
Two ways in.
One way of working.
Every point is built around your business, not a template. Choose the depth that fits where you are right now.
Get clear on who you are before you spend a penny on how it looks.
Brand strategy document
Positioning & messaging framework
Competitive landscape analysis
Visual direction recommendations
Where strategy becomes something you can see.
Everything in Brand Strategy
Logo design & visual identity system
Typography & colour system
Brand guidelines document
Core brand collateral
30-day post-delivery support
The work speaks.
But I'll add context.
20 years of making brands mean something.
I'm Michael. I run Braeface from Scotland and I work with founders across the UK and beyond.
I'm not an agency. I'm not a logo mill. I work directly with founders because that's where the thinking gets sharpest, no briefing chains, no account managers interpreting your vision before it reaches the person doing the work.
When a project needs specialist skill beyond my own, motion, development, copywriting, I bring in trusted collaborators. But you always work with me. I'm the thinking, the strategy, and the creative direction.
Over two decades, I've learned that the best brands aren't the loudest. They're the clearest. My job is to make yours unmistakably clear.
What clients say...
Alastair
CEO, flinder
