M01operated by an in-house team of two
1
Brand book
Case · Pumpt
Brand system · 2024
A brand book that holds its shape under operational pressure.
Pumpt needed a brand identity that could carry both a consumer-facing surface and a partner-facing one without splitting in half the moment the team scaled past three people.
fig. 01 — pumpt · brand system · 2024
01
The brief
Context, constraint, and the part that mattered.
The brief was a complete identity system plus the guidelines a small team could apply without our help. We treated the guidelines as the deliverable — the visual system was a means to that end. Every primitive was designed with a single, defensible reason; every exception was documented in advance; and the type system was held to four sizes across every surface so that consistency would not depend on taste. The result is a brand book that has survived the operational pressure of a real scale-up team without generating the slow, accumulating drift that brand systems usually accumulate in their second year.
02
Approach
What we did, in the order we did it.
- 01
Guidelines first, marks second
We wrote the guidelines structure before drawing the wordmark. The mark was then designed against the structure, not the other way around — every primitive had a documented reason before it acquired a shape.
- 02
Four sizes, full stop
The type system is constrained to four sizes across every surface. Consistency is therefore not a matter of taste; it is a matter of the team selecting from a list of four. After twelve months in production, no one has asked for a fifth.
- 03
Documented exceptions
Every exception the system permits is documented up front. Teams do not have to discover what the brand allows by submitting a piece for review — they read the rule, find the exception, and ship.
03
Selected artifacts
A small spread from the engagement.
fig. 02 — artifact 1
fig. 03 — artifact 2
fig. 04 — artifact 3
fig. 05 — artifact 4
fig. 06 — artifact 5
fig. 07 — artifact 6
fig. 08 — artifact 7
fig. 09 — artifact 8
fig. 10 — artifact 9
fig. 11 — artifact 10
fig. 12 — artifact 11
fig. 13 — artifact 12
fig. 14 — artifact 13
fig. 15 — artifact 14
fig. 16 — artifact 15
fig. 17 — artifact 16
fig. 18 — artifact 17
fig. 19 — artifact 18
fig. 20 — artifact 19
fig. 21 — artifact 20
fig. 22 — artifact 21
fig. 23 — artifact 22
fig. 24 — artifact 23
04
Outcome
The numbers we agreed to ship against.
M02post-handover
12 mo.
Without a guideline exception
M03extended without rework
4
Sub-brands
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