Brand Creation for Hospitality, Food and Lifestyle Brands
Everything a new brand needs, built by one person, in the right order.
Some businesses need a logo. Others need a name, a reason to exist, a look, a voice, packaging, a shopfront, a website and a launch, and they need all of it to feel like it came from the same place.
That second thing is what I do, and it's the work I enjoy most.
Brand Creation takes a business from an idea to something people can walk into, buy from and tell their friends about. We start with positioning, because everything after it is a decision positioning should be making. Then the name, then the identity, then everything the brand needs to meet its customers for the first time.
What it looks like in practice
Myra
Myra began as an idea for a patisserie in Saudi Arabia and nothing else. No name, no positioning, no sense of where it would sit in a market that was changing quickly.
I positioned it, named it and built the identity, along with a corporate profile for investor and partner conversations. Myra now operates across several locations in the Kingdom, including the first drive-through patisserie in Saudi Arabia.
Sticks & Cones
Sticks & Cones opened on Paddington Street, Marylebone in early 2026. I worked with the founder from the beginning, before the business had a name: positioning, naming, visual identity, store and launch assets, website, and social media content.
Two months in, there were queues down the street and a collaboration with Harry Styles during his Wembley run.
Different scale, same approach. In both cases the brand was clear before the doors opened: what they were and who they were for, which is what gave each of them something to be recognised for from day one.
What’s involved
Positioning and strategy
We start by working out what the business is actually for.
Who it's for, what it stands for, where it sits in the market and what it can own that competitors can't. Depending on the brand, that can include competitor and category analysis, audience work and a read on where the real opportunity sits.
Nothing gets designed until this is settled. It's the part founders are most tempted to skip and the part that saves the most money later.
Naming
Where the business needs a name, this is where it gets one.
A name has to work harder than most founders expect. It has to be sayable, ownable and available, and it has to still make sense when the business is bigger than it is today.
Names come with the thinking behind them, plus domain availability and international trademark checks before anyone falls in love with one.
Visual Identity
The identity is built from the strategy, not from a moodboard.
Logo, colour, typography, and the wider visual language the brand needs to work everywhere it lives. Packaging, pattern, illustration, signage, photography direction. You'll get final artwork in every format you'll need and guidelines your team can work from once I'm not in the room.
Launch
A brand only becomes real when people meet it.
This is where the identity turns into the things customers actually see. Menus, packaging, signage, uniforms, window graphics, print, opening campaign. I art direct photography and content so the brand arrives fully formed rather than assembled over the first six months.
Website and Social
Where it's needed, the brand goes online at the same time.
A website structured around how people really decide to book, visit or buy, and social presence in place before opening rather than three weeks after it. Both built on the same strategy, so the brand says the same thing in every place someone finds it.
Testimonial
"Marc helped me develop my brand from scratch, and the result is spectacular. He really took the time to understand what I was trying to achieve, and his ideas, guidance and attention to detail made the brand stronger than I had imagined."
Petra Tanos, Founder, Sticks & Cones
Sticks & Cones, Marylebone. Brand creation for a new ice cream shop, from the name up.
What you'll have at the end
A defined position, audience and brand personality
A name, with the rationale and checks behind it
A complete visual identity and the artwork files for it
Brand guidelines your team can use without me
Launch materials, packaging and in-store assets
A website and social presence, where those are in scope
Someone who knows the brand properly
How long it takes
Around twelve weeks for positioning, naming, identity and guidelines.
Closer to twenty when launch assets and a website are included.
Timings depend on how quickly decisions and feedback come back, and on your opening date. I've worked to some tight ones. If yours is fixed, tell me at the start and we'll plan backwards from it.
Myra, Saudi Arabia. Brand creation for a luxury patisserie, now across several locations in the Kingdom.
Why build it this way
Most new brands are assembled from parts. A strategist, a designer found on Instagram, a web developer, a photographer, a social agency. Each does reasonable work, none of them speak to each other, and the founder spends the year before opening trying to hold the whole thing together while also signing a lease and hiring a team.
The result usually looks fine and says nothing.
When one person shapes the positioning, the name, the identity and the launch, the brand holds together because it never had the chance to come apart. It's also faster, and it means decisions get made by someone who understands the commercial consequences rather than only the visual ones.
Projects like this take up most of my year, so I only take on a few. That's deliberate. It's the only way to stay close enough to a business to make good decisions on its behalf.
It's also a genuinely collaborative process. You'll be in it at every stage, because you know things about the business that no amount of research will surface, and the brands that work best are the ones where the founder recognises themselves in the result. I'll bring the thinking and a clear point of view. You'll shape it with me. By the end it should feel like yours rather than something that was delivered to you.
Sipside, Jeddah. Brand creation for a coffee shop positioned as a social destination.
Brands i’ve built this way
Pantry & Pasture, a new food supply business. Positioning, naming and identity for a category that badly needed something modern.
Mixala, an experimental masala chai brand, now stocked in Holland & Barrett.
Sipside, a coffee shop in Jeddah, positioned as a social destination rather than a coffee shop, and named accordingly.
Jebena Co, a coffee brand built on Ethiopian heritage for London and Dubai.
Hazal, a high end Levantine restaurant in Jeddah, built around heritage and guest experience.
FAQs
I am always happy to talk through the brand creation process on an introductory call. In the meantime, here are answers to the questions I am asked most often.
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No. Some founders come for positioning and strategy alone, others for identity. Both are complete pieces of work in their own right and both can lead into the rest later. Brand Creation is for businesses that want the whole thing built once, properly.
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That's common, and often the name is fine. If I think it's holding the business back I'll raise it early, and it's your decision from there.
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Every project is quoted properly, because a single site opening and a brand preparing to franchise across three markets are very different pieces of work. You'll get a written proposal with a fixed price, a clear scope and a timeline before anything starts. No hourly billing and no surprises at the end.
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More at the start than at the end. The strategy stage needs real time from you, usually a workshop and a few conversations, because nobody knows the business like you do. Once the direction is agreed, it gets lighter.
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Yes. I've done a significant amount of work in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and I've worked across Europe, Africa and the US. Remote projects are normal here, with visits where they're worth making.
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Most founders stay in touch and the work continues in whatever shape the business needs. Sometimes design, sometimes a second site or a new market, sometimes an hour on the phone about a decision that has nothing to do with design at all. I've worked with Fresko for three years, KAB Holding for six and Town Hall Hotel for five.
Tell me what you're building
If you're opening something new, or you're a few months from launch and the brand isn't there yet, I'd like to hear about it. Tell me where you are and I'll come back to you within a working day.