We always see ourselves a little better before we look in the mirror.
Brand self-perception distorts before the brief even lands on our desk. We’ve watched it happen across 81 logo projects — a company convinced their identity reads confident, while their audience registers something closer to anxious. The mirror test isn’t vanity; it’s the first honest step in any serious brand identity work.
Fun fact that goes with singing in the shower and playing some air guitar. But lets transform that phrase into branding. When was the last time you looked with your brand in the mirror?
Think about it—just as you might belt out a song in the shower, imagining you’re on stage, your brand needs that same level of self-reflection. It’s easy to get caught up in the daily grind of running a business, but how often do you take a step back and truly assess how your brand is perceived? Is it in tune with who you are now, or is it stuck in an old version of itself? Are you on stage with your ideas or just under the shower?
Looking in the mirror isn’t just about surface appearance; it’s about aligning your brand with your values, your goals, and the audience you’re trying to reach. Does your brand still reflect the passion that started it all? Does it tell the story you want it to? Or is it time for a refresh?
Just like that air guitar moment where you feel invincible, your brand should evoke confidence and energy every time someone interacts with it. So next time you’re having one of those spontaneous moments of fun and creativity, remember to ask yourself: when was the last time I really looked at my brand in the mirror?
Be honest and take a closer look.
What the Brand Self-Perception Mirror Actually Reveals About Identity Blind Spots
How we approach logo design from brief to final markDon’t miss the next essay. Signup for our newsletter
⸻ Newsletter signup
The highest award for a designer: finished work, payment, and client bragging
Designer success metrics are rarely what the industry tells you they are. We've delivered 128 projects across two decades, and the measure that holds is deceptively simple: the work is out in the world, the payment landed, and the client is doing your marketing for you. Those three moments, in sequence, define whether a project actually succeeded.
Pitch
Design pitch process is where most projects are quietly won or lost — long before any visual work begins. We've spent twenty years watching good briefs collapse under vague expectations, misaligned goals, and the false assumption that both sides are speaking the same language. Getting the design pitch process right isn't a formality; it's the actual work.
The Worst Kind of Project
Unrealized design projects are, without question, the worst thing that happens to a studio. Not the difficult client. Not the impossible brief. The work you believed in completely — refined, presented, defended — that simply never saw the light. We've built 81 logos and collected over 80 awards, and still, it's the unrealized design projects that occupy the most space in the room.
To all the misfits who jumped to freelancing
Freelance designer struggles don't announce themselves. One month you're euphoric about escaping the agency; six months later you're chasing an invoice at midnight and questioning every career decision you've ever made. We've seen this arc enough times — from our studio in Ljubljana, across two decades of watching good designers disappear into bad freelance situations — to say something honest about it.
The Importance of Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence design is not a soft skill — it's the hardest discipline in visual communication. We've spent two decades building identities that don't just look right, they feel true. That gap between looking and feeling is where emotional intelligence design does its real work.
WRWD Concept: Write, Read, Walk, and Draw Daily
WRWD daily creative habits started as a personal framework, not a manifesto. Write, read, walk, draw — four disciplines we've tested across two decades and 128 projects. The WRWD daily creative habits concept holds because it's structural, not motivational — it doesn't ask you to feel inspired, just to show up.
The Why
Brand why statement is the first question we ask — before color, form, or name. Not because it's fashionable to talk about purpose, but because a brand built without a clear why collapses under its own aesthetic eventually. We've seen it. Defining your brand why statement early is the structural decision that holds everything else together.
Black and white
Black and white design is where we start every project — not as a stylistic preference, but as a structural test. If a mark, layout, or identity doesn't hold in two tones, it won't survive color, scale, or time. Black and white design is the first filter, and for us, it's often the only one that matters.