What it costs
One fixed price for your professional identity.
A professional identity is how your practice looks and sounds wherever it appears: your profile, your card, your posts, your paperwork and, if you have one, your website. This is one, for one practitioner in private practice: your practice written down, your visual identity, two applications chosen for how your practice is found, and one Practice Identity Guide that holds all of it. The price is the whole price; I confirm the scope in writing before anything is payable.
Professional Practice Identity
£695
- £350 to begin. £345 once you approve the direction in your Practice Identity Guide, before your applications are made and your files are handed over.
- One Practice Identity Guide, issued for your approval and again at handover, and two applications made from it.
- Your identity and your words, written down and yours to keep.
- About four weeks from your complete discovery answers, if replies arrive promptly.
- One round of feedback on the direction. Clarifications and corrections never use it up.
- Not included: a website, printing, photography, or applications beyond the two. Each can be quoted. The full list.
- The Studio is not registered for VAT. The prices shown are the amounts charged, and no VAT is added to them.
What you’re paying for
The practice comes first. The identity is built from it.
Before I design anything, I work out what your practice needs to communicate: who you work well with, how you work, what someone needs to understand before they contact you, and what you shouldn’t claim. That is written down first, in your Practice Identity Guide, and the identity is built from it, so every design decision has a reason you can read.
- What changes
- You stop apologising for how the practice is presented. The profile, the card, the posts and the paperwork agree with each other, and with you.
- What it reflects
- Your character, your values and the way you work, rather than your current modality, so it still fits when the practice develops.
- What it does not promise
- More enquiries. A coherent identity helps the right person recognise you; it does not manufacture demand, and I will not tell you it does.
What the work consists of
Four parts, in one document and one folder.
The price covers all four, in this order, because each one shapes the next.
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The practice, written down
What the practice offers, who it is for, what is distinctive about it, what it should not claim, how it should sound, and the words that describe it. Written from your answers, for you to check.
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Visual identity
A wordmark, a colour system with its values, typography and photography direction, each decision made for this practice with the reason beside it. A symbol or monogram only where your practice needs one.
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Two applications
The identity applied to the two things you will use most, chosen together from a short menu. Ready to use, and editable. The menu.
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The Practice Identity Guide and your files
One document holding all of it: issued first for your approval, then again at handover with practical guidance and what to send a printer, designer or developer. With every file, in one folder that is yours.
You finish with an identity you own and can hand to somebody else, applied to the things people actually see. That is why the practice still looks like itself on a directory profile, a card or whatever you build in three years. What you keep, exactly.
The applications
Choose two. Each is one item, made properly.
We choose them together from how your practice is actually found and run. Each is built from the direction you approved and supplied in formats you can use without a designer. Any further application is quoted before it is made.
- Directory profile image
- One square image for a directory listing (Counselling Directory, Psychology Today, BACP or similar), in one version: your photograph cropped and toned to the photography direction, or, where you prefer not to use a photograph, your symbol or stacked wordmark on your page colour. Supplied as: PNG and JPG, 1200 × 1200 px.
- Business card
- Front and back artwork for one card, for one practitioner, with your wordmark and the practical details you supply. Supplied as: Print-ready PDF, 85 × 55 mm, 3 mm bleed and crop marks, plus a PNG preview.
- Word letterhead
- An A4 letterhead in Microsoft Word with your header and footer, and paragraph styles set up, for letters, agreements and invoices. It is the layout only: the wording of your own agreement or invoices stays yours. Supplied as: Word document (.docx) and a PDF example.
- Email signature
- One signature with your name, descriptor, practical line and registration wording as you supply it, tested in Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail, with written setup steps. Supplied as: HTML signature, a plain-text version, and setup steps (PDF).
- Instagram profile image
- One profile image designed for Instagram's circular crop, from your symbol, stacked wordmark or photograph, with a short bio written from the guide's descriptions. Supplied as: PNG, 1080 × 1080 px, and the bio as text.
- Editable social post template
- One post layout you can edit yourself, with one finished example using your own words. Supplied as: Canva template shared to your account, or PowerPoint (.pptx), your choice; 1080 × 1350 px; the example as PNG.
If you want a website
Built from your identity, quoted for your practice.
A website can also be developed from your identity, so it looks like you from the first screen. It is scoped and quoted in writing for your practice, as a fixed price, before anything begins. If you already have a website you are happy with, the identity can be applied to it by whoever looks after it, using your guide.
The Practice Identity Guide
It starts with the practice as it is now.
Your Practice Identity Guide records the practice you have now: who you work with, how you work, what you believe and what you won’t claim, and how it should look and sound. It isn’t asking you to decide who you’ll be for the next ten years. The things most likely to change, your fees, your availability, the way you describe the work, are written down as facts, so they can change later without the identity changing with them.
It comes to you twice. First as the direction: the practice written down and the visual identity, for you to check. You confirm the facts and approve it, or send one consolidated set of adjustments, and nothing is made until you have. Then, at handover, as the final issue, with your applications, practical guidance and the list of your files. Its length follows what your practice needs, usually around twenty pages. If the work needed is larger than this project can carry, I will say so before anything starts.
An example, written for a fictional practice: Sofia Marin’s guide (PDF, 44 pages). It is an extended concept, longer than a client’s guide usually is. Yours is written for your practice, and looks like it.
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Practice
What is actually being offered here, in plain terms, and what is not?
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People
Who is this for, and just as usefully, who is it not for?
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Position
What is distinctive about it, said without claiming anything you cannot stand behind?
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Message
What should somebody understand within seconds, and what language fits you well enough to say out loud?
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Expression
How the practice should feel, what to emphasise, what to remove, and how the services are organised.
Those five are what the first half of your guide settles, and the identity is built from it. It is not business or marketing consultancy, advice on your fees, or a plan for getting more clients. It settles how the practice should be described, and it is yours to keep.
How it runs
Six steps, and two decisions that are yours.
Everything between them is my work, not something else for you to manage.
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01
Enquire
Tell me a little about your practice and what you need. I reply personally within two working days with my recommendation.
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02
Reserve the project
The scope and price are confirmed in writing, and I invoice the £350 deposit. Nothing is booked until it is paid.
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03
Complete the discovery
One form, in rough notes or voice notes, over as many sittings as you like. You are describing the practice you have, not deciding what it will become.
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04 · Your decision
Approve the direction
The direction issue of your Practice Identity Guide. You check the facts and approve it, or send one consolidated set of adjustments, as many points as you need in one reply. The £345 balance follows your approval.
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05
The making
Once the balance is paid, I make your wordmark files and your two applications from the direction you approved. You are not asked to choose fonts, colours or layouts.
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06 · Your decision
Handover
The final issue of your guide and your folder. You check it is complete and every fact is right; anything within scope that is missing or wrong is put right, and you can send one set of small refinements to the two applications.
About four weeks from your complete discovery answers, if replies arrive promptly. Timescales are estimates given in good faith, not promised dates. One consolidated round of feedback is included, on the direction. Clarifications and corrections never use it up: something about your practice I did not know, a factual error, something I misunderstood, an adjustment that did not do what you asked, or anything that departs from the direction you approved. The complete scope is clause 2 of the identity service terms.
Who it suits
A practice you can already describe.
The work is at its best when there is a real practice to work from. You do not need to have the words; you need to know what you do and who you do it with.
- You know your practice looks professional in parts, and you cannot bring it together
- A profile written one year, a logo from another, a website from a third. Each is fine; together they do not look like one person. This is the commonest reason somebody writes.
- Your website no longer reflects you
- The practice has developed, a specialism has settled, the way you talk about the work has changed, and the website still describes who you were when you built it.
- You have grown through referrals
- Directory profiles and word of mouth have carried the practice this far, and you want something more substantial that a referrer or a new client can send people to.
- You are newly qualified and clear about your work
- You know who you want to work with and how. The discovery will ask more questions of a practice that is still settling, and I will tell you if it is too early.
- Probably not this, yet
- If the practice itself is still undecided, a website will only display the uncertainty more attractively. The free guidance is the better place to start, and you are welcome to write and ask.
Yours to keep
What you still hold when the project is over.
The thinking and the visual decisions are handed over in your name at the end of the project, in a form you can give to a printer, a future designer or a web developer without them having to start again.
Your wordmark is developed for your practice as part of the visual direction. For most therapists the right identity is a name set well, a considered colour system, the right typefaces and clear rules for using them. A symbol or monogram is added only where the practice genuinely needs one. Competing concepts and an extensive brand system are not assumed here.
It is a starting point rather than a finished article for all time. Practices change: a new specialism, a second room, a different emphasis. An identity that was decided for reasons you can read is one you can develop deliberately, instead of starting from nothing each time.
You keep
- Your Practice Identity Guide, final issue, with every fact confirmed
- Your wordmark, any symbol, colour values and typefaces as files, with the fonts where their licences allow
- Your two applications, as finished files and editable sources
- The written direction behind them, so the decisions are usable by somebody who was not in the room
- The right to use all of it for your practice, in any medium, and to give it to anyone working for you
Not included
- Several competing logo concepts, or trade mark work
- Applications beyond the two you choose: leaflets, signage, further templates, quoted if you want them
- Exclusivity in colours, typefaces, general design conventions, templates or the studio’s methods, which nobody can own; your words, finished wordmark and any bespoke symbol are not reused for another practice
- Design work after the project, or a retainer of any kind
- Print production, photography or illustration, and a drawn logo commissioned from an external designer
Questions I am asked most
Do I need a website?
Not necessarily. Many practices find their clients through directories and word of mouth, and what they need is for the profile, the card, the posts and the paperwork to look and sound like one practice. That is the identity on its own.
Can I use my identity on the website I already have?
Yes. Your guide sets out your wordmark, colours, typefaces and words, and says exactly what to give a web developer, so whoever looks after your website can apply them. Your website and your domain stay where they are. If you would like me to make specific changes to it, that is help with your existing website, quoted on its own.
What if I want a new website?
It is built from the same identity, so it looks like you from the first screen, and it is scoped and quoted in writing for your practice, as a fixed price, before anything begins. You can ask at the start or once the identity is finished; the identity is made so that nothing has to be redone. Each of the three identities in the work was taken all the way to a website.
What if I change my mind about the look?
The look is settled in the direction issue of your Practice Identity Guide, and your one consolidated round of feedback is the point to shape it, before anything is made. A different look after you have approved the direction is a new brief rather than feedback, and is quoted. Clarifications about your practice, and corrections of my mistakes, are never counted.
Can you write it for me?
Yes. The words in your guide are written from your discovery answers (your own phrases, your voice notes), so they still sound like you, and you check them before anything is made: how the practice is described at different lengths, and how it should sound. You do not need to arrive with finished copy. Writing website pages or articles is quoted separately.
Will you follow my professional body's rules?
Designations are set exactly as BACP, UKCP, NCPS or your own body permits, and nothing goes on the page you cannot stand behind. I do not give regulatory advice, and the published website remains your responsibility.
I am not technical. Is that a problem?
No. The discovery is in plain language and the design decisions are mine. Your applications come in formats you can use without a designer, and for twelve months after handover up to three straightforward text changes to them are included. If I build you a website, there is nothing to maintain: changes go through me.
Can I pause, or get a refund?
A project that goes quiet is held for sixty days, then treated as dormant. Refunds depend on how far the work has gone; the position is set out in full on the cancellations and refunds page.
Is this a template, or bespoke?
Neither, quite. A template solves layout, structure and styling and gives your words somewhere to go. It cannot decide who the practice is for, what should be said, what should not be claimed, or what a particular reader needs before they will make contact. Those decisions are the work here, and the design comes out of them. Three identities, with the reasoning.
It is designed for your practice, so in that sense it is bespoke. What it is not is open-ended: one direction, worked out in your guide and approved by you, rather than several competing concepts to choose between, and a defined set of things made from it. The words written for your practice, your finished wordmark and any bespoke symbol are made for you and are not reused for another practice. Colours and typefaces cannot be owned by anyone, and the method and document framework behind it are the studio’s, reused so that the time goes into understanding your practice rather than into laying out a page. That is what keeps it at a fixed, published price.
What happens when my practice changes?
It will, and the work assumes it. Your identity is built around the things that tend to last: how you want people to feel when they find you, your sensibility, the way you write. The things that tend to change, your fees, your availability, who you’re working with, how you describe the work, are written in your guide as facts, so changing them is small work: up to three straightforward text changes to your applications are included in the twelve months after handover, and anything beyond that is £55 an hour or a fixed quote. A different practice altogether is a new direction, and that is quoted.
When you are ready
Read the whole scope, then decide.
Everything included and excluded is set out in full in the identity service terms.