— 01 · Identity
A full rebrand
The complete second-identity engagement described above. Eight to fourteen weeks, fixed fee, no surprise add-ons. Most of our work, and what we are best at.
Salt & Common is a six-person studio in London. We work with companies on their second identity, not their first — the rebrand after the seed round, the rename after the merger, the redo of the thing the founders did over a weekend. 38 brands since 2017. 100% senior-led. 8-week minimum engagement.
Start a conversation— Series B · Dev tools / cloud infrastructure · 14-week engagement
Lattice came to us in early 2023 with a logo their founders had bought from a marketplace in 2019, and a brand voice they described — accurately — as "corporate-juvenile." They had raised Series B the prior November and were about to ship into a market where developer trust mattered more than novelty.
We rebuilt the identity over fourteen weeks. New wordmark, new system, new voice, new docs typography, new website. No mascot. No gradients. Working software, working trust.
— Boutique hotel · CDMX · 9-week engagement
Casa Mirador had been operating in Mexico City's Roma Norte for six years with an identity its owner — an architect — had built himself in his first year. By 2024 the hotel had been written about in Condé Nast, the Times, and was running at 92% occupancy. The identity was holding the property back.
We worked alongside the owner over nine weeks — new logotype, an updated palette built from the actual fabrics and finishes of the property, a complete signage and print system, and a new website. Critically, we changed the booking flow at the same time we changed the brand.
— Bootcamp / ed-tech · 11-week engagement, including new name
Switchback was, until November 2024, called BootRoad — a name two of its three co-founders had hated since the day they registered it. The company had run 22 cohorts under that name and was beginning to feel that anything they did with the existing brand was effectively painting over the problem.
We led a complete rename and rebrand over eleven weeks, including legal clearance in seven jurisdictions, a new mark, a new system, and a new voice that better reflected the warmth and rigour of the company's actual program.
We work on one engagement at a time per partner. There are two of us, so two clients at a time, never more. This is the entire shape of our process — there is no junior team, no offshore production house, no AI-generated mood boards.
— DISCOVER · WEEK 01 — 02
→ Two weeks · in person
We spend two weeks with you and your team, in person where possible. One co-founder, one partner, one practitioner from inside your company — that's the room. We listen, we read every customer email from the last quarter, we sit on five sales calls.
— OUTPUT · A 22-page positioning brief you actually recognise.
— DEFINE · WEEK 03 — 04
→ Two weeks · workshop format
A series of structured workshops to sharpen the positioning, define the audience precisely, and agree on the three things your new identity needs to do. Everything we make in stage three will be checked back against these three things.
— OUTPUT · A short, signed-off positioning document.
— DESIGN · WEEK 05 — 09
→ Five weeks · 3 reviews
Five weeks of design work. Three directions, then one, with weekly check-ins. Wordmark, mark, palette, typography, illustration approach, voice samples, three sample applications. By the end of week nine we have a finished system.
— OUTPUT · A complete identity system + 60-page guidelines.
— APPLY · WEEK 10 — 12
→ Three weeks · in your stack
Three weeks rolling the new identity through your real applications — website, docs, packaging, signage, decks, social, every email template. We do this directly in your tools, with your team, not in a guidelines PDF.
— OUTPUT · The brand, applied to everything that matters.
— HANDOVER · WEEK 13 — 14
→ Two weeks · + 6 mo support
Two weeks of training, documentation, and handover, followed by six months of unlimited brand-judgement support at no charge. After that, we're available on an hourly basis. Most clients use the six months and then keep going at hourly.
— OUTPUT · A brand your team can run without us.
— 01 · Identity
The complete second-identity engagement described above. Eight to fourteen weeks, fixed fee, no surprise add-ons. Most of our work, and what we are best at.
— 02 · Naming
When the existing name is the actual problem. Includes strategic naming, legal clearance across up to seven jurisdictions, and trademark filing through our network of IP partners.
— 03 · Refresh
When the identity is mostly working but one or two elements badly aren't. We diagnose and fix — wordmark only, palette only, typography only — without rebuilding the parts you like.
— 04 · Advisory
Ongoing strategic brand counsel for in-house teams that don't need a redo — they need someone senior to look over their shoulder twice a month. Six-month minimum.
Salt & Common was founded by Helene Marais and Dev Bansal in November 2017, three months after they both left a much larger London branding agency. The studio's first office was Dev's kitchen table. We moved to a real office on Brick Lane in 2019 and have been there since — six of us now, in one room, behind a coffee shop, on the fourth floor.
We are not trying to grow. We have turned down acquisition offers, partnership offers, and twice-yearly recruiter outreach. Six is the right number for the way we want to work — which is to say, with every partner in every meeting, on every project, every week.
We have a clear opinion about who we work with. We don't take on companies with their first identity — that work belongs to the founders. We don't take on companies with more than four hundred people — past that, brand becomes politics, and we are not politicians. We don't pitch. We don't compete for engagements. We accept work by referral or direct enquiry only, and we say no to roughly 70% of what comes in.
The companies we take on tend to be in their second or third year, with a clear, working business and an identity that no longer fits it. They are not in trouble. They are not in a hurry. We are not their first call, and we are not their cheapest call. We try, every time, to be their last call.
Helene Marais
Co-founder · partner
Dev Bansal
Co-founder · partner
Mariana Costa
Senior designer
Ben Tregenza
Senior designer
Iris Voss
Writer · brand voice
Jojo Adekunle
Studio manager
We're a small studio. We respond personally to every enquiry, within five working days. If we can help, we'll set up a call. If we can't, we'll tell you so and recommend three studios that probably can.