A clearer view of the agency choice
A portfolio can show you how a brand looked on launch day while leaving much of the assignment unexplained. The name, identity and website may have been made by different teams. The agency you are looking at might have led the whole programme or handled a single part. Those distinctions become rather useful when you are deciding whom to hire.
About That Brand exists to make that decision better informed. Our focus is the relationship between an agency’s work and the problem a client needs to solve. Reputation can help you find a name. Understanding the work helps you decide whether that name belongs on your shortlist.
We write for people responsible for commissioning it. That includes founders defining a first brand, marketing leaders managing a substantial change and in-house teams looking for expertise they need alongside their own. A small, well-defined assignment deserves as much clarity about the choice of partner as a large corporate programme.
What our coverage should add
The agency guides are there to make useful comparisons: the kinds of problems different studios tackle, the evidence of their contribution and the circumstances in which they are worth considering. An agency can be excellent at a particular job and a poor match for yours. Explaining that difference is central to the publication.
Our wider coverage examines brand identities, campaigns and the businesses around them. A rebrand can be interesting because of a small design decision, a change in how the company operates or a gap between the launch story and what customers experience. Close analysis helps readers develop their own judgement about the work they might commission.
Because that work is visual, the examples matter. Typography, packaging, photography, websites and physical spaces need to be seen in context. We want the images to help explain the argument, with enough information to understand what you are looking at and who made it.
The editorial standard is specific criticism and supportable praise. Calling an agency strategic tells you very little. Explaining how it dealt with a complicated portfolio, or why a design decision makes a product easier to understand, gives you something to use.
Start with the question you have
- Work out what kind of agency help you need if the project is still taking shape. Defining the assignment makes the search more useful.
- Explore agency guides by industry when you need to understand the experience relevant to your market and its particular problems.
- Use the agency finder to explore possible partners as you develop your shortlist.
- Compare shortlisted agencies and proposals when you are preparing for conversations and an appointment.
If you want to look more closely at how brands are made and changed, browse the branding analysis and features. They provide context for the decisions behind the work, including the occasions when the business story is more revealing than the new logo.
A recommendation should explain itself
We are developing the site around a simple expectation: a reader should be able to understand why an agency has been recommended and what still needs to be checked before an appointment. Our methodology explains the research standards, the role of editorial judgement and the review of older guides.
You do not need to agree with every assessment. You should leave better equipped to make your own.