Start with the assignment
Before considering agencies, we define the decision the guide needs to help you make. A company bringing several acquired businesses under one name needs different experience from a founder commissioning a first identity. A regional guide also needs to explain what makes an agency relevant to that market: an office, work for local clients, knowledge of its audiences or a documented ability to deliver there.
That scope determines which work belongs in the comparison. We consider the challenge, the organisation’s stage and the services involved. Experience in a neighbouring sector can be relevant when the underlying problem is similar, but the guide needs to explain that connection.
Inclusion requires enough evidence to support the recommendation being made. An agency’s absence may mean it was outside the scope or that we could not establish its relevance from the available material. It should not be read as a verdict on all of its work.
Follow the evidence to the actual work
We begin with identifiable projects and the sources closest to them: published work, project credits, client announcements and detailed case studies. Company information helps establish current identity, location and activity. Original interviews, established reporting and design archives can add context or test an account of what happened.
The source has to support the particular claim. An agency case study is evidence of how that agency describes its contribution. A client announcement may corroborate the appointment or the scope. Where consequential claims depend on one party’s account, the wording should make that dependence clear.
Project roles matter. If a studio designed the packaging for a product, we record that assignment as packaging work. Research, naming, identity, website development and campaign delivery may have involved other people. We check the role, the date and the credited contributors before using a familiar client name as evidence of capability. Historic work is dated, especially when the people or business behind it have changed.
Visual evidence belongs beside the analysis. A logo can identify the agency; examples of its work help you assess it. Captions should distinguish the client, project, date and relevant creative contribution. An illustration made for one of our guides is editorial artwork and must be clearly distinguishable from a real client project.
What the assessment considers
These are the main questions behind a recommendation. Their importance depends on the guide’s purpose, and agencies in the same comparison should face the same relevant questions.
| Area | What we look for |
|---|---|
| Relevant experience | Work that addresses a comparable business, audience or delivery problem, with the agency’s exact contribution established. |
| Thinking behind the work | An understandable account of the original problem, the decisions made and how those decisions shaped the result. A list of strategic services provides less insight than an explained assignment. |
| Creative quality | Specific judgements about the idea, craft and usefulness of the work in its intended setting. We look at how an identity behaves across applications and what makes it recognisable. |
| Results and their limits | Reported outcomes with a source, period and relevant baseline. We consider what the evidence can reasonably attribute to the work. |
| Practical suitability | The documented services, project scale, market experience and delivery requirements that make the agency a plausible choice for the reader’s assignment. |
Commercial results need particular care. Sales, enquiries or conversion may change alongside pricing, product development, distribution and media spending. A rise after a launch does not, by itself, establish that the identity caused it. We distinguish an agency’s reported result from an independently corroborated outcome and from our own interpretation.
Awards and named client testimony can contribute useful evidence about a particular project or experience. We check their source and context. Neither an award count nor a client list settles whether an agency suits the brief in front of you.
How judgement enters the recommendation
For new and substantially revised editorial guides, we use qualitative assessment. We do not assign fixed percentage weights to strategy, creativity or reputation and turn them into a universal score. The explanation must do the work: why this agency merits consideration, what supports that judgement and where its relevance becomes less certain.
When a title uses “best” or “top”, the body should define the context. Best for an international brand architecture programme is a different judgement from best for a tightly scoped launch. Where a meaningful order can be supported, we explain the distinctions. Where agencies answer different needs, it is more useful to compare them by the kind of assignment they suit.
We keep a source record for material claims and link important evidence from the published guide. Readers should be able to inspect the basis of a recommendation and reach a different conclusion if their priorities differ.
What public evidence cannot tell you
Published portfolios are selective. Confidentiality can keep relevant work out of view, and a sparse case study does not establish that the work was poor. It does limit the judgement we can make from it. We state that limit instead of filling the gap with a favourable assumption.
The people available for a new assignment may differ from those credited on a celebrated project. Public material rarely settles current capacity, working chemistry, the level of senior involvement or how a team responds when a project becomes difficult. A review of published work is a different kind of evidence from first-hand experience of commissioning it.
Fees also need context. If we include a published price or budget, it should identify the currency, date and scope it covers. You will still need a proposal for your own assignment, including the people involved, deliverables, timetable and responsibilities.
Review dates and corrections
A review date should mean that the material evidence behind the guide has been checked. If an update covers only one entry or a specific fact, the note should say so. Changing a title or correcting a typo is not a new assessment.
We preserve the original publication date and identify substantive updates. This is especially important for older news and forecasts: later events should not be presented as information that was known when the article first appeared.
Confirmed factual errors require correction. When a correction materially changes the account or the recommendation, the published note should explain what changed. An agency’s inclusion or position may change because better evidence has become available, because its current business has changed or because the scope of the comparison has been revised.
Use the guide to prepare a better conversation
Build a shortlist around the problem you need to solve. For each agency, identify the project that makes it relevant and the question the public evidence leaves unanswered. Ask who would do the work, how they would approach your circumstances and which comparable clients can speak to that experience.
Our guide to choosing a branding agency takes that next stage further, including how to compare a shortlist and assess proposals. If the assignment itself is still unclear, start with working out what kind of agency help you need.