Brand and design for Scottish businesses and charities
Many Scottish businesses and organisations have grown faster than their brands have kept up. The logo was designed years ago. The copy on the website sounds like it was written by someone else. The social media looks different from the brochure. Nothing feels quite joined up — and prospective clients can sense it, even if they can’t articulate why.
I help organisations get clear on who they are, what makes them different, and how to communicate it consistently — through brand positioning, brand voice and practical design support that’s built around real marketing goals, not just visual preferences.
The best first step is a free 30-minute conversation.
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What I do
Brand voice review
This is one of the most valuable — and most overlooked — pieces of brand work a Scottish business or charity can do.
Your brand voice is how your organisation sounds: the words you choose, the tone you use, the personality that comes through in everything you write. Many organisations have an inconsistent voice — formal in one place, casual in another, corporate on the website and human on social media. That inconsistency erodes trust, even when visitors can’t quite put their finger on why.
A Brand Voice Review establishes how your organisation should sound across every channel — with practical guidelines your team can apply immediately. The result is clearer, more consistent communication that feels genuinely yours rather than assembled from different sources at different times.
This is typically the starting point I recommend before any website rewrite, social media strategy or marketing campaign. Getting the voice right first makes everything that follows sharper and faster to produce.
Brand positioning
Positioning is about defining clearly what makes you different and why people should choose you. Many Scottish businesses are doing excellent work but struggling to articulate it — their marketing sounds like everyone else’s because they haven’t taken the time to define what sets them apart.
I help organisations identify their core strengths, understand their audiences, and shape messages that support long-term recognition and trust. Good positioning makes everything else in your marketing easier — because you know what you’re saying, who you’re saying it to, and why it matters to them.
Brand and logo development
I work with experienced designers to create new or refreshed visual identities for Scottish businesses, charities and organisations. Each project begins with understanding your values, your audience and your objectives — before any visual development begins.
A key part of this work is ensuring your new identity is immediately practical — usable across websites, social media, merchandise, clothing, signage, and print — without needing to start from scratch each time. A visual identity that only works in ideal conditions isn’t a working brand identity.
Brand guidelines and templates
A brand is only as good as its consistent application. I produce clear, practical brand guidelines — covering logo usage, colour palette, typography, photography style and tone of voice — that give your team the tools to apply the brand confidently across every channel.
For smaller organisations, a simple, well-structured brand reference document is often more practical than a lengthy brand bible. The goal is a guide people will actually use — not a document that sits in a folder after the initial briefing.
Design projects
Alongside brand development, I deliver practical design projects that bring brands to life — visual assets for campaigns, destination guides, event materials, and printed or digital publications. These are delivered either as one-off projects or as part of an ongoing working relationship.
Why brand and marketing work better together
Brand work done in isolation — by a design agency with no broader marketing understanding — often produces something that looks good but doesn’t connect to how the organisation actually markets itself. The new logo arrives. The brand guidelines are filed. And six months later, the website still sounds like it was written by a different organisation.
Because I work across strategy, websites, content, photography and video as well as brand, I approach brand work with a practical marketing lens. The brand voice I develop for you will work across your website copy, social media, proposals, and press releases — not just your business cards.
It means the brand work has somewhere to go. And because one person handles everything, nothing gets lost between the thinking and the doing.
What clients say
★★★★★
“Great help with setting up my website and streamlining my logo and branding. Excellent service and a pleasure to work with.” — Bruce, Dramfool Whisky
“Paul helped me create a great logo and website for my business. He was on hand to guide me through the process, which enabled me to concentrate on starting the business.” — Phoebe, Siccar Media
“Paul has given us first-class marketing advice — covering a lot of aspects of business marketing and strategy. We would recommend his services and look forward to working with him again.” — Halcyon Vision
“His advice and support have been invaluable in helping us refine our marketing strategy and define our brand voice. Paul took the time to understand our business and provided tailored advice that was both realistic and effective.” — Helix Architecture Studio, Falkirk
Also worth considering
Brand work is most effective when it connects to your wider marketing. A Marketing Performance Audit gives you an independent view of how your current brand and marketing are performing before you decide what to change. A Squarespace website is the natural next step after brand positioning and voice work — applying the brand properly across your most important marketing asset. And commercial photography ensures the visual side of the brand looks as considered as the words.
All of this can be scoped and delivered within the same working relationship — one trusted person, everything joined up from the start.
Here's how most people get started.
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