Design for the next person making something
When a founder asks for a brand identity, the eventual users include a packaging supplier, a web developer, a social editor and someone preparing a sales document in a hurry. They will encounter different constraints and have different levels of design experience.
A handover should answer their actual questions. Which logo works on a narrow label? What happens on a pale background? How much text belongs in a social tile? Which type styles should the website use when a heading wraps onto three lines?
Use tools that preserve editable decisions
Penpot is an open-source design tool worth evaluating when editable source files and collaboration are part of the brief. Its documented SVG editing, layout and prototype features offer concrete things to test against a team’s needs. That does not make every project a reason to change tools.
Try a representative component before committing: a product card with a long title, a button with a focus state and a mobile navigation layout. Check the exported assets and the handover experience with the developer who will use them. A procurement checklist is less revealing than one honest trial of the work.
Keep the family resemblance, allow the right differences
Duma’s packaging needs recognisable flavour expressions. Its storefront needs a clear shopping hierarchy. Social creative needs a fast visual read. A single rigid template would flatten those differences; unrelated art direction would lose the brand.
Our approach is to identify the elements that carry recognition, then define where variation is useful. Colour, spacing, image treatment and type hierarchy can work together without making a can label look like a checkout screen. The Duma case study presents those connected surfaces.
Write the rules that prevent expensive guessing
For Apprika’s own identity, naming and positioning sit alongside visual decisions. A brand book is useful when it explains what to do in an unfamiliar situation. It should help someone decide, rather than merely display approved examples.
Keep the working package understandable: editable masters, export folders, font information and examples of common errors. Document the rights attached to third-party fonts, photography and icons. Open-source tooling does not automatically change the permissions attached to the assets inside a file.
A better brief for a Toronto brand-design team
Bring the surfaces the identity must actually live on: product, packaging, website, pitch deck and social channels. Explain who will maintain them after launch. That gives a studio a basis for designing a system with the right amount of flexibility.
The goal is a brand people recognise and a team that can keep using it. The software chosen to make it should support those outcomes, with enough source material and documentation for the next handoff to be straightforward.
CONNECTED TO OUR WORK
From the studio.
Duma Energy
Our Duma Energy work connects identity, flavour packaging, e-commerce and social creative. It illustrates the need for one system across very different formats.
Apprika
Apprika’s own brand system connects the studio website, services and product portfolio. Penpot is an open-source tool to evaluate, not a claim that it was used on this work.
Sources & further reading
Primary documentation informs the technical context. The product recommendations and comparisons are our editorial analysis.
- Penpot: design and collaboration features
Penpot documents SVG-based vector editing, layouts, prototypes and design-system tools.