Why I Only Present Two Branding Proposals and Why They Both Come From the Same Place
When I tell clients I only present two proposals, I usually get one of two reactions. Either relief "finally, someone who isn't going to overwhelm me with options", or a quiet panic, the kind that comes with the thought: what if I don't like either of them?
Both reactions are valid. But they both come from the same misunderstanding about what branding proposals actually are. And since this shapes everything about how I work, I want to explain it properly.
It didn't start this way
For a long time, I did what most designers do. I'd spend weeks developing three, sometimes four directions, each one pulling the brand into a different visual territory (don’t get me started on my agency days, when they wanted to present 15 logos!!!!!). One safe, one experimental, one somewhere in the middle. I'd present them all, feeling like more options meant more value. More work meant more care.
But that’s actually doing the opposite of my job. It’s exporting the decision back to the client.
It’s saying, implicitly: I don't know what your brand should be. Here are some guesses. You pick.
That's not design. That's decoration.
Strategy first. Always.
Before I touch a single visual, we work through strategy together. This is the part of the process that most studios either rush through or skip entirely. I don't.
We talk about who you're building this for, not in the abstract, but specifically. What they already believe. What they're tired of seeing in your category. What would make them stop scrolling and feel something. We look at your competitors, not to differentiate for the sake of it, but to understand the visual and emotional landscape your brand will live inside. We look at where you want to be in three years, not just where you are now.
By the end of this phase, something crystallizes. It's not a mood board. It's not a color palette. It's a strategic direction: a clear, defensible point of view about what this brand needs to do and who it needs to speak to.
That direction becomes the brief I design from.
Two directions. One strategy.
Here's the thing about strategy: it almost never points to a single visual solution. It points to a territory. And within that territory, there are usually two legitimate ways to enter it.
Not two random interpretations. Not a safe version and a wild version. Two considered, strategic responses to the same brief: each one honest, each one defensible, each one coherent from the inside out.
One might lean into a particular cultural reference that the strategy surfaced. The other might prioritize a structural choice, the way the logo system behaves, the relationship between type and space. They'll look different. They might feel different. But if you pulled them apart and asked why does this exist? about every single decision, both of them would give you the same answer: the strategy.
This is why presenting two proposals isn't a limitation. It's a position.
The question I get most
"What if I don't connect with either of them?"
Honestly? It's rare. Not because I'm always right, but because by the time we reach the proposal stage, we've already done the work of aligning. You've seen the strategic foundation. You understand the reasoning. The visual directions aren't surprises, they're the logical conclusion of a conversation we've been having for weeks.
But when it does happen (when something isn't landing, when a direction feels off) we go back to the strategy. Not to the aesthetics. We ask: what did we miss? What's the gap between what we articulated and what we're seeing? That question almost always reveals something useful. A nuance we underweighted. An audience insight we glossed over. A competitive move we didn't fully account for.
The answer is never let me design three more options. The answer is always let's understand the brief better.
Why I'll keep working this way
Because great brand identity isn't the result of choosing the best option from a list! It's the result of asking the right questions first, and then designing from conviction 🤎
Two proposals is my way of saying: I did the thinking. I made the choices. Now let's decide together which path takes you further.
That's the job. That's always been the job.
Hi, I’m Bele!
Casa Bele is a boutique branding studio working with founders who are building something worth remembering. We specialize in brand identity, art direction, and packaging design for feeling-led brands.
