Brand Design
12 Jul, 2026
Street art offers a great perspective on branding, showing how the strongest visual identities evolve through context, continuity, and change.
We often romanticize the idea of designing from scratch. As designers, we imagine the perfect scenario: a blank canvas, complete creative freedom, and the opportunity to build something entirely new.
In reality, very few projects begin this way. More often than not, we inherit an existing brand, a visual language people have already learned to recognize, and years of decisions that have shaped how that brand is perceived.
Some of those decisions are brilliant, others less so, but together they represent something incredibly valuable: familiarity.
As designers, our role isn't to erase that history in pursuit of something new. It's to understand it, respect it, and evolve it into something stronger. The best branding projects aren't the ones that replace everything that came before; they're the ones that find a way for the past and the future to coexist.
Looking at the streets of Los Angeles, I found myself thinking about this idea over and over again. The most interesting walls weren't the pristine murals, they were the ones that had accumulated years of interventions, where every artist had responded to what was already there instead of pretending it didn't exist.
Arts district, Los Angeles
Arts district, Los Angeles
"Great branding isn't about replacing what came before; it's about understanding what deserves to stay, what should evolve, and how the old and the new can coexist."
I started thinking about this after watching a talk by Ella Rochelle-Lawton (Watch the talk). During the talk, Ella drew a fascinating parallel between street art and design. Street artists rarely work on empty walls.
Every intervention responds to a context that already exists. The palette is influenced by the neighborhood, the scale by the surrounding architecture, and the composition by the posters, stickers, murals, and tags that have accumulated over time. Instead of treating those elements as obstacles, street artists embrace them. Every new piece becomes another layer in an ongoing visual conversation.
The more I reflected on that idea, the more I realized it extends far beyond street art. It's also a beautiful way to think about branding. Just like a wall in a city, every brand already carries history, recognition, and meaning before we ever touch it.
Venice Beach, Los Angeles
Downtown, Los Angeles
This is why the strongest brands don't reinvent themselves every time they evolve. They build upon what people already know.
A successful rebrand isn't about proving how different you can make something look; it's about knowing what deserves to remain familiar while carefully introducing what's next. Some visual elements become anchors, while others are refined or replaced. It's a delicate balance between continuity and change.
Street artists understand this instinctively. They don't try to erase the identity of a place; they contribute to it. Their work acknowledges everything that came before while adding something new to the story.
Branding works best when it follows the same principle. Rather than imposing a completely new visual language, great designers elevate what's already there, making the overall identity feel richer, clearer, and more cohesive.
Some of the most enduring visual identities follow exactly the same principle. Rather than being redesigned from scratch every few years, they evolve gradually, preserving what makes them recognizable while continuously adapting to new contexts.
One of my favorite examples is Paula Scher's identity for The Public Theater. Over the years it has expanded across posters, environmental graphics, digital experiences, campaigns, and countless productions, yet it still feels unmistakably like the same brand. The identity hasn't remained static, it has simply grown by adding new layers.
Public Theater Posters by Paula Sher, Pentagram
Perhaps the most interesting parallel comes after the work is finished. The moment a brand is launched, it begins a life of its own. New designers join the team, agencies reinterpret the guidelines, marketing teams create new assets, products evolve, and clients inevitably introduce changes that weren't part of the original vision.
Over time, the identity becomes the result of many different hands, each adding their own layer to the brand. Whether that evolution strengthens or weakens the brand depends on more than a well-crafted set of guidelines. It depends on the strength of the underlying idea.
A strong visual identity remains recognizable even as it evolves because its principles are clear enough for others to understand and build upon. In many ways, the true test of a brand isn't how faithfully it reflects the original designer's work, but how gracefully it survives everyone else's.
Public Theater Posters by Paula Sher, Pentagram
"The true test of a brand isn't how faithfully it reflects the original designer's work, but how gracefully it survives everyone else's."
Maybe that's the biggest lesson street art has to offer. Street artists don't expect their work to remain untouched forever. They know it will eventually be painted over, restored, expanded, challenged, or reinterpreted by someone else. Rather than seeing that as a loss of control, it's simply part of the process.
Perhaps branding should embrace the same mindset. Instead of trying to create identities that remain frozen in time, we should aim to create identities that are resilient enough to evolve without losing what made them distinctive in the first place.
Because great branding isn't about creating something that never changes. It's about creating something that continues to feel true, even as others add their own layers to the story.
Central Av, Los Angeles
