Part 1: You don't need a logo to start a business.

Why designing an identity before establishing meaning is…well…a waste of money

Contrary to popular assumption, most governments do not require a logo or letterhead to register a business. It’s not a legal requirement. A letterhead is a signifier of legitimacy and administrative readiness. It’s functional; designed to certify, not just circulate. Sometimes it requires one as part of the registration process. But a logo? Almost never.

And yet, it’s usually the first thing people ask me for.

Commercial stories evolve. They change shape. Look at Canon, from its first mark to what it is today. In 1933, the camera was called ‘Kwanon’; after the Buddhist deity of compassion. When they decided to go global, they dropped the goddess and registered the name ‘Canon.’ The meaning came first. The simplified logo came after the reputation was already understood.

Why do you think Canon simplified their mark… because they ran out of ideas?

I find that more logos get simplified because they have outgrown the need to explain themselves. The logo followed the business, not the other way around.

So when clients come to me at the early stages of launching, I usually recommend they don’t invest in a logo just yet. Better to invest in writing, photography, and above all, product development. A logo matters, but not for the reasons most people think, and rarely as early as they think it does.

Think of it as the lifespan of a reputation.

At some point in time, somewhere between the Louis Vuitton handbags and Nike caps, the logo became merchandise. And the meaning became equity. Now, a logo is only worth something once it’s earned a reputation or manufactured. More on that later…

It begins with the way you conduct business. The way it offers a solution, shows up, or maybe even simply listens to consumers. These gestures become the business story. And it evolves through repetition and trust. It becomes a reputation. And eventually, it crystallizes into form.

That’s when you invest in a logo… A good one, with all the bells and whistles.

Reputations are manufactured or grown.

Sometimes the entrepreneurs who hire us don’t have the luxury of time. They can’t grow a reputation organically; they need to inform and distribute within a short window. They need to manufacture one.

$6.9 billion reputation…

The Olympics spends hundreds of millions on branding every four years; an entirely new visual identity each cycle, built from scratch, designed to tell a story, about a city, a culture, a moment, etc.

Does it work? Does anyone ever buy a ticket for the logo alone?

Sometimes all you need to do is show up consistently.

Soorya Matchboxes, producing Sri Lanka’s first wax-coated safety matches since 1984; do they need to manufacture a new reputation each time?

Both approaches work. But only one of them requires a logo on day one. And they follow different timelines and different logics.

• A manufactured reputation, like the Olympics, a product launch, a rebrand, these are commissions. There is a clear brief, focused scope, and the goal post can’t move. High effort, high cost, concentrated into a short window. You get something finished. Something you can point to.

  
  

• A lived reputation, like Soorya didn’t commission their brand equity; they accumulated it. And the businesses that grow that way don’t usually need a single expensive solution. They need ongoing support.

  
  

That’s the model we’ve built our story studio membership around. We learn about our members, offering to help them package and distribute their stories consistently over time. Lower cost, higher value in the long run. In the end, they get a very good logo and everything else along the way.

They are mnemonic

Here’s a simple example: On your way home from work, you remember to buy some tea. You take it home, drink it. Turns out to be the best tea you’ve ever had. A few days later, you run out, go back to the shop and ask for the same one. The shopkeeper points to the shelf and says, ‘Over there, the box that says Zesta.’

Now you are a Zesta Tea person.

The logo didn’t create any experience. It just gave you a way back to it. That’s what a mnemonic does, it doesn’t build the memory, it retrieves one that already exists. The real value is in the association the mark holds. The logo doesn’t create that relationship. It inherits it.

A mnemonic only works when there’s already something to remember.

JK Keller took a self-portrait every single day for 25 years, from age 22 to 47. At a glance, it’s an archive; Then think about the relationship between himself, his practice, and an audience that watched him become something over time. That’s where the real value lives. It’s not in the mark itself, but in the accumulated trust it signifies. The logo doesn’t create that relationship. It inherits it.

Part 2 up next…

This text is an interpretation of a 2026 seminar on the lifespan of commercial stories, delivered for the Academy of Design, Sri Lanka. The seminar was designed to help understand how meaning is seeded, scaled, and sustained. It encourages design for continuity, not just aesthetics; for symbols that circulate, not just certify. So if you’re building something, start with consistency: consistency in product or service, or in story. Show up and let the reputation accumulate until the symbol has something worth inheriting.