Brand identity in IrelandBrand your startup properly, before the first customer sees it.
A name and a hopeful logo are not a brand. ELRO gives a new Irish business a complete, consistent identity without an agency or a brief.
Design free, pay when you approve.
The problem
Most startups collect their brand by accident.
A logo made in a hurry for the website. A different colour on the pitch deck. A third font on the invoices because that is what the template used. Each choice was quick and reasonable. Together they make a young business look unsure of itself.
Fixing it later means redoing the website, the deck, the packaging and the signs. It is far cheaper to settle the look once, early, and write the rules down so everyone who touches the business follows them.
A launch checklist
What a new business needs before it goes public.
A name you can use
Check the Companies Registration Office name search, trade mark registers, a matching domain and social handles before you fall in love with a name.
A logo in the right shapes
Horizontal, stacked and symbol layouts, with versions for dark backgrounds and one-colour printing.
Colours and type
A named palette with exact values and typefaces with safe fallbacks, so the website and the printer agree.
A style guide
One short document that tells a freelancer, a printer or your first hire how to use the brand correctly.
Icons for the web
A favicon for browser tabs and an app icon for home screens, sized properly.
Agreement between founders
A way for co-founders to see the options and vote, so the decision is made once and not reopened over email.
Why choosing works
Founders recognise a look long before they can describe it.
Ask a founder to describe the brand they want and you get "modern but warm" and "like that one, but ours". Show them a screen of styles and they know in seconds which ones feel right and which feel wrong.
ELRO is built on that. You tap what you like, ELRO works out the direction and designs concepts around it. Your co-founder can do the same through a link, and the concepts that survive both sets of reactions are usually the ones you can both live with.
What you leave with
A brand pack you can start using the same day.
Everything below comes from one approved design, so it all matches.
Logos
SVGPNGPNG @2xthree layouts (horizontal, stacked, symbol), each in ten treatments for light and dark backgrounds and one-colour jobs.
Brand guidelines
PDFThe rulebook for using everything in the pack, described on this page.
Style guide card
PNGSVGYour identity on one page, with the approved concept beside it for reference.
App icons
PNGSVGBrand, dark and light versions from 16 to 1024 pixels, for app stores, home screens and social profiles.
Rounded icons
PNGSVGTransparent rounded-square icons at 512 and 1024 pixels.
Favicons
ICOBrowser-tab icons in several sizes, one for each treatment.
Colour tokens
CSSJSONYour four colours as code, for a developer to drop in.
Fonts
Your typeface file and its licence, where the licence allows it.
Asset index
CSVA list of every file in the download, so nothing gets lost.
Read me
MDA short tour of what is in the download and when to use each treatment.
Putting it to work
Pitch decks, websites, signage and packaging.
The style guide shows which logo to use on which background, how much space to leave around it and the smallest size it works at. A designer building your website, a printer making your packaging and a friend helping with your pitch deck can all follow the same page.
If you are applying for support or presenting to a mentor, an accelerator or an investor, a consistent identity does one quiet job well: it tells them the business is taken seriously.
Questions, answered.
When should a startup brand itself?
As soon as the name is settled and before the first website, pitch deck or printed material. Branding first means everything you make afterwards matches, and you do not pay to redo it.
Do I need a finished business plan before using ELRO?
No. You need the name of your business and a sentence about what it does. Everything else is optional.
Can my co-founder have a say?
Yes. Invite them with a link. They give feedback and vote once on the concepts and once in each round of changes. They do not need an account.
What if we are still deciding the business name?
Settle the name first and check it against company and trade mark registers. ELRO designs around a name, and ELRO does not provide trademark clearance.
Is there a subscription?
No. You pay once for a credit that pays for one brand.
Design your brand by looking.
Tap what you like. ELRO does the designing.
Design free, pay when you approve.