Looking for a brand and packaging studio in Manchester or the North West? What to look for before you choose
You've reached the point where doing the brand yourself isn't the answer anymore. Good. That's usually a sign the business has outgrown the first version of itself.
Now comes the harder bit: choosing who to trust with it. Most founders pick on portfolio alone, land on whoever's prettiest, and find out too late that pretty and right aren't the same thing. Here's what actually separates a studio that will move your brand forward from one that'll just redraw your logo.
Do they understand product brands, not just brands
A studio that does restaurants, law firms and the odd app is not the same as one that lives in home and lifestyle. Product brands have their own problems: the shelf, the buyer, the range, the unboxing, the price point. Ask what they've done in your world. A studio that knows candles, homeware, fragrance or cleaning will ask you different questions, and better ones.
Do they start with strategy or jump to the logo?
If the first conversation is about colours, be careful. The look is the last mile. What makes a brand worth more is the thinking underneath: who you're for, what makes you genuinely different, why anyone should pay more. A studio that skips that is selling you decoration. The ones worth paying understand that the strategy is the product and the design is how it's delivered.
Do they get premiumisation?
The home and lifestyle market isn't really growing in volume. The game is charging more on the same shelf, not finding more customers. A studio that understands that will be building you a brand designed to lift your price, not just tidy your image. If they can't talk about how the brand earns its keep commercially, they're thinking like decorators, not partners.
Do they understand packaging and retail?
For a product brand, packaging is the brand. It's the thing the customer holds and the buyer judges. A studio that treats packaging as an afterthought to the logo is the wrong studio. You want someone who thinks about the shelf, the range, and how it all behaves in a real retailer's hands.
Proof in your category beats a big logo wall
A famous client is nice. A relevant one is useful. Look for work in product or home and lifestyle, and for results, a brand that lifted its price, got into retailers, and launched well, rather than just images that look good on a slide.
Questions worth asking any studio
What have you done for a home or lifestyle product brand?
Do you start with strategy, and what does that look like?
How do you think about packaging and the shelf?
What happened to the brands you've worked on, commercially?
Who actually does the work, and who will I be talking to?
The answers will tell you quickly whether you're talking to a partner for the business you're building or a supplier for a logo.
If you're a founder-led home or lifestyle brand in the North West and you want to talk it through, the brand call is the place to start. Just a proper conversation about where your brand is and what it needs.
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One that understands your kind of business, starts with strategy rather than the logo, and can show what happened to the brands it's worked on, not just how they look. For a product brand specifically, you want a studio that thinks about packaging, the shelf and the price point, because that's where the brand lives and gets judged.
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Yes. The North West has strong studios, but the thing to check isn't location, it's specialism: whether a studio genuinely works with home and lifestyle product brands rather than treating yours as a one-off. A studio that knows candles, homeware, fragrance or cleaning will understand the shelf and the buyer in a way a generalist won't.
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For a founder-led brand, a full rebrand usually runs between £6,000 and £15,000, with lighter guided formats around £1,500 and self-guided tools closer to £200. What moves the number is how much strategy you need and how many touchpoints you have, from a single hero product to a full range with a wholesale line sheet.
