In today’s fast-paced world, no brand seems infallible: from a major shoe company stealing designs off artists to popular fast-food chains and MNCs stealing business away from local restaurants, almost everyone seems to have their own flaws. It is for this reason that brand image has become more important than ever before; a good brand image withstands the aftereffects of controversy and draws people in. That’s where a creative branding agency comes in.

A creative branding agency works with your business to develop and deliver imaginative designs and strategies that can be used to build up your brand’s identity. Simultaneously, creative branding agencies work to bridge the gap between what you offer and what your audience desires.

Clearly, creative branding agencies are integral to make your business stand out in a world that is constantly in motion. That’s why you can’t leave choosing the correct creative branding agency to just anyone; here are some of the bests of the biz’ that we feel won’t just match your expectations, but go above and beyond in delivering the results you want to see. From incredibly innovative movers and shakers to those who give you a great bang for your buck, we’ve got it all and more!

Still unsure why creative branding is so essential for your business? Confused as to how to go about choosing an agency? Don’t worry, we’ve got answers for those questions and more in our FAQ section at the end! And once you have all your questions, feel free to continue browsing through our handy list on the best creative branding agencies money could buy.

Top 10 Best Creative Branding Agencies

  1. Clay – Best Overall
  2. Wolff Olins – Internationally renowned
  3. Pentagram – Largest independent agency
  4. Moving Brands – Sustainable brand growth
  5. DesignStudio – Design-centered
  6. Ramotion – Client-centered
  7. Collins – Brand experience design
  8. Mucho – Versatile services
  9. Motto – Most groundbreaking
  10. Red Antler – Best for startups

1. Clay – Best Overall

Pricing:Requires Inquiry
Location:300 Broadway, Suite 23, San Francisco, CA 94133
Founded:2016
Key Clients:Facebook, Google, Amazon, Cisco

Founded only within the last five years, Clay – a web design and creative branding agency based in San Francisco – already boasts an impressive client portfolio with some of the biggest brands in the world (From Facebook all the way to Google) making the list. Behind each stunning design and easily recognizable brand identity is a hunger for innovation and a drive to create images that propel an entire industry forward; it is this same hunger that has consistently placed Clay on the fast track to success.

Aside from its identifiable designs, Clay also offers a wide range of services that can be blended together to suit the client’s needs, from animation and mobile app development to logo design, frontend development, and beyond!

2. Wolff Olins – Internationally renowned

Pricing:Requires Inquiry
Location:Bankside 2, London, SE1 0SW, UK
Founded:1965
Key Clients:Uber, Grubhub, Google, Alibaba

Wolff Olins is grounded in a commitment to drive change through creative branding. And boy, does the agency deliver! With a notable range of past clients, well-established design services, and a vast global presence incomparable to any other agency, Wolff Olins is the obvious choice in creative branding agency. The team of over 150 brand strategists and designers spans the globe from New York to London to San Francisco. Regardless of where they are, the passionate team behind some of the world’s most iconic designs always prioritizes the client and builds an identity from the ground up to suit a business’s needs.

3. Pentagram – Largest independent agency

Pricing:Requires Inquiry
Location:250 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003
Founded:1972
Key Clients:Yahoo, Netflix, Slack, Verizon

Armed with a team of over 300 multidisciplinary artists, designers, coders, and strategists as well as an international presence to rival Wolff Olin’s own, Pentagram is the crew behind the curtain for some of the biggest brands in the world. Behind every campaign and brand design is the Pentagram team’s passion for their work, which they reflect in their approach to every client. By and ensuring every single client communicates directly with the designers, Pentagram reiterates their dedication to their craft, to the work, and to the business which they are serving. It is this personalization in a world of middle-men and an endless line of higher-ups that makes Pentagram stand out even today, over 50 years after its inception.

4. Moving Brands – Sustainable brand growth

Pricing:Requires Inquiry
Location:1515 Folsom St, San Francisco 94103, USA
Founded:1998
Key Clients:Asana, Skype, Eventbrite, Sony

From a five-person agency passionate about all things design, film, storytelling, and technology to a multi-sensorial brand identity creator that is recognized for its work all over the world, Moving Brands has come far since its founding in 1998. But Moving Brands isn’t just passionate about creating brands that stand out; it believes in creating brands that endure past the fickle twists and turns of time. The agency’s sustainability efforts extend beyond mere corporate tokenism to genuine activism and action through (for instance) the Fuel program, wherein Moving Brands provides open resources for creative agencies and guides to strategy development. This is an agency that means it when they say “share the knowledge, share the wealth”.

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5. DesignStudio – Design-centered

Pricing:Requires Inquiry
Location:379 W Broadway New York NY 10012
Founded:2009
Key Clients:Microsoft, Nokia, Airbnb, Evernote

DesignStudio began as a creative agency founded by two risk-taking entrepreneurs on the simple belief in “bring[ing] back design to the heart of the business”. That’s why the agency sees intelligent, lasting design as the core of whatever they do and whichever client they serve, using their skills in creative branding and strategy to build an identity which gives businesses and edge and a recognizable image. With the two visionary founders of the agency continuing to hold the reins, DesignStudio charges onwards with ambitious plans to never let business corrupt their design-centered focus and a commitment to treat every client differently based on their needs that has won them the fancy of major corporations.

6. Ramotion – Client centered

Pricing:Requires Inquiry
Location:851 Burlway Rd, Suite 216, Burlingame, CA 94010
Founded:2009
Key Clients:Mozilla Firefox, Volusion, Myki, Adobe

As an intentionally small, tight-knit agency that works with a select few clients at a time, Ramotion achieves success in its brand campaigns through a client-centered strategy and laser focus on serving a business to the best of its abilities. With 10 years in the biz and a client list ranging from start-ups and small businesses to large enterprises and multi-national corporations, Ramotion has proved itself successful in virtually every arena by lifting up brands and crafting visual identities that persist today. They do so by using research and data-backed tactics to fuel brand growth and by coming up with innovative design solutions tailored to each specific brand.

7. Collins – Brand experience design

Pricing:Requires Inquiry
Location:457 Grand St, Ground Fl, Brooklyn, NY 11211
Founded:2008
Key Clients:MailChimp, sweetgreen, Dropbox, Facebook

Founded by notable designer Brian Collins, Collins is an agency centered not only around brand identity, but brand experience design; in other words, Collins focuses not only on an audience’s image of a brand, but also their interactions with it, encompassing an entire experience rather than a mere representation. With a commitment to “put insight and imagination at the center of everything we do”, Collins transcends the average creative branding agency through its ability to predict, adapt to, and create brand futures. The unique team of industry experts works together to accelerate brand growth, draw in audiences, and craft experiences that give clients an edge over the competition.

8. Mucho – Versatile Services

Pricing:Requires Inquiry
Location:466 Geary St #500, San Francisco, CA 94102, USA
Founded:2003
Key Clients:Dolby, Venmo, PayPal, Futbol Club Barcelona

Whether you’re looking for compelling packaging design or creative branding, Mucho has got a mighty solution for you. This agency – which has its roots in Catalan, where it began as a design practice between two friends – has emerged into a design giant with offices spread across two continents, five countries. Founded on enduring principles of collaboration, visceral and emotive design, and bringing cultures closer together, Mucho functions as more than a creative branding agency: it creates brands that inspire change and leave lasting impacts.

9. Motto – Most groundbreaking

Pricing:Requires Inquiry
Location:200 Broadway, New York, NY 10038
Founded:2005
Key Clients:Hershey’s, 20th Century Fox, Google, NCM

Born as an exciting entrepreneurial venture between two bold women trying to make it in an adman-dominated landscape, Motto has since metamorphosed into a successful creative branding agency lauded for its innovation and entrepreneurship (with the founders making Inc’s 30 Under 30 America’s Coolest Young Entrepreneurs list). At the heart of it all is the spirit of change and the ambition to drive the industry forward in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as innovation.

With their powerful origin story, Motto seeks to work with brands to create identities that disrupt, empower, and transform the people they reach out to.

10. Red Antler – Best for startups

Pricing:Requires Inquiry
Location:20 Jay St #420, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Founded:2007
Key Clients:Casper, Foursquare, Google, Simplist

Red Antler is a renowned brand design agency known for its portfolio of startups whose brand identity it builds from the ground up. By working holistically with entrepreneurs who are driven and ambitious, Red Antler seeks to align its own values with the clients it serves to best deliver brands that make a mark in the world, achieve accelerated growth, and drive their industries forward. Antlerists are passionate about creating brands that are ethically minded as well as change-makers, and do so through a signature blend of data-driven research, growth and marketing strategy, and brand/digital experience design. This full-package services and Red Antler’s impressive roster of clients – from Casper to Google and beyond – is sure to appeal to any startup.

Frequently Asked Questions

Don’t know where to start? You’ve found the right place! Here, we’ve got answers to all your burning questions, from “so, what exactly is a creative branding agency anyway?” to “why do I need one?”

What is a creative branding agency and how much do they cost?

A creative branding agency works with clients to develop brand identities (including often designing – or redesigning – associated imagery, naming, logos, and style guides) that are memorable with widespread appeal.

Creative branding agencies can cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars to $50000 depending on what your needs are. Your safest bet is to contact the agencies you’re interested in and ask for a quote or a rough estimate.

Why do I need a creative branding agency for my business?

There are several reasons that hiring a creative branding agency can be crucial to the growth and reputation of your brand. Here are just a few:

  1. Recognizable: Nike’s ‘swoosh’; Apple’s ‘apple’; McDonald’s ‘M’; every big brand on the planet today stands out because of one essential trait: they’re recognizable. By hiring a creative branding agency, you’re placing your business in the extremely capable hands of designers and strategists who are well-versed with getting the word out about your brand to the point where it becomes an icon, easily identifiable to audiences.
  2. Research: Branding experts differ from the average designer or digital marketer by combining aspects of both crafts and merging them together to generate clear branding campaigns backed by immense research and expertise. This isn’t a task for an amateur – not when your company’s entire identity is at stake!
  3. Innovative: Creative branding agencies are successful because they manage to constantly evolve and change in a cutthroat, competitive industry. These are the skills they bring to the table for every single client, and the best agencies are adaptable to your needs. This is what makes your brand standout – the ability that a creative branding agency has to read your needs and translate them into intelligent design, compelling user experience, and data-backed campaigns.

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