About Charcoal Design
Hi, I’m Michael Bretherton, the creative mind behind Charcoal Design, a branding studio based right here in Brisbane.
When you choose Charcoal Design, you’re collaborating one-on-one with me, an experienced designer dedicated to bringing your brand’s vision to life. I’m passionate about delivering effective and impactful design solutions that truly meet your business needs.
I’m your branding department, you could say.
My goal is problem solving in the area of your branding. Where are you at? Starting out? Or maybe you have an established business but you’re struggling with clarity and consistency in terms of your branding and communications. I can help to turn that around.
It’s important to take things one step at a time. Figure out the goals and then we can break them down into not so daunting parts, and actually make great progress.
Tailored branding approach
I take the time to understand the essence of your brand through a discovery process. This ensures your logo and branding materials are not just visually appealing, but also genuinely aligned with your business identity.
I’ve had the pleasure of working with a wide range of clients across Brisbane, Australia and beyond. My aim has always been to build ongoing relationships where possible so I can continue to nurture my clients’ visual branding.
Client-first philosophy
Creativity, strategy, and attention to detail are at the heart of what I do. I’m here to help your business stand out and connect with the people who matter most to you.
If you’d like to learn more about Charcoal Design, or discuss a project, please get in touch.
Putting principles into practice
I always start the creative exploration phase on paper, generating ideas with pencil or pen, or may get my hands dirty with some charcoal or pastels to thrash out some ideas and concepts.
I ran with this idea of a stick of charcoal — and thinking of an icon to accompany the word mark, explored the idea of the ‘C’ (there’s a story behind that decision, as there should be for any decision in creating a logo), a curved shape, but make if from charcoal. Of course a stick of charcoal is very rigid, but when it comes to branding I wanted to reflect the idea that we can make ideas (sometimes the impossible, maybe) happen, so I bent that brittle charcoal into a curve… the C was created.
The design holds true to important logo design requirements: it’s unique, scalable and memorable. Simplicity is the key for a logo to work across many situations and sizes. Overall I’m 100% happy with the design. It feels like a perfect fit for my business. And that’s the feeling I want to create for business owners when I create their branding — ‘It just feels right, a perfect fit’.
