About Damn Time: The Durkan Group Rebrand
Throughout our existence, we’ve always prided ourselves on being a team that embraces curiosity and empathy. These two skills alone are crucial in helping us evolve our clients’ brands—work that involves transforming brand visuals, defining brand voice, creating thoughtful messaging, and ultimately, crafting meaningful experiences.
We’ve spent years guiding clients through the sometimes messy, but always rewarding, process of brand development. These experiences have taught us that rebranding is one of the hardest human things we do. That’s in large part because of change—and the fear that accompanies change—especially when it’s tied to identity.
During the rebranding process, we’re often heard telling our clients things like:
- “Your brand is your most valuable asset. It deserves to be built with intentionality and strategic thought.”
- “Every touchpoint matters. There should be a thoughtful through-line connecting every piece of the brand.”
- “A strong foundation and cohesive brand story should align everything else.”
These aren’t just talking points—these are principles we deeply believe to our core. Which is why it was particularly difficult when we finally paused long enough to take a hard look at ourselves.
We realized over the last few years, our own brand was getting by on intuition and improvisation. We had no formal brand book. Our messaging had evolved intentionally on some channels, but was inconsistent on others. Our visual identity felt stale and didn’t resonate with how we saw and presented ourselves to the rest of the world.
The irony wasn’t lost on us. We were the experts telling others to invest in their brand foundations while our own house needed serious attention.
If you’re considering a rebrand, you might be feeling some of the same hesitations we often hear from clients. These concerns are natural and valid—they reflect the investment, both emotional and practical, that we all make in our brands.
When we began contemplating our own refresh, we weren’t immune to these same doubts. Here are the three most common hesitations we encounter:
This fear runs deeper than just logos and color palettes—it’s about identity and connection. You’ve spent years building recognition and trust with your audience. The thought of potentially losing that equity can be unnerving.
What if clients don’t recognize you? What if they think you’ve changed your services or values? This hesitation often masks a deeper concern about maintaining the positive associations you’ve worked hard to establish, while still evolving to meet new challenges and opportunities.
Timing is everything, and it never seems right for a rebrand. There’s always another product launch, another campaign or fund raise, another fiscal year about to begin.
This hesitation often reflects uncertainty about return on investment. How do you measure the impact of a brand refresh? How do you justify the resources when there are so many competing priorities with more immediate payoffs? The truth is, postponing a needed rebrand often costs more in the long run than addressing it head-on.
If it’s not broken, why fix it? This seemingly pragmatic question often masks fear of the unknown. Maybe you were involved in creating the original brand. Maybe you’ve simply grown comfortable with it.
Either way, this hesitation prevents many brands from evolving from “fine” to exceptional. The approach itself is reactive rather than proactive, and it often creates a disconnect between a brand and the evolution of a company’s business strategy, audience needs, or market position.
Looking back, the signals for us were there all along—subtle at first, then harder to ignore. Our brand wasn’t working as hard as it could for us, and the disconnect between who we had become and how we presented ourselves was growing wider.
Here’s what finally pushed us to take action:
What started as an effort to refresh our website quickly evolved into something more fundamental. We found ourselves repeatedly unable to answer basic questions about our own brand decisions. Why this color? Why this messaging? Why this approach? The lack of intentionality became increasingly apparent once we started asking ourselves “why?”
As we further evaluated our brand, we realized we had fragments of a brand identity, but not a cohesive system guided by purpose and strategy.
Our logo, while recognizable, wasn’t connected to who we had become. Over the years, we have evolved into a collective group who approaches design as a purposeful process for solving complex challenges—yet our old visual identity told a different story.
Even our color palette felt increasingly misaligned with our voice and values. The predominant yellow, typically associated with caution, speed, and low cost, contradicted our methodical, premium approach. We aren’t about quick fixes or budget solutions—we’re intentional, clever, authentic, and helpful. Our visual language needed to reflect these qualities.
We began to recognize that our self-perception had also shifted. The term “agency” no longer captured the essence of our work. With our bespoke approach to branding and digital experiences, we had organically transformed into something more nuanced—a design studio that creates thoughtful, tailored solutions rather than traditional agency offerings.
This evolution wasn’t just semantic—it reflected a fundamental shift in our methodology. Over the years, our process evolved, prioritizing brand strategy before website design execution.
Instead of moving directly from discovery into UX and UI for our website projects, we now guide clients through building a comprehensive brand foundation, first. This means developing a complete brand guide that includes visual elements—like a thoughtfully crafted logo, typography, color palette, and unique iconography—and critical messaging components like brand positioning, voice and tone, thematic pillars, and core values.
We’ve witnessed how this brand-first approach creates clarity and alignment that ripples through every part of our clients’ digital presence. When brand strategy leads, design decisions become more intentional, content creation becomes more focused, and the entire project flows with greater purpose.
As we dug deeper, we also noticed inconsistencies in how we presented ourselves across different channels. Our visual identity and brand voice varied depending on who created what—from our website and social media presence, even to our project proposals. Without clear guidelines, our brand expression had become a game of telephone, with subtle distortions accumulating over time.
These inconsistencies weren’t just aesthetic problems—they were actively diluting our brand equity. Each misaligned communication or visual representation wasn’t just a missed opportunity; it was potentially eroding our brand recognition.
We knew every interaction needed to better reinforce who we are and what we stand for. This consistency isn’t just about looking polished—it’s about building cumulative impact. By addressing these inconsistencies through our brand refresh, we were making a strategic investment in our most valuable asset: our reputation and the trust our clients place in us.
Perhaps most importantly, we realized our brand positioning had evolved over time. We don’t see ourselves as just service providers—we are strategic partners to our clients. Our brand needed to reflect this more sophisticated relationship and attract the kind of collaborative partnerships we thrive in.
The best client relationships we’ve cultivated over the years share a common thread: genuine collaboration. These partnerships go beyond the traditional client-vendor dynamic, creating space for open dialogue, creative exploration, and mutual investment in the final outcome. Our work flourishes when we’re engaging with clients who are passionate about their own brands, who understand the value of intentional experiences, and who approach challenges with creativity and openness.
Yet our brand wasn’t effectively signaling this collaborative ethos. We needed to position ourselves not as a marketing service provider, but as a bespoke partner who brings expertise and curiosity to the table. This positioning is now reflected in our overall messaging, and our new website also gave us an opportunity to explore it in some fun ways, too.
As creatives, we love to draw inspiration from everywhere. The poet Maggie Smith has a beautiful concept about how, as people, we are all nesting dolls, carrying the earlier iterations of ourselves inside us. We think it works the same way with brands.
Rebranding isn’t about erasure or becoming something entirely new—it’s about growing into a more authentic, intentional version of your company. With our own rebrand, we’ve kept the elements that represent our core values while refining how we express them. We’ve maintained our fundamental approach while clarifying how we communicate it.
This continuity is what makes a rebrand different from starting at zero. It’s an evolution that acknowledges that your brand’s history is valuable—it’s built equity, relationships, and wisdom that shouldn’t be discarded. Instead, these elements should be carefully integrated into your next iteration.
How I picture it: We are all nesting dolls, carrying the earlier iterations of ourselves inside. We carry the past inside us. We take ourselves—all of our selves—wherever we go.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be diving deeper into each of these “signs it was time to rebrand” with dedicated posts exploring the lessons we learned along the way. We’ll share our process, our challenges, and the tools we used to reconnect with our brand essence. Our founder, Niall, shares his lessons, too.
For now, we’re excited to share this refreshed identity with you—one that finally practices what we’ve been preaching all along.
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