A place for curious, creative and caring humans.

Great question, and honestly, not everyone should hire us. We’ve got a portfolio that speaks for itself, but a great-looking stack of work isn’t the whole story. If you’re obsessed with your business, fired up about this project, sweat the details, and want a brand that genuinely explodes off the screen, we should talk. We do our best work with clients who trust the process and bring the passion. If that’s you, let’s go.

Both can produce great work. The real question is what the project actually requires. A freelancer is often the right call for a single deliverable — an illustration, a one-off asset, a quick refresh. Where a studio makes sense is when the scope is bigger than one person can hold. Brand identity requires strategy, design, and production working in sequence. A website requires UX, UI, and development. When you need those disciplines working together under one roof, with a process that keeps everything coherent from brief to launch, that is where we do our best work. What we are not is a large agency with layers of account management between you and the people doing the work. You get a small, senior team that is in it with you from day one.

We work with founders, operators, and teams who give a damn. Industries we love: food & beverage, beer & spirits, CPG & retail, startups & tech, arts & entertainment, and health & wellness. We’ve built iconic brands for businesses across the country, from scrappy startups to established names ready for their next chapter. If you’re a kindred spirit with a project worth believing in, we want to hear about it.

A logo is a mark. A brand identity is everything the mark lives within. At MRC, a brand identity typically includes logo design, color palette, typography, brand mark variations, patterns, illustration, and brand usage guidelines, forming the complete visual system that makes a brand recognizable and consistent wherever it appears. A logo alone can look great in isolation but fall apart the moment you try to put it on a package, a storefront, or a social profile. Brand identity design is the work that ensures everything holds together. If you are investing in your brand, invest in the system, not just the mark.

A brand identity is a lot more than a logo, and that’s kind of our whole thing. A full MRC brand identity typically includes logo design, color palette, typography, brand mark variations, patterns, illustration, and brand usage guidelines — the complete visual system your brand lives inside. Depending on your needs, we layer in brand messaging, packaging design, illustration, and more. Think of it as the full toolkit your brand needs to show up consistently and memorably, everywhere.

Both, and that is what sets us apart. We do not just make things look good; we make sure they mean something. Our brand strategy process starts with understanding your audience, your positioning, what makes you different, and what you want people to feel. The design comes from that foundation. It is the difference between a logo and a brand.

Every project starts with Onboarding, moves into Discovery & Creative Strategy, then Visual Identity design, and closes with Brand Guidelines & Asset Handoff. For projects that include a custom website, we follow with Website Discovery, Strategy, Design, and Development. Every phase of our process builds on the previous one—there are no shortcuts and no mistakes allowed. It’s a meticulous, handcrafted journey that takes us from pencil and paper to pixels and production, and we never skip any steps. Interested in a detailed breakdown? Visit our Process page.

Most brand identity projects run 8 to 12 weeks from kickoff to final deliverables. The timeline depends on the scope, the speed of feedback, and whether we’re building a logo system only or a full brand ecosystem with messaging, packaging, and beyond. We move with intention, neither rushing nor dragging our feet.

Each milestone includes one revision round, which can vary based on project complexity, stakeholder involvement, and whether we’re creating or refreshing a brand. Our thorough Discovery helps set a direction quickly; revisions are for polishing, not pivoting. They involve moderate modifications, not new concepts. Significant shifts after approval are managed via a change order at our hourly rate.

Both. We offer both UX strategy and UI design, as well as development, all under one roof. This means that the functionality and aesthetics of a website are designed in harmony. We create custom websites that are tailored to how your audience interacts with a page, from their first impression to their decision to make contact. A visually appealing website that confuses users is simply an expensive mistake.

A custom website design and development project usually takes between 2 to 4 months from the kickoff meeting to the final launch. The project’s scope greatly influences the timeline. For instance, a simple five-page brochure site progresses differently than a comprehensive e-commerce platform. Since we manage UX strategy, UI design, and development all in-house, we ensure that there are no handoffs, no oversights, and no unexpected issues at the finish line.

We build on WordPress, Shopify, and Squarespace. WordPress is our most common build. We use a custom ACF Pro system that is stable, fast, and easy for your team to manage long after launch. For e-commerce and product-driven businesses, Shopify is often the right call. For smaller or content-light projects, Squarespace is a smart, clean option. We recommend the platform based on your content needs, team capacity, and long-term goals, not a one-size-fits-all approach.

We set your site up for success at launch, including mobile and browser testing, domain and host configuration, and a backend training session so your team knows how to manage it. Ongoing hosting and maintenance retainers may be available through a trusted partner. Ask us about it in your project inquiry.

We handle a wide range of projects, but our passion lies in character-driven work. Creating brand mascots, characters, and spot illustrations is at the core of our expertise, helping brands develop a unique face and personality. Additionally, we offer icon and pattern design, custom lettering, packaging illustrations, infographics, and editorial illustrations. If it involves hand-drawn elements and supports a brand or story, we are excited to take it on.

Illustration most often comes as part of a larger brand project, and that is where we do our deepest work. But yes, we take standalone illustration. If you have a character, pattern, packaging concept, or campaign that needs a hand-drawn touch, reach out and tell us about it.

Campaign concepts, social creative, print, digital ads, collateral, presentations. If it is creative work that helps a brand show up and get noticed, it is in our wheelhouse. We handle the concepting, design, and production side. We do not buy or place media ourselves, but through our Extended Studio we bring in a marketing strategist specific to your industry or goals and project manage the full process from strategy through placement. One point of contact, one accountable team. Ask us about it in your project inquiry.

Both. Some clients bring us in for a specific campaign or launch, we deliver a defined set of work, and we are done. Others keep us on a design retainer for ongoing creative support, a steady flow of social assets, campaign refreshes, and collateral as needs arise. We will talk through which model makes sense for where you are.

Yes, and we are intentional about it. Through our Extended Studio, we bring in trusted specialists we have worked alongside for years. Photography, copywriting, motion, print production, marketing strategy, and more. This is not a gap in what we offer. It is how we build the right team for every project rather than stretching one team too thin. MRC manages the relationship, so you have one point of contact and a process that holds together from brief to final delivery.

MRC manages the relationship. Our partners work within our process, our standards, and your brand system. You hired us, and we are accountable for the full result.

We are a boutique brand design studio. Brand identity work is an investment; our tiers start at $12,000 for Brand Essentials and scale through Brand System and Brand Ecosystem. Full brand and web engagements start at $40,000. Not every project fits those tiers. One-off work, standalone projects, and retainer partnerships are scoped separately based on what each requires. And if the mission is right, we are always willing to have a conversation. Reach out, tell us what you are building, and we will put together a proposal that makes sense for both sides.

You do. Upon receipt of full payment, all intellectual property rights for the approved, selected work transfer to you. You will receive your final brand standards and a full library of production-ready assets ready to use. One thing worth knowing: alternate concepts and explorations presented but not selected remain the property of MRC.

We are a brand design studio based in Raleigh, North Carolina, but our clients are everywhere — from the East Coast to the West Coast and beyond. We collaborate remotely without skipping a beat and have built brands for businesses across the country and internationally. That said, if you are local, we would love to grab coffee first.

Yes. A deposit is required upon signing to initiate the project, with remaining payments tied to project milestones to keep things transparent and predictable for both parties. We also offer a 5% discount for projects paid in full upfront. The specifics are outlined in your proposal.

Head to our project inquiry page and tell us a little about what you are building. We will follow up to schedule a call, learn more about your project, and figure out if we are the right fit. We do not take on everything, but when we do, we are all in.

A signed agreement, your deposit, and a willingness to show up for the process. From there, we will schedule your onboarding call, get you set up in our project management platform, and dive into Discovery together. The most important things you can bring are clarity about your goals, honest feedback, and trust in the process. The clients we do our best work with are the ones who are invested, responsive, and ready to build something worth believing in.