Brand Design Is Broken: Why Most Rebrands Ignore the Real Problem

By Christopher Cureton

If your brand strategy doesn’t align your leadership team, it doesn’t matter how beautiful your new logo is.

That’s the problem with most rebrands: they start with surface updates and skip the source of the dysfunction.

A new website won’t fix a confused go-to-market. A shiny design system won’t align a fragmented leadership team. And a "big idea" tagline won’t clarify your business model.

Brand design is broken because it’s been reduced to aesthetics.

I take a different approach.

I start with alignment. Because behind every ineffective brand expression is an unexamined strategic gap.

The Real Work Happens Before the Redesign

Most brand projects jump into execution: colors, fonts, messaging. But brand isn’t what you look like. It’s how you align, behave, and deliver value.

That’s why I don’t start with aesthetic design. I start with diagnosing misalignment between:

Vision and execution

Marketing and product

Leadership intent and frontline reality

When those disconnects get ignored, the result is a brand that looks good but doesn’t work.

The Framework for Brand That Works

I use The United State of Brand Design™ Framework to transform brand strategy into a Strategic Operating System (StrategicOS™).

It turns brand from an artifact into infrastructure. One that:

Codifies leadership alignment

Guides coordinated GTM moves

Anchors product, marketing, and sales in shared language

When brand becomes your StrategicOS™, it drives the business—not just the brief.

The Cost of a Surface-Level Rebrand

Companies spend millions on new visual identities while their executive team still debates what "value prop" actually means.

They relaunch with a bold new story that their product and people can’t deliver.

This is how brand work gets labeled as fluff. Because without alignment, it is.

Ready to Design From the Inside Out?

Start with alignment. Build a StrategicOS™. Then design a brand that actually works.


Christopher Cureton is the creator of The United State of Brand Design Framework™ and a strategic partner to CEOs and Marketing Leaders navigating go-to-market complexity. He helps executive teams align product, marketing, and sales around a shared vision—building strategic momentum, unified messaging, and brand-led growth.


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What Is a Strategic Operating System, and Why Every Growth-Stage Company Needs One