We started BTL because most brands were being built backwards.
Logo first. Strategy never.
THE STUDIO
Bhaskar Shanghalaya
Brand Strategist & Creative Director
"Branding is not about making things look good. It's about making them make sense."
Bhaskar leads brand strategy at Before The Logo. His background is unusual — physics, computer applications, finance, and then business design. That combination is not accidental. It means he approaches every brand challenge the way an analyst and a storyteller would, simultaneously.
He studied in Milan — a city where design is not aesthetic decoration but a discipline with structure, intent, and consequence. That shaped everything. Italian design philosophy doesn't ask "does it look good?" It asks "does it mean something, and is it built to last?"
At BTL, Bhaskar works on the part of branding most studios skip: the strategic foundation, the positioning, the narrative architecture, the communication systems. The work that happens before anyone opens a design file.
"Branding is not just about visuals. It is about creating systems that people can experience, understand, and remember."
Garima leads how strategy becomes experience at BTL. Her background is in interior and spatial design — seven years working on residential projects, understanding how materials, structure, and detail come together to make a space feel coherent and intentional.
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That lens changed how she sees branding. A brand isn't just a logo and a colour palette. It's an environment people move through — across a website, a campaign, a product, a conversation. Every touchpoint is a spatial decision. Does it feel like the same place? Does it hold together?
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At BTL, Garima ensures that what is strategically defined is experientially real. She bridges the thinking and the feeling — so brands don't just have a clear strategy, they have a clear presence.
Garima Narwal
Creative Strategist & Spatial Experiences
Why BTL exists
Most branding work starts in the wrong place. A client briefs a designer. The designer makes options. The client picks one. A logo is born. A colour palette follows. A website is built.
And somewhere in that process — nobody asked the question that actually matters: what does this brand stand for, and why would anyone choose it?
That's the gap BTL was built to fill. Not the execution gap. The thinking gap. The space between having a business and having a brand that means something.
We exist because clarity at the foundation changes everything downstream. When positioning is sharp, design becomes coherent. When narrative is defined, communication becomes consistent. When strategy comes first, marketing stops being noise.
"Without strategic foundation, design is decoration and marketing is noise."
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Strategy always comes first. Design follows meaning.
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Brands are built, not found. Intention beats accident every time.
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Fewer clients. Deeper work. That's the only model that produces real results.
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We price on the depth of work required — not on package tiers.
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The best brand work is invisible. People feel it before they name it
THE INFLUENCE
Shaped by a city where craft is a discipline, not a style.
Milan is not known for making things that look good. It is known for making things that are right — structurally, intellectually, and aesthetically. Where function and form are treated as inseparable.
That philosophy runs through everything at BTL. We don't approach brand work as a creative exercise. We approach it as a design discipline — where every decision has a reason, and the reason matters more than the result.
Craft over speed. Clarity over excess. Ideas that outlast trends