FAQS

Registered in Singapore in 2013 under the name XINMING DESIGN ALLIANCE PTE LTD. A Shenzhen company was established in 2014.

 

Two operating offices:

 

Shenzhen — Block B, Aerospace Science & Technology Plaza, 1688 Haide 3rd Road, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, China

 

Singapore — 27 West Coast Highway #02-22, Singapore 117867

A core team of 8, extended by a long-term collaboration network of 20+.

 

We work through a model of small team + AI + global collaboration network rather than scaling headcount. The trade-off is deliberate and worth stating plainly: this suits work that requires depth of judgment and system building, and does not suit work that requires large numbers of people executing in parallel.

 

Companies needing large-volume collateral production, exhibition build, or media buying should expect to source that execution capacity separately.

200+ projects delivered and 100+ clients served as of 2026.

 

Publicly listed clients include Pearl River Piano Group (002678.SZ), Shouhang New Energy (301658.SZ), Haosen FinTech (03848.HK), Duoxiangyun (6696.HK), Kaisa Culture (002425.SZ), Xueda / Quantong Education (300359.SZ), and Tong Master (00664.HK). We also serve clients in the semiconductor and advanced manufacturing sector.

 

Other representative projects include DCB Link / Dachan Bay Terminals, Xianlin Science City Group, Century Golden Resources Hotel Group, Sanya Haiyun Resort Hotel, Rittmüller and Strauss, and Sunshine Academy. The full portfolio is on our website.

Industries: semiconductors and deep tech, new energy and storage, advanced manufacturing, finance and professional services, technology and internet, hospitality and cultural tourism, education, healthcare, consumer brands, ports and logistics infrastructure, culture and publishing.

 

Regions: mainland China, Singapore, wider Asia, and overseas markets. Delivered projects include work in the United States, Germany, Thailand, and Malaysia.

 

We only make public claims about industries where we hold real project evidence. Sectors without a supporting case are not listed — an internal rule, not a marketing choice.

By the usual industry categories, Xinming is a branding agency, and we do deliver logo design and visual identity systems. The difference lies in where the work stops.

 

The conventional path ends with a visual system and a guidelines manual. That model assumes the person executing is a designer: the manual shows examples, and human judgment fills the gaps.

 

Xinming's path ends with an operating rule set — because the people executing are no longer only designers. They are marketing teams, sales teams, external vendors, and a growing number of AI tools. None of those can infer intent from examples. They need explicit, structured, machine-readable rules.

 

In one line: a visual identity answers "what does the brand look like." Brand OS answers "how does the brand stay itself when many people and many tools are using it at once."

All standard prices are published on our Services & Pricing page:

 

Service Price Timeline
Brand Diagnosis ¥9,800 2–3 weeks
Brand Strategy ¥40,000 4–6 weeks
Logo Design ¥30,000 4–5 weeks
Basic Visual Identity ¥60,000 7–9 weeks
Standard Visual Identity System ¥100,000 10–14 weeks
Brand OS from ¥120,000 10–16 weeks
GEO Website from ¥60,000 8–12 weeks
Brand Knowledge Base from ¥40,000 6–10 weeks
AI Brand Workflow from ¥60,000 6–10 weeks
Annual Brand Advisory from ¥180,000 / year annual retainer

 

Specialized services: standard visual execution from ¥10,000; specialized visual projects from ¥20,000; brand naming and complex specialized systems quoted per project.

 

Each standard price corresponds to the scope published on that service's page; work beyond that scope is quoted separately. Services marked "from" are confirmed against brand complexity, number of business lines, language requirements, and governance scope.

 

Prices are stated in CNY. Quotations for international engagements are issued in CNY or SGD depending on the contracting entity; equivalents in other currencies are indicative only.

Between 2 and 16 weeks depending on the service:

 

Brand Diagnosis 2–3 weeks · Brand Strategy 4–6 weeks · Logo Design 4–5 weeks · Basic VI 7–9 weeks · Standard VI 10–14 weeks · Brand OS 10–16 weeks · GEO Website 8–12 weeks · Brand Knowledge Base 6–10 weeks · AI Brand Workflow 6–10 weeks.

 

These timelines assume materials are supplied complete and feedback returns on schedule. Significant scope changes trigger a timeline reassessment.

 

A full brand engagement compressed below six weeks generally means research and validation have been cut. Pace is part of the work: moving too fast trades away judgment quality.

If the problem is not yet clearly defined, start with Brand Diagnosis (¥9,800, 2–3 weeks). It identifies what is actually worth solving first — and, equally usefully, what does not need doing yet. It exists to prevent unfocused spending on logo, identity, or website work.

 

If the problem is already clear, start directly with the relevant service. Brand Diagnosis is a recommended entry point, not a mandatory prerequisite.

 

Two misallocations are common: the real problem sits in positioning but the entire budget goes into a visual rebuild; or the real problem is loss of execution control and the response is another new identity system. Diagnosing before prescribing costs far less than moving confidently in the wrong direction.

No. They are nested tiers, not cumulative purchases. Select one.

 

Logo Design (¥30,000) — establishes the core brand mark
Basic Visual Identity (¥60,000) — includes the core Logo Design work, plus a parameterization system and 10 standard applications
Standard Visual Identity System (¥100,000) — includes all of Basic VI, plus a complete visual system, governance rules, and 20 standard applications

 

You do not buy the logo first and the identity later. Enter at the tier that matches your current stage.

 

A separate point worth stating: Brand OS is a different dimension, not a premium visual identity tier. Standard VI builds a visual identity system; Brand OS builds judgment, rules, and governance. The two combine well, but the Brand OS starting price does not include full visual identity application work.

No. Existing strategy, logo, visual standards, or knowledge assets that are assessed as still usable are not rebuilt, and quotations are recalculated against the actual incremental scope.

 

For example, if a client has a usable logo, a Basic VI engagement does not repeat the logo creative process; that effort shifts into logo parameterization, deeper system work, or standard applications. Where the overall scope contracts significantly, the quotation is reset accordingly.

 

The same principle governs the boundaries between services. Brand OS's Knowledge Architecture defines knowledge classification, entity relationships, and governance principles; the Brand Knowledge Base handles the actual organization and population of content. These are Architecture and Population — related but not overlapping, and never double-billed.

The following are not included in design fees and are borne by the client as incurred: font licensing, stock image licensing, print production, servers and domains, and third-party platform fees.

 

Separately quoted: applications beyond the standard count, large-scale quantitative research, additional language versions, group and multi-brand architecture, and material changes to a previously confirmed direction once a project has moved into the following phase.

 

Standard service includes consolidated feedback and necessary refinement against a confirmed direction.

Eight modules, assembled into a maintainable and updatable system document:

 

Judgment Kernel · Brand Constitution · Semantic System · Aesthetic Constitution · Brand Governance · AI Collaboration Rules · Knowledge Architecture · Brand OS Documentation

 

Starting at ¥120,000, covering one primary brand, one to two core business lines, and a single primary language. Group architecture, multi-brand governance, multilingual systems, and multi-region operations are assessed separately.

 

Brand OS does not include large-scale visual identity application work, website development, or ongoing content production by default. These are configured as separate services.

A visual identity system addresses what the brand looks like. Brand OS addresses how the brand stays consistent while running.

 

These are different dimensions, not sequential tiers. The Brand OS starting price excludes full VI application work, and Standard VI does not include judgment or governance mechanisms.

 

A practical way to tell which you need:

 

Dated logo, inconsistent brand colours, collateral without standards, a website that looks out of date → you need visual identity work
Departments describing the company differently, content volume rising while tone drifts, AI-generated material that does not feel like the brand, a reset every time the brand lead changes → you need Brand OS

Companies that already hold brand assets and have reached the point where those assets are being used by many parties at once. Typical signals:

 

· Multiple departments and external vendors speaking for the brand, with descriptions beginning to diverge

 

· The business has moved on, but the outside world has not understood the change

 

· A growing product range that buyers cannot navigate

 

· Teams producing content and visuals with AI, with no consistency across the output

 

· Brand standards resetting whenever the responsible person changes

 

Where it does not fit: early-stage companies without a settled business or established brand assets. At that stage, brand strategy and visual foundations deliver more, and Brand OS has too little to govern.

Currently published at version 1.5. The main advance in v1.5 is the shift from "a brand system AI can call on" to an Agent-oriented brand operating system: it defines a tool invocation layer and reinforces the boundary of human strategic authority — AI can assist with analysis, generation, scenario work, and execution, but does not assume final strategic judgment on a company's behalf.

 

Version history is published in the Brand OS Evolution Log section of our website.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the practice of building an organization's information infrastructure for generative AI environments, so that AI systems discover, understand, verify, and cite company information accurately. The field also circulates under AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), LLMO, and "AI SEO" — we use GEO throughout. SEO optimizes ranking on a results page; GEO optimizes the conditions under which a model understands and cites you. Neither replaces the other.

 

The difference between a GEO website and a conventional one is structural, not visual: semantic architecture, a defined company-fact structure, a case evidence system, structured data (Organization / Service / Article / FAQ / Breadcrumb schema), robots and sitemap configuration, JavaScript rendering risk checks, and AI crawler accessibility review.

 

We hold that a digital brand infrastructure must satisfy six conditions simultaneously: accessible, understandable, verifiable, citable, recommendable, re-testable. The first three can be objectively tested and should be treated as hard acceptance criteria.

 

GEO Website engagements start at ¥60,000 over 8–12 weeks.

No, and we do not make that claim.

 

Generative model output depends on training data, retrieval mechanisms, context composition, and how the question is phrased. The same question asked repeatedly returns different results. No agency controls these variables.

 

What can be improved are the underlying conditions: making company information easier to retrieve, easier to understand correctly, easier to cross-verify, and easier to cite. These are conditions, not outcomes.

 

A related caution: promises such as "guaranteed top-three AI recommendation" or "full refund if targets are missed" carry more risk than reassurance. They commit a vendor to delivering a result on a variable the vendor does not control — and when the result does not arrive, the remaining paths usually involve selective reporting or manipulative content practices. Neither ends well for the client, who is the party that ultimately carries the consequences.

It will replace part of the work, not all of it.

 

The fastest displacement is in execution — image generation, layout, collateral extension, multi-format adaptation. AI is compressing both the effort and the price of that work substantially.

 

What becomes scarcer is judgment: whether the problem has been correctly defined, whether a direction is worth the investment, what to do and what to leave alone. When generative capacity becomes universally available, brands without a clear internal structure converge and dilute faster, not slower.

 

This is why Xinming concentrates on the judgment and system layers. Tools set the ceiling on efficiency; decisions determine whether the direction is right.

We do not take part in projects where a pitch is the primary basis for the decision.

 

We understand why pitching exists in some procurement processes. But the value of brand work comes from understanding a problem deeply and exercising judgment over time — not from presenting concepts under limited information and compressed timelines.

 

The alternative we propose: establish alignment on objectives, reasoning, and working method through direct conversation and professional assessment; or use Brand Diagnosis as a low-cost way for both sides to test the fit.

 

For organizations whose procurement rules require a pitch, we generally recommend finding a better-matched partner. That is more efficient for everyone involved.

We recommend looking elsewhere in the following situations:

 

· Requirements centred on fast output, short-term effect, or pure execution, without concern for structure or long-term value

 

· Work requiring large numbers of people executing in parallel — our core team is 8, and this is a real capacity boundary

 

· Exhibition build, collateral production, media buying, and public relations — outside our service scope

 

· Procurement processes where a pitch is the primary decision mechanism

 

· Companies seeking a guarantee of AI recommendation outcomes — we do not offer one

 

· Early-stage companies without a settled business — Brand OS has too little to govern at that stage

 

Stating this openly is intended to save time on both sides.

Intellectual property: ownership is set out in the engagement contract. Rights in the final confirmed work typically transfer to the client on settlement of fees. Licences for third-party assets such as fonts and stock imagery are obtained by the client for the scope of intended use. Contract terms govern in all cases.

 

Changing direction: standard service includes consolidated feedback and necessary refinement against a confirmed direction. Once a project has moved into a subsequent phase, material changes to a previously confirmed strategy, design direction, content scope, or functional scope are assessed as additional work.

 

Mature brand building is not fixed — it evolves within a clear structure. But adjustment should build on an established direction. A stable direction is what makes adjustment productive rather than circular.