What is a brand clarity consultant?

A brand clarity consultant helps business owners define who they are, who they serve, and how their brand should show up — before any design or marketing work begins. At The Spark Labs, this process starts with a conversation rather than a brief, so the foundation is built from genuine understanding rather than guesswork.

Who is Jo Spottiswood?

Jo Spottiswood is the founder of The Spark Labs and a brand clarity consultant based in North East England. She works with coaches, consultants, and service providers whose work is better than their brand suggests, helping them build brands that finally reflect the quality of what they do.

What makes The Spark Labs different from other brand studios?

The Spark Labs builds from empathy and clarity rather than briefs and templates. Every decision is explained as the work progresses, and clients leave with a brand they fully understand and own - no dependency, no jargon, no disappearing after delivery.

What is the Brand Empath approach?

The Brand Empath approach starts with deep listening — sensing what clients can't yet articulate and building from what's already true about their business. It combines strong design skill, strategic thinking, and genuine empathy to produce brands that feel accurate rather than assembled.

Does The Spark Labs work with businesses outside the North East?

Yes. The Spark Labs works with clients across the UK both virtually and in person. While rooted in North East England, most client work happens remotely with no geographical restriction.

The Spark Labs. Built on a quiet belief that this work should feel different.

Not every studio starts from the same place.

The Spark Labs was built from a genuine belief, that the best brand work begins with listening, not briefing. That clarity matters more than cleverness. And that the people we work with should leave not just with something that looks better, but with something they truly understand and own.

That shapes everything about how we work. The conversations we have before anything is designed. The way we explain every decision as we go. The partnerships we build that feel like part of your team, not a transaction.

We work quietly. Carefully. Always with your confidence and independence as the goal.

What we believe

Empathy before everything.

We don’t start with a brief. We start with a conversation. Because the most important things about your brand, why you built this, what drives you, what makes your work genuinely different, rarely live in paperwork. They live in the way you talk about your work when you forget to be professional about it. We listen for that.

Clarity before creativity.

Design without understanding is just decoration. Every brand clarity consultant worth working with will tell you the same thing, we never begin the creative work until we know exactly who you are, who you serve, and what your brand needs to do. That's what makes everything that follows feel intentional rather than assembled.

Understanding over outcome.

We measure success not just by what you walk away with, but by how well you understand it. Every decision we make, we explain. Because a brand that lives only in our hands hasn’t done its job. Yours should belong to you, completely.

Behind The Spark Labs

I’m Jo Spottiswood. Designer, strategist, the person who listens for what you can’t quite say, and brand clarity consultant for business owners who are ready to close the gap between the quality of their work and the way it shows up in the world.

I started The Spark Labs because I wanted to build something honest. A practice where the work was grounded in real understanding, of who you are, what you’re building, and what your brand needs to do to close the gap between those two things.

What I bring to this work is a combination I’ve never found quite anywhere else: strong design skill, a marketing brain, and an instinct for reading what’s beneath the surface of a conversation. I often pick up on things people haven’t yet put into words, a shift in energy when we land on something true, a clarity in someone’s eyes when we name what they’ve been trying to say. That’s where the most accurate brands come from.

I work with a small number of clients at a time, deliberately. Because the depth of attention this kind of work requires can’t be spread thin.

I’m not here to be the loudest voice in the room. I’m here to be the right one, for the clients who are ready for something quieter, more considered, and genuinely theirs.

The Labs at a glance

Find your truth

Brand Lab

Strategic clarity that establishes who you are, who you serve, and how your brand should show up, before any creative or marketing work begins.

Find your expression

Creative Lab

Visual identity and creative assets that translate your brand strategy into something that feels coherent, considered, and authentically you.

Find your rhythm

Marketing Lab

Ongoing marketing support and strategy that keeps you visible, consistent, and growing, with a process you fully understand and own.

Right there with you, every step of the way.

A different kind of partnership

Working with a brand clarity consultant should leave you more capable, not more dependent. That’s the standard we hold ourselves to at every stage of the work.

We take things slowly when they need to be slow. We ask questions others skip. We explain decisions instead of just delivering them.

And we stay, not to make ourselves necessary, but because the work isn’t finished until you feel confident carrying it forward yourself.

That’s the Spark Labs difference. Not a process. A belief about what this work is actually for.