Raya Nawbar, Founder of Brandmint: The Power of Identity in Modern Branding

For those who may not know you yet, how would you introduce yourself  and how do you define what you do today? 

I co-founded Brandmint in Beirut 12 years ago with a simple belief: brands  shouldn’t just look good, they should work. I’m a brand builder, specialized in  creating brands with real personality, brands that connect with people and  leave an impact, not just an impression. 

Over the years, we’ve grown alongside founders, especially in F&B and  hospitality, helping them turn ideas into businesses people choose, return to,  and trust. Today, my role goes beyond design. I work closely with founders at  key moments , scaling, or redefining, to help them gain clarity and translate it  into identity, experience, and behavior. 

At its core, what I do is help businesses understand who they are, so everything  else becomes easier, from communication and design to decision-making and  growth. That’s where branding becomes more than visuals. It becomes a driver of impact. 

In today’s crowded market, do you see branding more as a business  strategy or as a cultural responsibility—and why? 

Branding today is a business strategy with cultural consequences. At its core, branding exists to drive growth, clarity, preference, pricing power,  loyalty. In a crowded market, especially in F&B, if branding doesn’t translate  into footfall, demand, and long-term relevance, it’s simply noise. That said, brands don’t operate in isolation anymore. They sit inside culture, in  people’s routines, values, and conversations. In Beirut, where audiences are  visually literate, emotionally driven, and highly skeptical, culture isn’t a “nice to  have.” It’s the filter through which strategy is accepted or rejected. So we don’t treat branding as self-expression or trend-following. We treat it as  a commercial tool that must respect the cultural moment it lives in, so  when strategy ignores culture, brands feel fake. 

When a brand truly works, what do you believe people connect with first:  the visual identity, the message, or the personality behind it? 

People notice visuals first, but they connect through personality. Visual identity is what earns attention, especially today, where everything is  scroll-driven. But attention is cheap. A good-looking brand might stop you  once; it won’t keep you coming back. 

The message helps people understand the brand, but understanding alone  doesn’t create attachment. What builds real connection is personality, the tone,  the attitude, the way a brand behaves consistently over time. In F&B especially, people don’t fall in love with logos. They fall in love with how  a place makes them feel, how it speaks to them, how it shows up again and  again. That’s personality in action. 

When visuals, message, and personality are aligned, the brand stops feeling  designed and starts feeling lived-in. And that’s when people don’t just  recognize it, they choose it. 

You often work with founders at defining moments in their journey—how  closely do you believe a brand’s success is tied to the founder’s level of  self-awareness? 

A brand’s success is closely linked to a founder’s level of self-awareness,  especially at defining moments. 

Self-aware founders build stronger brands because they understand the  difference between their personal taste and the brand’s true role in the market.  They know when to push a vision forward and when to step back and let the  brand evolve beyond them. 

In defining moments, self-aware founders don’t ask, “What do I like?” They ask, “What does this brand need to become?” 

That’s often the moment when a brand either earns longevity, or stays surface level. 

Many companies invest heavily in marketing but neglect identity. In your  experience, what risks do brands face when they scale without a clear  sense of who they are? 

I’ve seen this happen many times, especially in F&B. Brands grow because  marketing works, more visibility, more buzz, more traffic. But when there’s no  clear identity underneath, that growth starts to crack very quickly. 

In restaurants, identity is what keeps the experience consistent. Without it, one  branch feels different from another, service shifts, menus expand without  reason, and the atmosphere slowly loses its personality. Customers might not  say it out loud, but they feel it, and they stop coming back. 

The biggest risk is becoming generic. You try to please everyone, follow every  trend, and say yes too often. The brand gets bigger, but it becomes harder to  explain what it actually stands for even the strongest marketing campaign can’t  cover it up. 

In your experience, what truly differentiates brands that feel authentic and  timeless from those that simply follow trends? 

Think of a brand like a person you know well. 

A timeless brand is like someone who knows themselves. They have their own  style, their own way of talking, and their own values. They don’t need to copy  everyone around them to feel accepted. When something new comes along,  they might try it, but only if it fits who they already are. 

A trend-driven brand is more insecure. It’s always watching what others are  doing and changing to keep up. New color this year, new tone next year, new  concept after that. From the outside, it looks busy and exciting. From the  inside, it’s confusing. 

This is why authentic brands feel calm. You know what to expect from them.  Even when they evolve, the feeling stays familiar. You trust them because they  don’t surprise you in the wrong way. 

Trends aren’t bad, they’re tools. Timeless brands use trends to refresh themselves, not to define themselves. The identity comes first. Trends are  optional. 

That’s the difference we see every time: trends ask for attention, identity earns  loyalty.

How has your own evolution as a leader and entrepreneur influenced the  way you approach branding today? 

As I evolved as a leader, I consciously chose not to replicate the traditional, old school agency model, where designers are boxed into tasks and reduced to  execution roles. 

At Brandmint, we treat designers as strategic thinkers. They don’t just design  parts of a brand; they think holistically about how a brand is built, its  personality, presence, message, and the way it shows up in people’s lives. For me, branding today is about creating brands that feel human. Brands with  personality. Brands that speak clearly and connect emotionally, whether people  interact with them daily or only once in a while. Because in the end, people  engage with brands the same way they engage with people. 

Something either clicks, or it doesn’t. 

And that understanding has shaped how we build brands, as systems of  assets, but as experiences that leave a real impact.

As audiences become more selective and emotionally aware, how do you  see the relationship between branding, trust, and long-term business  growth evolving? Looking ahead, do you envision branding more as a  visibility tool—or as a language that expresses personality, identity, and  soul? 

As audiences become more selective, branding naturally shifts from visibility to  trust, and trust is built over time, not through campaigns. 

I see branding as a relationship. What we build with our clients isn’t  transactional or short-term; it’s something that grows and evolves. A brand,  much like a person, has changing needs. It matures, adapts, and responds to  different moments, and our role is to evolve alongside it. 

That’s why we don’t believe in static branding. We work with what we call agile  branding, an approach that stays true to a brand’s core while allowing it to  adapt intelligently as the business grows. 

Visibility may bring people in once. 

Trust is what keeps them coming back.

Looking ahead, branding won’t be about being seen louder, it will be about  being understood deeper. As a language that expresses personality, identity,  and soul, and creates long-term value by staying relevant, human, and  consistent over time.