Raya Nawbar, Founder of Brandmint: The Power of Identity in Modern Branding<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For those who may not know you yet, how would you introduce yourself and how do you define what you do today? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I co-founded Brandmint in Beirut 12 years ago with a simple belief: brands shouldn\u2019t just look good, they should work<\/em>. I\u2019m a brand builder, specialized in creating brands with real personality, brands that connect with people and leave an impact, not just an impression. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the years, we\u2019ve 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At its core, what I do is help businesses understand who they are, so everything\u00a0 else becomes easier, from communication and design to decision-making and\u00a0 growth.\u00a0That\u2019s where branding becomes more than visuals.\u00a0It becomes a driver of impact.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n In today\u2019s crowded market, do you see branding more as a business strategy or as a cultural responsibility\u2014and why? <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019t translate into footfall, demand, and long-term relevance, it\u2019s simply noise. That said, brands don\u2019t operate in isolation anymore. They sit inside culture, in people\u2019s routines, values, and conversations. In Beirut, where audiences are visually literate, emotionally driven, and highly skeptical, culture isn\u2019t a \u201cnice to have.\u201d It\u2019s the filter through which strategy is accepted or rejected. So we don\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When a brand truly works, what do you believe people connect with first: the visual identity, the message, or the personality behind it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019t keep you coming back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The message helps people understand the brand, but understanding alone doesn\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2019s personality in action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When visuals, message, and personality are aligned, the brand stops feeling designed and starts feeling lived-in. And that\u2019s when people don\u2019t just recognize it, they choose it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You often work with founders at defining moments in their journey\u2014how closely do you believe a brand\u2019s success is tied to the founder\u2019s level of self-awareness? <\/p>\n\n\n\n A brand\u2019s success is closely linked to a founder\u2019s level of self-awareness, especially at defining moments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Self-aware founders build stronger brands because they understand the difference between their personal taste and the brand\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In defining moments, self-aware founders don\u2019t ask, \u201cWhat do I like?\u201d They ask, \u201cWhat does this brand need to become?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s often the moment when a brand either earns longevity, or stays surface level. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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? <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve seen this happen many times, especially in F&B. Brands grow because marketing works, more visibility, more buzz, more traffic. But when there\u2019s no clear identity underneath, that growth starts to crack very quickly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019t cover it up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In your experience, what truly differentiates brands that feel authentic and timeless from those that simply follow trends? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Think of a brand like a person you know well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A trend-driven brand is more insecure. It\u2019s 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\u2019s confusing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019t surprise you in the wrong way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trends aren\u2019t bad, they\u2019re tools. Timeless brands use trends to refresh <\/em>themselves, not to define themselves. The identity comes first. Trends are optional. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s the difference we see every time: trends ask for attention, identity earns loyalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How has your own evolution as a leader and entrepreneur influenced the way you approach branding today? <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At Brandmint, we treat designers as strategic thinkers. They don\u2019t 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\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Something either clicks, or it doesn\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And that understanding has shaped how we build brands, as systems of\u00a0 assets, but as experiences that leave a real impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2014or as a language that expresses personality, identity, and soul? <\/p>\n\n\n\n As audiences become more selective, branding naturally shifts from visibility to trust, and trust is built over time, not through campaigns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I see branding as a relationship. What we build with our clients isn\u2019t transactional or short-term; it\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s why we don\u2019t believe in static branding. We work with what we call agile branding, an approach that stays true to a brand\u2019s core while allowing it to adapt intelligently as the business grows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Visibility may bring people in once. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trust is what keeps them coming back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking ahead, branding won\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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\u2019t just look good, they should work. I\u2019m 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-special-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessjurnalmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessjurnalmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessjurnalmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessjurnalmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessjurnalmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businessjurnalmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3095,"href":"https:\/\/businessjurnalmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3093\/revisions\/3095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessjurnalmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessjurnalmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessjurnalmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessjurnalmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}