Long before logos and guidelines, people were already branding something, not to sell, but to survive.

During Samhain, the ancient Celtic festival that gave rise to Halloween, the boundary between the living and the dead was said to thin. To guard themselves, people lit fires, carved faces into turnips, and placed them by the door to ward off wandering spirits.

Was it the first design system? A symbol (the lantern), a palette (orange for fire, black for night), and a purpose, protection.
Over time, those simple themes became universal. The fire turned into a pumpkin, the glow into orange, the night into black.
A thousand years later, we still know what they mean.

Halloween didn’t invent branding, it invented consistency.
It proved that when a visual idea starts with truth, it doesn’t age, but evolves.

Some brands fade.
This one keeps rising from the grave.