When you say “we’re doing a branding exercise but let’s start building the site,” you’re saying, “I don’t know. Make it somewhere between Medium and Genius.” Or: “We need something between TIME magazine and The Marshall Project. We can true it up with the new brand assets before we launch.” Or: “Etsy is good, but so is Amazon. It’ll all come down to colors and type anyway.” Or: “It should feel like J.P. Morgan or maybe Betterment. Whichever gets us there soonest. We’ll plug in the logo later.”