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Branding 101 – Our New Brand
By Pierre Monké at 12:10 pm on Wednesday, July 7, 2010 // 3 Comments
Goodbye old Blue, Hello new Red!
The weather is scorching hot, and so is our new logo! About 9 months ago, just as summer of 2009 was ending, we realized that we needed to update our brand. As much as we loved our previous brand of funky, bright, digi-tech style, we knew it was time to evolve.
Do you think you need to create a brand? Or maybe rejuvenate the one you have?
A few years ago, when we were just baby pixels, we dreamt of becoming an Internet marketing firm. Our colours were blue on dark backgrounds with hints of vibrant colours. Our font-face was a mix between Discognate, Technicality and 07×5. This made sense. We were positioning ourselves as a tech company that was about hard numbers and ROIs to our clients.
Left vs Right Brain
We of course, appreciate and acknowledge our roots: a company that focused on Website Design, Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click Advertising. However, we realized that we were neglecting our creative and unpredictable right brains. So the discussions began… “Do we need to re-brand? Should we change our logo, font or colours? Or maybe we need to change everything? What would Pierre’s position be? I don’t think a monkey is eligible for Employment Insurance in Canada…” These conversations continued during our hang out sessions, lunches and water-cooler talks.
We had a meeting.
Our world constantly demands change; change is the only aspect of life that doesn’t. But the excitement of new can sometimes lead to fatal results. So before making any final decisions we had an ‘official’ meeting to discuss the direction of our company. If you think you need to re-brand, we’d advise you to have your own official meeting and to consider some of the things we did, before making any final decisions.
- Who are we?
- What do we do [at the core]?
- Where do we want to go?
- What is the message we want to tell the world?
- What type of people do we want to work and collaborate with?
- What words and images describes us best?
- What type of cereal represents us best?
The Changes
Theme
The process and conclusion of our company’s re-discovery and brand evolution was a lot more complicated than a few sentences. But in short, our previous brand style and theme was a mix between conservative, bold, funny, masculine and tech. What we needed was a brand that represented our true selves: funky, bright, bold, sexy, spicy and professional.
Branding 101 – Why Branding?
Colours
Your logo’s colour plays an important role in the tone and vibe you want to set when your audience views you. We required colours that represented hot, spicy and sexy. Historically, blue is conservative and calm; just the opposite of what we needed. Red became the obvious choice.
Branding 101 – Colour Psychology
Logo
A drastic change in your company’s logo can result in confusion and loss of brand equity. We liked our logo, but thought it still required an evolution. Our updated logo is not new, but an evolution. The added rounded-corners-square engulfs the main logo icon, while providing a dedicated space ensuring the icon is uncontaminated by it’s surroundings.
Branding 101 – Logo Design
Fonts
After months of searching, we found a font that encompassed both our history and our new-found soul. The Uni Sans family of fonts provides a sweet balance between masculine beauty and feminine power. It is simple yet elegant. The family comes in seven weights and seven italics supplying us with many options and opportunities to get create with the font.
Branding 101 – Typography + Fonts
