Logo Design Process Case Study - A Real Client Rebrand

hey there today we're going to go through the rebranding process that I did with my client even break I'm going to show you the stages that I go through when I am creating a new logo some of the brand strategy mock-ups and the final deliverables which I give to the client I thought this would be an interesting overview for anyone who is thinking about having a brand created or going through a rebranding process themselves it's quite in-depth so you might want to grab a coffee before you watch the video but I'm sure you're gonna find this really really interesting so let's get stuck in and let's take a look at some of the materials that even break had when they came to see me so you can see here this is a selection of some of the marketing materials that even break had and if your impression is the same as mine when we first came to speak to me I find it very muted lots of bluey greys mixed throughout the the materials and being honest as well you know the design of the materials wasn't the best but there was consistency there and you know that's one thing which I'm always talking about is having consistency with your with your branding and your marketing material so there's definitely consistency using the logo and using the colors but once I got to know the client we have an initial discovery call where I find out why the client wants to do a rebrand and just more about them and more about the company and what they do you know is it something special you know they help disabled people find jobs with employers who value those candidates you know they're looking specifically for people with disabilities to fill positions within their companies you know they are inclusive and they understand that you know just because someone has a disability does not mean that they can be great at a specific job in whatever field or industry that is and so considering you know how they I would say that what they do is is fairly you know fill a life changing I find the materials a little bit on this ice was the safe side it wasn't and it didn't really inspire me you know so if I'm looking for a job and want to kind of improve prove my own life and you know see more positivity I felt the materials which you see on screen here you know they're the materials are really corporate looking you know they're aimed at the corporate side now the thing to mention with with even break is that the businesses pay to advertise their jobs on the even break jobs board now the even break jobs board is pretty good its triple-a access meaning that you know it's fully accessible on pretty much all sorts of technology and that's some quick something this is quite hard to get you know that sort of Triple E and accessibility and so something for them to be proud of and that obviously attracts the corporate side who want to make sure that their job adverts are going in the right place so that's great you know and I could see why even break were branding themselves and the way that they had because if the corporates are paying the money and then obviously you need to look to the corporates but what about the candidates what about the people who are applying for the job should they not be going to the even break website or you know seeing even break materials and being inspired and seeing lots of positivity you know what was missing for me was there are photographs and the materials but again they just seem so corporate and staged and I think you know there's many of us who really can't stand certain types of stock photography which is very very staged and you know kind of fake smiles and and all of that stuff and I got that feeling from from the materials and so that was one of the things which you know I was like right okay we need to change this what we need to do is we need to we need to bring brighter photography into this and bring in some you know some brighter colors and you know in no uncertain terms the you know my client Jane whose company is was a bit nervous about that you know and that's understandable because you don't want to kind of take the risk of turning away the people who are paying you know they keep you know they're the ones that are keeping the lights on so to speak so it was a big move for you know to me for me to suggest in or change of color and things of that so one of the first things that was clear that we needed to do was we needed to have a brand strategy day and so what we did was myself and Jane and her team we all met up in Glasgow for a field day and we thrashed out some of the strategy elements for the brand and one of the first things which I do especially if it's a team of people because it's important that everyone is on the same page is I get everyone to write down their values their core values you know what makes them tick and there's an interesting mix of values but there was definite crossovers between everyone and and that was really really good to see you know we're doing a miracle if everyone had the exactly the same core values but they didn't you know because we're you know we're all kind of people and we all have you know we've all been brought up definitely in different experiences but there are certain crossovers that you can have if you all have the same goal working in a business then generally you will have similar values that are in the same area and I find that that was the case with um with the guys who work even break and some of the other things that we did were you know I have a a very simple worksheet that we go through that looks at the USP you know what makes them different to the other companies that they're competing up you know competing with one of the company's core values you know so everyone's got their own individual values what should the company's core values be what problems are we solving some adjectives which define them and describe you know your perfect customer what you buy a personas and we also the car competitors and you know what do you do well what do and what does even break do better and we also have a list of priorities and we look at brand positioning statements it's a busy busy day but it gives me a lot of great information to go away with when it comes to the point of working on the rebrand and creating the logo and the marketing materials that will support you know once it on the brand strategy that we work I'd so by the end of the day we had kind of a first draft of our values we had a first draft of the brand positioning now with even break the they have to they're serving two distinct different types they have the candidates who are applying for the jobs and then you have the employers who are advertising the jobs so we're two slightly different brand positioning statements that we were working on for each of those areas and it was really really useful really really useful and to do by the end of the day I was exhausted I'm pretty sure they were exhausted but everyone was really excited and that's the main thing for me as if everyone's excited it means we're on the right path and it means everyone is gonna be all in on the rebranding process and I know that everyone was nervous about it you know this is a big big move even break had been around I think from it eight years and had the same branding for eight years and so we've got this guy coming in you know big beard baseball cap who's basically saying right we need to change things you know if we want to appeal to the candidates and also appeal to the corporates then I think I know a way to do that but for me I know that the corporates pay the money but for me the candidates were the ones the people applying for the jobs were the most important element because if the employers are paying for the jobs but no one is applying for the jobs then they're wasting their money and so for me I felt that we needed to attract more people to even break to apply for those jobs and to do that we needed a brighter more positive looking brand and that was what I was going into the strategy to do the strategy day with and you know it was really cool so it all turned out really really well I was very pleased with how the day went there was a lot to sift through and the whole team you know what really worked together and everyone to specific little tasks away and what on those for me and then obviously the next one the next thing to do was to then move into the local and this was the existing logo design as you can see here it consists of this kind of inner words like 3d blocks and there are two different versions one for when the logo was on white on one for when the local sorted when the logo was on a dark background I'm unfamiliar was on a on a light background and had this white text here with this drop shadow not the best no the symbol that we had Jane really liked it and she really liked her colors this sort of teal blue with with a different sort of shades intensity teal blue and she liked it and she you know was like well you know she was happy with it and so I had to my job then was to sort of convince Jane to change to move to something else so there was that you know the task there for me to make sure that everything I did was to improve and help even break as a brand get more awareness and attract more candidates which would then hopefully attract more people to advertise their jobs ok so first thing I do is I start doing some sketches so just you know I this is a fraction of the sketches which I do just looking at everything doesn't matter I think this is actually quite terrible I will sketch it down because sometimes what's terrible in your head when you put it down it can leap to avenues of other ideas and also ideas which you have in your head if you think are amazing when you get them down on paper they turn out to not be so great so do a lot of sketching a lot of thinking and and one of the things when I'm doing one of the things which I'm doing when I'm working on rebrands is I do like to have if I can have have the rebrand sort of as an evolution and rather than a revolution but that will depend on the reason for the rebrand if it's because if the reason we're rerun is because some things went badly wrong and the brands the distance itself then some things that's a revolution and you need to make the brand look very different but if the brand is just sort of needing to move forward and kind of make things a bit better that's often for me an evolution of the brand and I like to bring something through something from the brand which gives a continuance for the existing customers and an even rate case the the candidates on the the corporates it's something that we can recognize that it's even break even though may look slightly different or a lot different depending on how we get there and I knew that Jane really liked the teal blue colour and she and she liked her logo you know she didn't dislike it the old logo so my first approach was okay what can I do with the existing logo can I just refresh this in a way to you know that will help one of the first things were for the logo and that I when I first looked at it for me it looked like it was pointing backwards these look like three blocks pointing over to the left now depending on how you look at this if you look at it long enough it's one of those kind of optical illusion ones it could like look like these two blocks here or the base and this one is stacked on top and it's basically pointing up here but for me these two blocks were the base and this one was stacked on top of these two and it's pointing this way and I think it was more kind of this is kind of where the point was for me here and but the more you look at it you know your eyes start to go a bit funny and so I thought okay let's see if I can do something with with this where we have this arrow type shape aren't we and I point it the right way so I point it from left to right so there's forward momentum and it was okay you know it was okay and it kind of introduced a bit of space to the logo you know it wasn't so heavy and but it wasn't really doing anything for me that much and so moved on moved on from that and start to think about you know what else could we do here you know so we've got even break we've got the employer got the candidate in also which is you know the three together is the perfect match and in the perfect solution so start thinking about the power of threes how could I use the elements of the existing logo in in ways you know that would come together so these cubes kept coming up and then as I okay so let's try some different shapes let's you know try some circles let's try triangles let's try some ovals I'll try anything just to see what's there and it seems seems a bit aimless and sometimes it is because sometimes you have to just let you just let your mind and your brain just relax almost and just see what comes from it and this kind of you know I I liked this sort of shape here down at the bottom once you know I kind of like what was happening here it was interesting to me I mean you can see here I'm still sort of in in the one above it-- it's like trying you know trying bright colors and and we'll kind of get to that later here I was sticking to the the teals and the different shades of the teal that we had there but I was like by the time I got the end of this I was like this is not working properly for me and then so I went back to I went back to my sketches I looked my sketches again got a little bit thinking and there was one bit that kind of popped out at me and I thought I'm gonna want to give that a go and it was this sketch here where I basically took the logo and I plotted points on where all the lines intersected I need to start to draw you know joining the dots basically and so I did that to get into illustrator and did that and I started to join the dots to see what different shapes I could get from this logo and it started to I start to see things in there I was like okay this is this is getting you know this may be going somewhere I might be able to do something with this and so I've played around with it a little bit longer and start to kind of see that could I see make a letter from here from this as i okay listless trying you know to even break lists list doing e from this and so looked at the dots and joined them up and try to you know start to create an e and try that different shadings and I think sadness and this isn't looking like an e to me this is it's too much like a letter C I think many people would see that as a C rather than an e I'm gonna go back to the dots and see if I can make this look more like an e than a C and it was just a very simple change that I had to make and it was to take one section out up here in this corner and this edge and just push it in and it instantly look more like an E and less like a C and I really start to like this like this shape so I took that forward and start to play around with this shape and start adding in different shading you know still working with the original logo almost and having these kind of 3d sections or angled sections and seeing what I could do with that and when I started playing with the sections in the middle I said okay this is Santa look like a 3d of folded effect you know like origami paper or something like that so I could I I could bring some depth and back into the logo because the 3d one obviously had this depth and as I could bring depth into this as well by some color or shading and so I kind of kept going and start to introduce some let's zoom in here some slight shadowing in here to make it look like these sections or setting above the ones in the middle and by doing that what that then gave me was a more distinctive aural shape as well pointing left to right so I was now getting an e for even break but I was able to bring in this arrow and forward momentum element that I wanted to represent the candidates journey of applying for the job going for interview getting the job you know their journey into employment and so I start to get a little bit excited about that and it was one of those ones where he's like okay I'm this is probably the concept this is the one which I'm going to take forward and work on and so I started to round off a lot of the sharp edges to soften it a little bit and I felt that the brand needed a little bit of softness because the whole team are amazing that were to even break their there's such people people you know they're there all they want to do is help and so for me the brand needed a little bit of softness around the logo and to show that side of things and by the time I got to the last sort of option this one down here I was pretty much happy with how that was looking this was the final shape for me for the icon for even break all in the teal color which Jane really liked but it needed something it needed a splash of color needed some accent color to give that brightness and the a bit of punch to the logo but before I did that one of the things which I need to make sure as well is that the logo can actually still be recognizable in one color usually I would be designing everything in black when I start but because I knew I want to bring this teal color through I actually have been working in this one in using this color but normally I would do all in black because then I can focus on the shape and make sure that it's that you can replicate it in in one color and so what I had to do with this one was I had to introduce some white lines which would kind of replace sort of like the 3d elements otherwise and I mean it still looks like an e all in you know if I remove these lines then it's you still have that each ape but I really liked the idea of still being able to see this adil element with the segment's as well and so to do that I just introduced some some lines to that and I felt that was quite effective as well because it keeps the uniqueness of that local shape of that symbol or icon in just one color I'm here as well this is in grayscale so I knew that I could proceed through Lee because it worked flat didn't require the drop shadows and for it to work fully with me I could do in one color the next thing to look at was the typography and I wanted something which looks you know fairly modern and so I was kind of looking at a few my initial choice was axle X or two but when I discussed that with the client they felt that it was maybe a little bit too rounded and in the end we went for I see no Ubuntu or Ubuntu and and this is the one that we went with because it kind of way had the the roundness that I wanted bought some sharp elements as well the same as the logo you know we've got some sharp points but we've got this roundedness here and I've been to kind of filled the filled the gap for that and so this was the the icon sitting with the text the old logo was a lower case and for me I need a good reason to go all lowercase and I didn't feel that there was one here for that and so I wanted to go with a leading capital it just brings in that I just think it's you know just grammatically it's correct I'm but I think it for me it felt better because it helped emphasize you know that this was an e and I didn't want the if I'm using this symbol and that was a lowercase I didn't want it to look like we're trying to do double e at the start of even break and want to make sure that people would see this as a symbol and then this is the fool you know the name of the brand and so the next thing to look at then were was the colors one of the things that I do for that is I will look at all the competitors and look at the colors that they have and one of the ways I do that is I usually go to the website and I will a color palette and I'll put a little color palette you can see down here in the right hand bottom corner of this page I've got a 3 square color palette and I did that for all of the people that we thought for all the companies that we thought were competitors I'd included an even break this was their website at a time and just went through them all and picked out the colors and these were the color palettes and you can see here that you know they generally all have a color you could use as an accent color for buttons and things of that whereas even break were very much on this teal blue no no real color nor accent color that could you know it wasn't one there that could give that punch a more you know just that emphasize something or highlight something and I needed needed to bring something in there for the brand to do that this was all the logos of the companies that we looked at and just kind of looking at where the old even break logo sat with all of that and so that was you know where we went to with color and my little bit of research into that so here we are here so they just competitor colors and then even break so I did was I went to the Adobe color website and this is kind of one of my go-to sites when I'm looking to create I'm a color palette whether that be a triad one as we see here or you know complementary it's a great website for for quickly letting you see where things are on the color wheel and you know where they should all match up so when I put in the teal for even break it start to bring up magentas and yellows and I was like okay that's really interesting because earlier on when I was using colors in the process I was using magenta and yellow it was just the colors for me which kind of helped kind of spark things so it was almost a vindication when I saw that on the Adobe color site is that okay I'm gonna run with this then I did try more of a red but it was - it didn't work it didn't really jail it was too fiery and didn't really work for the for the brand but I felt that the magenta and the yellow really gave that pop and and eventually these were the chosen colors that I went with over here we have these are Pantone spot colors and then over here on the right these are the CMYK and versions so they're pretty close one of the things when I'm choosing color is that I start with CMYK most of the time and the reason for that is that if you start with Pantone or RGB you Pantone colors energy because you can get really bright bright colors neons and just really super bright colors but the CMYK printing process can't replicate a lot of those really bright colors and so if you choose your colors in RGB but 99% of the time when you get your items printed they're printed as CMYK you're gonna get a bit of a shock when you're really bright orange comes I muddy brown so for me I start with CMYK and then I will choose a Pantone spot color which is quite close it's you won't always get a perfect match but you can get it quite close no the only time where I would choose pant torn or RGB to start with is that if if the job was going to be digital only only going to be on screen there no need for printing that way you know he goes bright as you want but if it's going to be anything is going to be printed and you don't want to spend a lot of money having to use you know CMYK plus a spot color to make sure our spot colors plural to make sure your logo colors are correct which is expensive then for me doing the CMYK thing is the way to do it and so this is where I implemented that yellow and magenta into the forward part of that arrow and which you know kind of runs from left to right and kind of points into the world even break and I was really happy with this really really happy and was ready to you know pretty much ready to present this to the client one of the things as well which I needed to which I brought in was when we were doing the strategy workshop the existing tagline which was on the the website was helping talented disabled candidates and inclusive employers to find each other now that that's exactly what even break do they that's exactly what they do but it's a bit it's a bit of a mouthful and a lot to see so towards the end of the strategy day we're kind of throwing things around seeing how we can shorten that down and out of that came the tagline of talent first which essentially covers all of this and can reflect both science both areas of business for even break for the candidates talent first they know that the companies which are advertising on even break are looking for talent before they're looking at disability and for the corporates when they're advertising same thing they're looking for the talented people you know the people that we want are gonna have the right talents I mean know that there are people out there who have disabilities who have that talent and they're saying by advertising their jobs on even break that they're looking for talent first it was just one of those things that was like this is brilliant because it's really hard to get a tagline which is super short and something which could be used as a hashtag as well so we were really really pleased with that and one of the things the next thing I do before I present to the client is I will create some mock-ups just showing the logo in different placements because not everyone is like designers if I design a logo I can look at on a white page and know in my head I can visualize where that logo will be on the side of a bus on a poster on a mug on a keyring on a t-shirt it's just there it's all there I can see it but a lot of clients can't do that and so if you just present a logo on a white page you know quite often do not get excited by it they'll be like yeah that's okay but if you can show them how it can be used the excitement builds and they can see how it works so what I do is I show the logo in different places business car side of a bus billboard poster if you notice here I've got this funny shape with the photograph inside it and that actually comes from back here in process where I had this thing this shape here which I really liked I thought okay as I was creating the mock-ups I was needing some sort of frame to hold photographs so that's quite good then I introduced the colors into it as well and it just seemed to it just seemed to work and so the next stage for me was to present my logo to the client knowing the whole time that Jane you know liked our existing branding so I was you know it was my my job to show how this was going to be better it's always interesting going through the presentation process because you don't know sometimes you can't tell you know the clients got poker face on and you can't tell what they're going to say and when you live to the end and Jane was Jim was very honest with me and when we got to the end and she said you know I came onto this call and not sure if I I can't remember what she said exactly but you know it was kind of one of the lines of you know you were gonna have to convince me that this was the right thing to do and I wrote this down as she said it just after she said on the call I mean Jane had said I am the hardest person in the world to convince and you've done it I love it and then Cass who also works with Jane was on the call and Cass got a little bit TV about it and you know she was very very happy with with what I'd come up with and so for me that was that was the best outcome I could have ever asked for was you know that Jane loved it and I could obviously see that Cass was emotional over it and in that she felt you know she'd be able to work with this new brand and I'm sure even break off in a more positive light less corporate and but I'd say time you know and corporate enough and the corporates would get on board with the positivity you know because corporates are run by people too you know not just you know we see them as faceless organizations but there are real people behind that and yeah I know that Jane and the team of really good relationships with the people in those businesses and so it's importantly you know that they still talk to the corporates like people as well so yeah so that was pretty much it and got sign-off on not to move a head start to create some marketing materials so I created stationary designs a leaflet which you may have remember from earlier on which was the which was all blue all teal blue I redid that one and brought in a bit more white space use the arrow elements used the the new frame for the photograph and just kind of tidied it up and made things just look brighter and fresher we created some little cards business sized cards that and the team could give out at events which just you know got across very quickly what even break do and who they are something which I felt was really important because up till that point they had bigger leaflets and you know flyers and things but people lose those whereas with the business card size one they could put it in their pocket they could put it in a bag or a purse or little wallet and keep hold of it this is the same card again redid the rate card so it was easier to read better laid out and a couple of ruler banners because they attend a lot of events and you can see here that I've used the that frame with the photographs quite heavily on there um and this one has different text so this one so we still use the old tagline but in areas where it's more suitable where you know having more next makes sense um but we you know you can see here with the logo we still use the talent first alongside with it and yeah all you know we looked at new and photography hopefully didn't look too cheesy even break Jane and the team are going to be getting their own photography done I am so it's unique to them and they can set up and art direct the photographs they need but we we've managed to find some witch Warren as cheesy a little bit less staged looking I suppose but it's never going to be perfect but it really helped to lift the brand and you know so it was just it was such a great project to work on I love working on projects where you know it's not the end goal isn't about money the end goal is to is enriching people's lives and making you know that's the end result is there's such a big change for the people at the end of it and that's really rewarding to me to know that I've been able to play a part in something that you know is is making a difference and that's that really really is important to me and to take you know to take a brand from something which is very corporate and and blue you know all the way through to and something which you know is a lot brighter and it just gives a lot more of a positive feel under vibe to it and one thing which I haven't mentioned that says well is that I also AM did a bit with their website so their old website and again was really dark and blue and I redid the homepage designed to bring in a lot of the colors and just lighten it up and again just give that freshness to the site so that when people go to the site it feels more inviting and less corporate and yeah for me it was a job well done so I hope you find hope you find that interesting I know it was quite a long video today but there's a lot to go through and I you know I I've probably skipped elements of that as well just because there's so much goes into the process you know there's multiple meetings and back and forth making sure things are on the right path but what you've seen today is a glimpse of that process that I went through with even break and I would love to do more of these for other clients to show you how my brain works when I'm trying to get from position a which is the existing brand to position B which is the final rebrand and where I've taken the whole brand too so if you have enjoyed the video you find it useful make sure to give it a thumbs up subscribe to my channel if you haven't done so already and when you do click the little bell icon because what that will do is that will send you a notification whenever I upload a new video if you've got any questions leave them in the comment section and I will make sure I answer them and tell us see you next time stay great folks [Music] you

Channel: Rock Your Brand®

Views: 38,117

Keywords: Logo Design Process Case Study, Logo Design Process Case Study - Real Client Rebrand, logo design process, Logo design process rebrand, logo design process rebranding, case study, design process, logo design, Logo Design Case Study, logo design tutorial, brand design process, rebrand case study, rebranding case study, logo process, brand design, brand design 2019, brand identity design, branding design, graphic design, how to design a logo, logo designer

Id: WLBY4MxtxTI

Length: 43min 40sec (2620 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 30 2019