Ultimate creates brand identities from scratch for companies that don’t yet have an identity or are launching a new service offering. But what about those that have an existing brand that they want to evolve?
Whether it’s looking at the name, logo, messaging and positioning or simply refreshing look and feel and guidelines to keep up with evolving audiences, our goal is to revitalise the brand and strengthen your competitive position in the market.
Depending on your specific objectives and scope, a rebranding project can involve a complete revamp of the brand identity or more subtle modifications to certain elements. Let’s have a look at how we like to approach the rebranding process.
STEP 1 – WORKSHOPS
Understanding your brand
By engaging the client in a collaborative workshop at the beginning of the rebranding process, we can unlock valuable insights, build general agreement among stakeholders, and establish a clear direction for the project. The workshop sets the creative approach that meets the client’s objectives and resonates with their target audience.
Whether the workshop is conducted in our offices or remotely, our team prepares discussion guides, and exercises designed to facilitate brainstorming and collaboration. The goal of these activities is to understand:
Business Goals
The workshop starts by defining the overarching goals and objectives of the rebranding. This may involve discussing why the client feels a rebrand is necessary, what they hope to achieve through the process, and how they envision the brand evolving. Specific goals may include increasing brand awareness, attracting a new target audience, differentiating from competitors, or repositioning the brand in the market.
Competitors
We review the market landscape, analyzing their key competitors’ brand positioning, messaging, and visual identity. The participants also identify competitor strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities and threats in the market that we should consider.
Target Audience
We identify the target audience segments for the brand by demographics to discuss their behaviors, preferences, aspirations, pain points, aspirations, and how the client’s brand can fulfill their needs better than competitors.
Brand Values
Finally, the participants with the Ultimate team identify the core values and personalities that define the brand and resonate with its target audience. Through exercises and discussions, the client’s team articulates what the brand stands for, its unique selling proposition, and the emotional connections with the customers.
The workshop concludes and the Ultimate team creates the document brief with the key insights, decisions, and action items to align client stakeholders on the next steps, such as industry research and creative exploration. Would you like to see how this workshop works? Why don’t you try it? You and your team can do the activities from anywhere.
STEP 2 – INDUSTRY RESEARCH
Gathering inspiration
Before the creative exploration, it’s essential to conduct further research to gather inspiration, trends, and visual references that align with the client’s brand goals and objectives defined in the workshop stage.
Research sources always include competitor branding and industry trends. In some cases, the research sources may include art, culture, and nature references.
During the research phase, we also take into consideration the target audience’s preferences, lifestyles, and aspirations, to ensure the moodboards resonate with them.
STEP 3 – CREATIVE MOODBOARDS
Creative directions
Once the research is completed, the next step is to collect a range of visual assets that represent the different aspects of the brand identity: messaging and tone of voice, logo symbols, color palettes, typography, imagery and graphics, and other design elements such as texture or patterns.
The objective of the moodboards is to give a visual inspiration to capture the desired look & feel, and tone of the brand.
We group these visual assets into two creative directions to help generate ideas and communicate to the client the desired direction and aesthetic for the new brand identity
STEP 4 – CREATIVE CONCEPT
Designing the brand identity elements
Based on the feedback received by the client, our design team may iterate on the moodboards, refining the creative direction to better meet the client’s objectives and expectations.
Our design team translates the chosen creative concept into tangible design assets, developing the final brand identity components:
Logo Redesign
Not all rebranding projects necessarily require changing the logo. The decision to keep the existing logo, make small tweaks, or create a new logo altogether depends on various factors, such as:
- The logo is already well-established, recognizable, and strongly associated with the brand identity (keep the existing logo).
- There are minor design flaws that can be corrected without fundamentally altering its overall appearance.
- The logo no longer reflects the brand’s values, it looks outdated or there is a significant strategic shift, such as entering new markets or targeting a different audience (new logo).
Messaging and tone of voice
Whether choosing a friendly and casual tone of voice characterized by warmth and approachability or a more authoritative tone to establish leadership and expertise, we also create the overarching brand message and different messages to communicate the brand mission and values.
Colour palettes
The decision to keep a similar colour scheme depends on similar factors like the logo redesing. The extent of the desired changes defined during the understanding activities of the initial workshops, will set the limits to whether keep the same colours, introduce new ones, or a full departure from the existing palette.
Accessibility plays and important role here. Our design and development teams make sure that all the colour combinations, tones, and shades meet the visual guidelines when designing a website.
Typography
There are multiple typographic treatments to reflect the brand’s tone of voice and messaging. From using a mix of sans and serif fonts to create a pleasant visual contrast to the selection of monospace or unconventional-looking fonts.
Imagery and graphics
Inspirational high-quality photography and the visual style for graphics have to align with the brand aesthetic and messaging. From playful illustrations to minimalistic iconography, our design team selects carefully the best graphic style that communicates the brand message effectively.
Brand applications
Putting all the above elements together brings the new branding to life and helps to visualize how these elements interact together. By designing collateral materials, such as business cards, signage, or digital assets, we make sure that the new brand identity keeps strong consistency across different channels and mediums.
STEP 5 – BRAND GUIDELINES
A comprehensive branding reference tool
Documenting the brand identity elements into guidelines is the last step of the rebranding process. The brand guidelines document is a comprehensive reference tool for ensuring that the new brand identity is implemented effectively and consistently across different touching points and communication channels.
We define specifications for logo usage, messaging, colour palette, typography, imagery and graphics. All the brand applications created during the design process are also included in this document as examples and best practices to ensure that the brand identity remains cohesive and consistent over the time.
At Ultimate, we’ve had the pleasure of working on a huge array of rebranding projects both big and small. Whether you’re a new start-up looking to make your mark on the world, or perhaps a light refresh to refine your brand is all that’s needed, we deliver bespoke, creative, and powerful solutions to convey each unique brand story.
