A brand refresh can improve legibility, amongst other key factors

Much of the work we do with small and medium businesses starts with helping them get their foundations right from a branding and marketing perspective. This often results in refreshing their brand and making it more professional. This is an exercise not done for the sake of it but for very important reasons — and often can have a significant and positive impact on their business when combined with an integrated marketing campaign.

Here are two rebrands we did, why we did them and also an insight into our involvement in this process.

Mountain Designs

Starting Point

As its name suggests, the company’s heritage was in designing world-class high-tech gear and clothing for the outdoors — particularly mountaineering. However they were at risk of losing business to new market entrants offering tramping and mountaineering gear that was not of the same standard but had greater customer appeal due to their modern brand presence. Kathmandu was one such company.

At the same time, Mountain Designs wanted to branch out into new markets with gear suitable for a multiple of outdoor pursuits such as mountain biking, tramping, multisport adventure racing, camping and so on.

New Design

When we started working with Mountain Designs, their existing logo was tired and not executed well. Typography was poor and the Patagonian mountain range was too ‘detailed’ and needed stylising. We worked with a Creative Director to modernise the logo whilst keeping its heritage of strong yellow and black colours and the mountain icon.

By evolving the typography over two lines it became far stronger and more legible. We made the diamond shape more stylised and more modern, bringing the entire logo into the 21st century. As part of this brand refresh we also created a new sub-brand called Pro-Elite for the extreme alpinist. This brand was reserved for high-end down sleeping bags, jackets etc.

The Hotel Network

The hotel network provides customised accommodation management services for government and corporate clients with particularly emphasis on ensuring rooms are suitable for business travellers and providing reports that integrate with a company’s financial back-end to speed payment processes.

Starting Point

Due to a federal government policy change The Hotel Network (THN) needed to reposition to boost its image and corporate business with a new sales and marketing approach.

Other considerations for their logo refresh included the need to

Appeal to the B2C market as a potential market opening. Hence would need to sit alongside brands such as QuickBeds and Wotif
Be viewed favourably amongst major brand names such as American Express, AirPlus and Concur
Be more vibrant in the B2B market but not look like corporate competitors: Carlson Wagonlit, Corporate Traveller and AOT Group
Have a logo that would work across their accommodation management and event management businesses.

New design

The logo was evolved to a new design which

Kept in part the red of the original logo
Added 2 different shades of blue to better fit in with partner and competitor ilk. This also made the logo stand out more / be more eye-catching
Put the emphasis on the words Hotel Network
Used the word THE to reflect the storey’s of a building
Replaced the tick v symbol with the digital symbol for arrows – enter here – to reflect that this is an online booking platform
Added a tagline ‘the way to go‘ which worked across both accommodation and events and was leveraged in marcom headlines and copy.

You will note that both new logos for each organisation showed their name in a larger font size, making it easier to read and better application across multiple merchandise and marcom pieces.

What is Action Communications’ role in this branding process?

Our part in this exercise is critical. In a brand workshop we take clients through the essential steps of a brand pyramid process. It’s a crystallisation process that distills the core elements of your brand and business. What we uncover guides us in strengthening your brand. This may include refining the logo, or creating a new one, changing or evolving the colours and type font, adding a strap line, maybe even renaming your company or product, as well as various other aspects. Another outcome of this workshop is that participants often leave with a stronger sense of purpose, higher engagement and an inspired vision because they are all now on the same page having been part of the process.

Following this workshop we develop a brand brief for a graphic designer. Contrary to what you might think, the best way to get a fantastic brand design is to have a tight and detailed brand brief. If the brief is good then a good designer will crack that brief the first time, with only minor modifications needed.

For organisations that bypass the brand workshop and go straight to a graphic designer, you are bypassing the most important step in your brand audit and creation process. And unless your chosen designer has rigorous process for defining the brand brief and are experienced marketers, your new great looking logo will not gain traction. You will be without the longed-for launching pad you were wanting to grow your business.

As part of our brand management process we ensure your brand project