Rebranding can be dangerous territory. As designers it is a great opportunity to create a buzz and generate new interest for your client, but it also comes with a lot of responsibility. Make the wrong choices and you risk consumer backlash or loss of sales if the clients customers don’t understand the new look and feel of the brand.
When it comes to the ‘r’ word, many business owners’ shudder at the possibility and will do anything to change the conversation. But you can change your logo without losing your company values and success.
There are many different reasons to rebrand, the best reasons being to modernise an existing logo or because your company is going in a new direction and you want to show off the new company ideals.
Companies are like people; they grow. When they grow they change into more renowned, wiser, stronger entities of their former selves. As your company grows and progresses, what worked when it you were just starting out may not be the case now. Especially when it comes to how your company appears to your customer’s.
Think about your core customers when you had just started out, and your customer’s now? Chances are, they are different too. The type of customer, the way they shop and their average spend. Even the way they interact with your company is probably very different now than it was a few years ago.
However, while it is necessary to keep up and grow, it is also essential to do it the right way. This is what keeps companies like Coca Cola constantly changing but allows them to stay on top of the market. You might not have even noticed, but their logo is constantly evolving. Another great example that we particularly like is ‘The French Property Exhibition’. Their logo was re-designed by Roy Smith and is featured in ‘Logo Design Love’ by David Airey.
You can see that the logo has been drastically modernised, but you still know that it is the same company. They have tailored their logo to target their audience and it works wonderfully.
Your company image is what makes you identifiable to the world; it’s what sets you apart from the rest and is what attracted your customers to you in the beginning. It represents your values, your character and your substance. Customer’s need to know you can evolve with them, which is why updates are necessary.
We thought it was time to follow some of our own advice, so next week we will be launching our very own re-brand! When we first started out 6 years ago we were a small print shop and our logo and branding suited us perfectly. But now, several years later, with our new creative and web-design services being launched… we realised that we needed to change our image to represent the great design studio that we have become.
Check back next week for more details and a bit of an insight into our design process, and how we’re going about this new overhaul.