Truly great brands know that branding is a continual process. You set the foundation, then build and evolve the brand as the vision and culture of your business continue to grow.
We at Resound are no different.
In the last year we’ve experienced a lot of changes:
- We’ve defined our core values.
- We plotted a long-term plan for our company.
- We grew a lot (we doubled in size!) which, of course, means culture changes.
- We changed our process up.
When we made these changes, we realized that our brand elements didn’t express us quite as well as they used to. It was time for a brand refresh.
Today we’re rolling out the first of many new or redesigned elements for our brand: the logo.
Our Logo
Our old logo wasn’t bad. In fact, it worked really well for the last few years. However, we were running into more issues recently that resulted in our decision to redesign. Here are a few of the concerns that pushed us in the refresh direction:
1. The logo didn’t jive with our brand foundation.
I designed the logo back in 2012 when our brand foundation wasn’t super deep. We didn’t have a very formalized set of values, personality traits, or audience segments.
But over the last year, we’ve been feeling that the logo lacks in representing the deeper brand foundation we’ve established. We knew it was time to take another look at the one symbol that represents us everywhere.
2. The logo wasn’t as unique as it could be.
As a team of creatives who are passionate about unique brands, we want to bring the highest level of creativity and execution in everything we do. Obviously, this includes our own logo.
When I originally designed our logo, I used an off-the-shelf typeface for the sake of time and cost. But as a team of creative professionals, we’ve increasingly felt that this mark didn’t express our true uniqueness and creative ability.
That’s when we decided to engage Wells Collins, a talented hand-letterer and typeface designer, to give us a totally custom typeface for our logo.
And oh boy are we pleased that we brought him into the mix!
3. The logo was too heavy with sound imagery.
This has been a continual internal debate for us from day one: How much of our “sound wave” metaphor should we express overtly?
While this mental picture of sound waves so well communicates our philosophy of true branding and good marketing, it has been confusing to many who are not familiar yet with our services. We kept getting perplexed questions, like:
- Are you a recording studio?
- Do you work for a label?
- Are you in physics?
Nope, none of the above.
So we’ve decided to move our brand imagery away from overt sound-related graphics. And sound waves were a big part of our old logo.
Out With the Old
Voila! The new logo.
Beautiful, ain’t it?
Our Colors:
As part of our brand refresh process, we wanted to also take a fresh look at our colors. When we looked at the old color palette we noticed a few things that were at odds with our brand foundation:
1. A minimalistic color set.
The last iteration of our website minimized our brand colors to red with some blacks, whites, and grays. Not a very diverse palette for a fairly diverse company of creatives with different skills and backgrounds.
2. A primary color that didn’t really express us.
On top of the minimal color palette was the fact that our particular red was dark and a bit muted. Our relationship-first values and culture demanded a brighter palette.
We’ve begun the process of broadening and brightening our palette, beginning with a new red that is brighter and more inviting.
Old Resound Red:
New Resound Red:
You can also check out the new Resound red “in context” on our website.
Expanding the Brand Elements
The logo and the primary Resound red were our top two brand elements to refresh. But there’s still a whole lot more to do in the coming months (expanding the color palette with secondary colors, creating branded textures and patterns, a more robust typography guide, and writing our first-ever verbal guidelines for the Resound brand).
And for the first time in Resound history, we’re creating our very own Remarkabook! It’s about time we take our own brand as seriously as we take our clients’ brands.
You’ll be seeing these items roll-out in the coming months. Stay tuned!
Interested in help with your brand?
We can be YOUR branding and experience design team. Whether it’s defining your core values and vision, refreshing your logo, or creating unique experiences for your customers on the web (or in real life), we’ve got you covered. We would love to help you tell your remarkable story to the world!
