Get Out of Your Box
Your brand needs to be flexible enough to show up everywhere your business is present. That means on your storefront, website, social media, print and digital ads, vehicle wraps, you name it. Your brand, especially your logo, shouldn't be confined to a box or leave you feeling restricted.
We end up working with a lot of organizations that have struggled for too long with a logo that makes them feel stuck. Their original logo may have been ok when they were just starting out, but they often find that they can't get away with just one single, inflexible logo variation.
We're here to help businesses break out of their box (sometimes literally) by building flexible variations of their logo. When we build brands, we test how it will — and could someday — be used. In the end, we provide clients with numerous variations of their logo (horizontal, stacked, icon, with a tagline, without, etc.), so they'll have everything they'll need going forward.
Check out some of our more recent examples below.
Boreal Bliss
Boreal Bliss had their mission, values and yoga retreats down pat. But they didn’t feel like what they offered shown through easily enough in their branding. On top of that, they found their old branding very restricting. They needed something simpler. A new brand that would create a flexible framework to work from as they promote themselves.
We played around with several brand concepts, but kept coming back to the same values. Nature, inclusive community and adventure. The tree are an obvious nod to the northwoods that Boreal Bliss’ retreats are help in, but did you notice something unique about the largest tree? It’s branches mimic a yogi doing tree pose. This pose is grounding and helps improve balance and stability. The same things Boreal Bliss strives to instill in people who attend their retreats. Not only in their practice but in their lives back home as well.
The new brand also purposely includes three trees, of various shapes and sizes, as a way to show their dedication to building an inclusive community. Whether you’re a yoga master or are just starting out, Boreal Bliss wants it to be clear that all are welcome and appreciated.
It's a lot packed into a simple logo design, but it's meaning and ability to be used flexibly speak volumes!
Duluth Children's Museum
The Duluth Children's Museum was particularly limited by their logo design. They felt that their old pinwheel logo was a bit outdated and simplistic. Some employees even thought it looked a little clip-arty. With a move to a new space in the works, they hesitated at the thought of having to put their original logo on their new building.
Since the museum is all about movement and exploration, we developed their new brand to be full of playful shapes. You’ll see that the shapes make up the letters D, C and M. More than that, though, they also move around in lively ways depending on where they’re used. These shapes opened up the branding to all sorts of fun ways the brand can be incorporated.
Looking good is one thing, but we make it an absolute must for the brand to also be flexible and able to be implemented anywhere!
Jungle Gym
A lot of our design work focuses on simplifying things where we can. For Jungle Gym, we didn’t need to create a whole new overarching brand or majorly shake things up. Instead, they simply needed to have a flexible brand. They had originally been given one logo variation. One. With no way to make adjustments to it, they were extremely stuck with how it could be used (see the banner photo below on the left).
When we got to work, we chose to build off the visuals Jungle Gym was already known for and that their audience recognized. We took Jungle Gym’s logo and built two variations, one for their boxing program and one for their MMA program. Now, even though these are two different logos, they follow the same stylistic patterns of the existing logo and coincide with each other very nicely.
During the creation of these for both segments of the business, we built out a number of logo variations (horizontal, stacked, just the wordmark, just the animal as an icon, various colors, etc.) That way, the Gym will have whatever version they need going forward. Gone are the days they'll feel restricted on what they can do because of their logo!
Original Logo
With no logo variations developed, certain placements were really difficult to incorporate the company's branding.
Not exactly how you want a company banner to look...
Updated Logo
Having flexible logo options (that fit the same brand aesthetics) opened the company to a number of flexible ways to market their brand.
Now that's better!
Feeling Stuck Yourself?
Drop us a line. We'd love to figure out how we can take your design assets and create a meaningful and flexible brand that you'll be able to easily use, no matter how your business shows up.