before
after
Although I receive a fair amount of tips about identity redesigns for companies in the creative industry — architecture, advertising, digital, branding, etc. — I rarely cover them since they usually offer up the same kind of very nicely executed design lacking much of a surprise. Which is fine for doing business, but doesn’t make for good blog content. Today we have some good blogging fodder courtesy of Evidently, a “creative content agency” with offices in Toronto, London, Joburg, and Perth and a nice sense of humor. With the move to new offices in their London location, Evidently redesigned their own identity.
We removed the ambiguous highlighter mark of the old logo, kerned the Chevin type and selected a more-versatile brand yellow. Rather than completely revolutionising the Evidently brand, we felt the previous elements could be reworked along with new visuals, such as the character sets, to allow us to retain brand equity with our clients.
The character set sprung initially from our four office dogs — Frankie the Dachschund, Cooper the Italian Greyhound, Monty West Highland Terrier and Mezuzah the Labradoodle — that we felt represented the quirkiness and friendliness of Evidently that we wanted to get across to our clients and peers. We then realised we could invest these offbeat properties into further character sets for specific purposes — a national-animal character for each office, a habitat for each edit suite, and they grew from there, contrasting well with the minimalist qualities of Apercu and Pantone 115U that is now our brand yellow.
Provided text
Obviously — and I use that word to avoid using “evidently” because that would be too easy and annoying — the highlight of the new identity are all the new mascots available to them to tell stories throughout their new office and across their identity materials. The animal illustrations are probably not the most amazing illustrations ever but they have quite a bit of contagious chutzpah — that’s Yiddish for moxy, not an illness — and simply look fun. The other element of the identity is the use of the asterisk/footnote that is tirelessly applied on every single material. In most instances it’s funny and a nice punchline but other times it just feels like a sentence broken up in two.
Nonetheless, the humor comes across well and is appropriately delivered in one of those trendy-kinda-ugly sans serif typefaces that Europeans love. It’s blunt, unadorned, and is the equivalent of deadpan comic delivery — all summed up best in the new bathroom. Overall, it’s a great identity that gives potential clients a quick glimpse at what kind of work and approach they are getting.
Comments