This week started off as usual: open the door, throw down my bags and receive a barking “hello” from our office dog, Pancake; however, there was one major difference. Pancake, our extremely hairy, somewhat eccentric, Pomeranian was basically shaved! Where long, golden hair had gracefully adorned her cute face, now was sheared off! I looked at Pancake suspiciously, not too fond of the new look, and then settled in to clean out emails from my computer.
Later in the day, as Pancake’s haircut started to grow on me, I realized she was running and bouncing across our office more than usual, as though losing all the excess hair had given her a fresh excitement, and for the first time I noticed she had specs of black and grey in her coat. Who knew that under all the excess, unneeded hair was a completely new dog!
This may seem like an odd parallel, but how many times do we get stuck on a look and we are unwilling to try something new? This is much like when I work with a potential client who is so insistent on using their pre-existing logo, not because it actually represents their business/organization, but simply because they have always used it. Yes, I believe brand consistency is important, but in many cases the logo has “excess hair”: too many colors, unrelated graphical elements, poor font choices or too many fonts, an old design style and more.
At first I didn’t like Pancake’s new style, but If we had not taken a chance on the new look, we would never had know she looked so darn cute with a shorter doo. Again, this is similar to logos and brand identity. We evaluate a client’s brand from the bottom up. We suggest improvements based on strategic best practices, to ensure their organization is aligned with the message they are trying communicate. Sometimes the only way to do this is to create a totally new logo identity design or in Pancake’s case, a new haircut.
Clients are naturally scared to pursue a rebrand for a variety of reasons: financial commitment, lack of industry understanding, no lack of complacency, etc. But every time, when they trust our expertise and go for it, they find their organization more effective in their marketplace.
Does your business or organization need a “new doo”? Check out our identity design page to learn more or contact us online!
