A former executive from Precor wanted to launch a new company around the idea of a stand-up/desk treadmill combo. He had a great idea, but he didn't have a company name or brand to help him pitch the idea to investors.
Before the brand guidelines were built I created a vision, mission and values document to help build the idea for the company into something more tangible. We dug into the "why" behind the product idea.
From there, the company name "UnSit" was born, and a tagline, "Great Minds Walk" (because walking facilitates divergent thought), along with a content plan to convert early adopters into customers.
The brand guidelines shaped the visual and editorial approach and brought the company's unique value proposition to life for potential investors. It also guided the product design, content marketing strategy and successful company launch.
Guidelines are primarily a living library of essential ideas and strategic decisions — in addition to establishing consistent colors and fonts. They're useful for everything from investor pitches to re-branding to handing over creative direction to a new agency.
A former Patagonia employee had an idea to introduce circular economy concepts into the apparel industry. It was an unproven, thought-leadership idea and she needed to convince investors it could work by helping them "see" it.
Similar to the UnSIt start-up approach, we started by crafting internal vision/mission/value statements before developing audience-facing examples of company names, logos, photography/design/copy approaches.
The result was a deeply rooted brand guideline that brought our client's vision to life and could be used for investor pitch decks and to guide an early website design.
Light My Fire, a Swedish outdoor brand (and designer of the original Spork!) had a fantastic product line and strong ambitions to lead the way in the Regenerative Economy movement. Their product line is meant to replace single-use items and most of their products are made from biobased plastic and are recycled or recyclable. And they are strong believers in spending time outside: cooking, eating and appreciating nature.
Light My Fire had all the ingredients for a great brand but the dots weren't being connected—how their products represent their wider brand ambitions—for their audience.
How could we grow this promising company that had relied on B2B growth into a brand that has something more to say? How could we create advocates?
Working with a creative director, we developed brand guidelines that included a manifesto, vision / mission / value statements, company history and a focus on the company's roots in design principles.
Everything laddered up to these brand tenets, right down to the products. We complemented the messaging with original, mouth-watering photography and recipes from a reknowned Swedish cookbook author. The result was a celebration of purposeful design, cooking outside under a bare sky, sharing food with friends, and re-connecting with nature.
The brand guidelines set the direction for interest, influence, advocacy and growth.
