For our recent Neuger CO.LAB webinar session, we were excited to share our insights on visual rebranding by hosting a panel of Neuger staff members who played a large part in the refresh of our name and logo, which launched last month.
Session 16 Panelists
- Betsey Garvey, Design Team Lead
- Elin Odegaard, Design Specialist
- Eric Molho, Vice President & Senior Communications Counselor
- Wendy Placko, Director of Sales & Video Team Lead
Takeaways
- With our recent launch, we focused on our visual identity with a new logo, refreshed color palette and updated font to give the company a more sleek and modern look. Our mission and values remain the same, but we simplified our name from Neuger Communications Group to Neuger.
- Your brand determines who you are, how you do business and who your audience and stakeholders are. Rebranding is essentially the process of researching the public perception of your company and articulating those results, highlighting what your company needs to improve on. It is crucial that once you’ve identified a clear mission and vision, you design a graphic and visual identity that coincides with that mission statement.
- Always observe what other companies in your industry are doing: How are they changing their look, adapting their website or designing their mail pieces? Take inspiration from the rebrand processes happening around you.
- Your visual identity needs to be consistent across all platforms: print, email, social media, website, etc. Make sure to update your files if you find inconsistencies.
- Research typography styles that are balanced and show consistency across all platforms – there are many online resources and guides with information about fonts and color schemes.
- When updating your color palette, consider how the colors represent your organization. Do you have any existing colors that you may want to keep or are you looking for an entirely new palette? Once you’ve chosen new colors, use the palette consistently, keeping in mind that color behaves differently in print than it does online.
- To ensure consistency across an organization, create email and document templates with the updated brand characteristics for staff usage. Be sure that everyone in your company has a clear understanding of how to access the new collateral. Invest in a full rollout; every detail (business system, email signature, voicemail, signage, etc.) makes a difference. Everyone needs to be on the same page.
Discussion Questions
Q: What are some main considerations to take into account when starting a rebrand?
Identify if you need a full rebrand or a visual rebrand. Once this is established, reflect on what information and content may be outdated; a rebrand of any kind is an excellent opportunity to shed excess content, images or graphics, and update information like contact information, calendars, etc. Minimize unnecessary or dense content to create more space for the new components of your brand to shine. Stand behind your process and make sure that all of your changes are purposeful.
Q: How long do typical rebranding campaigns take?
It can take around six to eight months to consider all the factors and plan accordingly for the various steps. It ultimately depends on the size of the company and how many people are involved. Ours took around seven months. Working from a detailed timeline will help streamline the process.
Q: What are some unexpected issues you may face when conducting a rebrand or system update?
Ensuring continuity with the rebrand usage is always a challenge and takes advanced communication and coordination among your team members. The worst thing that can happen after you launch your rebrand is having some of your staff continue to use the old look, which dilutes the impact of your new identity. Always have your most important stakeholders attend meetings in the early days of developing your new look and strategy.
We hope that our personal experiences and strategies will give you clear examples of what to consider when developing a new visual identity. Thank you for joining us!