Capturing the energy and drive of a changing company
In late 2019 Progressive Business Publications decided it needed to update.
Its business model had grown beyond its original legacy newsletter service into a wide--spanning collection of B2B thought leadership ventures, and the name and identity no longer reflected the business.
The first step was understanding what the company wanted to be - what we wanted to look like in the eyes of our clients, or audience, and our employees.
I put together a series of workshops with the leadership and select employees to discover the language, the emotions, and personality that we wanted to evoke in our new brand.
From those workshops came the framework of the company’s mission statement, core values and vision, a solid structure to develop a new name and visual identity.
The branding strategy wanted to find the common thread between three groups:the corporate level clients for our lead generation business, the audience of our thought leadership sites, and current and potential employees. The language was refined with that in mind.
Then we took some of the favorite name ideas from the workshops, and surveyed our client and audience base to see what concepts had the biggest impact. With feedback from our audience, and inspiration from our coworkers, we had arrived at a name and slogan that fit.
SuccessFuel
Do Great Work.
The Fuel in the name immediately sparked imagination. I assembled competitor brand audits to areas of opportunity in the visual space that would make SuccessFuel stand and represent our vision.
I presented three options to the team. After intense discussion, we selected the version the deep violets and vibrant colors best spoke to the psychology of change and empowerment we wanted to evoke; using whimsical curves in the iskra bold display font to showcase a contrast from the formality of our competitors.
Finalizing the initial concept, colors and typefaces defined, and the logo was refined into the Fuel and Flame logo - a distinctive pictorial mark and wordmark that were easily identifiable as separate entities or together.
With the brand visual identity established, the next step was mapping, wireframing, and designing a new site. Wireframes and designs were assembled in Adobe Xd with Anima used to hand off to the dev team.
The site's primary goals were to provide information and gather client leads for our lead generation services, and provide a point of contact for new hires.
Aside from a new website and employee physicals, I wanted to incorporate elements of the SuccessFuel visual identity, along with values and personality, into the company’s thought leadership brands. Client- facing sales materials was redesigned to merge elements of the existing brands with the SuccessFuel iconography.
I also developed the 'Powered by SuccessFuel' to add to our existing thought leadership brands while keeping their existing identities intact.
Our intended launch of May 2020 was met with complications due to the business rapidly shifting to fully remote work.
We didn't let that get us down! - We held an online party to announce the rebrand to employees with online games and live music!
The public launch allowed the company to find new opportunities in recruitment and lead generation client canvassing, with both areas showing quantifiable improvements in the first quarter of 2021 over previous years.
Find more at successfuel.com
I am always interested in opportunities to create something new.
hi@michaelcredle.com