When I'm hired, it means an organization is looking for change. Even so, I can never assume every decision-maker is ready for a rebrand, or comfortable with the creative decision-making process in general. That's why the process itself begins with a thorough strategy phase, and why the rebrand process cannot be too fast or too short. The deciding body of an organization often needs more than a weekend to sit with new ideas, insights, and designs.
BeBop's managing board knew their original logo had valiantly carried them since 2015 but was failing to resonate in the current competitive landscape of media production software platforms. They seemed fully committed to change, and opted for an aggressive project schedule, but we would soon discover they were not completely aligned on how far-reaching the visual identity scope would be.
We were able to resolve this significant challenge by slowing down slightly and engaging in a few more one-on-one meetings. This wasn't a wrench in the process. Quite the opposite, it aired important points of view. It enlightened our process moving forward and made us a stronger team.
Analysis & Brand Strategy
The beauty of this phase is that it holds a mirror up to an entity and hashes out what is real and what isn't. The access BeBop granted us was invaluable to the process: we interviewed the managing board, audited the current brand, researched competitors, and had an orientation to understand first-hand how subscribers use the products.
Though our final project deliverable was visual — a new logo family, colorways, typography, and use-cases across media types — this phase went beyond that contractual scope. We recommended a broader context for the brand that extended into marketing language, product experience, and website architecture. The visual identity had to be backed up by other sensory inputs across all touchpoints of the brand to ensure BeBop could be understood correctly and comprehensively.
On behalf of the brand, the stakeholders who founded it in 2015, and those who have shaped it since, we analyzed it through the following questions:
• Why are we here? (the project team mandate)
• Who are we? (the brand audit across media)
• Where do we live? (competitors / rivals)
We also included:
• What we heard (insights from interviews)
• Naming (we needed to dive into connotations of the name)
The Strategy section first summarized our thoughts and interpretations using a Brand Pyramid: why BeBop is, what it promises, and who it is. The why is BeBop's reason for being, or why it exists. The what is its current offering to customers.
The who dives into the brand's persona. We landed on four brand character words that captured the brand's ethos. These adjectives led to design drivers (i.e. What does 'adjective' look like?). The design drivers led to image research that would inspire the visual concepts in the next phase.
The entire process felt like a well documented conversation. It activated and aligned our stakeholders and primed them to make good decisions in the next phase and beyond. It also prepared me to design meaningful, effective, focused options backed up by what we had learned, and what were planning together.
Now, fast forward beyond the brand launch, and check out BeBop's new website and UI/UX redesign. The client-side creative, product and marketing teams have taken the strategy and identity to great places. This could not have happened without a strong Analysis & Strategy phase, and also could not have happened without the care we took in aligning the brand's stakeholders from the very beginning.
ROLE Project Co-Lead - Lead Strategist and Identity Designer
TEAM Ian Searcy, ICDB - Project Co-Lead - Account Lead and Creative Direction
CLIENT Bebop Technology
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