89. Can you rebrand without updating your logo?
Itching for a new look but not ready to lose your logo?💥 This solo episode with Phil and Lauren walks through all the details of a partial rebrand. You'll learn the questions to ask yourself about your logo—ranging from function to values—and the softer components that can be easily updated. With a real example showcasing before and after, your brand will feel sparkly and new before you know it!
This episode is sponsored by LetsGetChecked .
Episode transcription
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Phil:
Well hello and welcome to Brand Therapy. I’m Phil.
Lauren:
And I'm Lauren.
Phil:
And we are your hosts here on this podcast this week, and every week, and we love it. We love having this conversation today with just the two of us. We're gonna be talking about branding, we're going to be talking about visual branding. I think it's gonna be good.
Lauren:
Oh, this is a good topic because, well, I mean, I guess people will know from the episode of the title that are your social media posts and all that stuff. But a lot of times people feel that they get the itch to reinvent themselves and reinvent their brands. And we're here to tell you that it's okay to slow down and just take things one step at a time with your brand. And we've got a real example to show you how to do that.
Phil:
Slow down, will you just slow down exactly. Let's not get carried away. There's a time and a place to be carried away. And now might not be that moment. I mean sometimes it is and we had people that come to us and they want to build a brand from scratch or they want to re brand from scratch. But, you know, it doesn't always have to be the biggest project in the world, I guess is point number one. And we'll, while we'd love to build a brand from scratch, and we'd love to build all of the elements, and we'd love to redo things, sometimes we can work with what already exists and make it better without having to reinvent the wheel.
Lauren:
Yes, exactly. So if you're a company, where you use a lot of history, like I think of two particular companies we worked with where they both been around for over 100 years. Obviously, that's not really, I mean, you could, but you wouldn't necessarily want to do a completely brand new logo, completely brand new colors game, but you can really build on what's already been established and works for your company in the modern times, and then just give it a little refresh.
Phil:
Absolutely. And we can talk specifics today. I guess we should probably talk about how we decide First of all, whether a full rebrand is needed? Or is this partial? You know, like, Is it going to be just a few handful of parts? How do we decide by the way, we are always on the same, I'm trying to point at you, we are always on the same page as to whether or not it needs to be fully fleshed out from scratch or it can be revamped. How do we decide? Are there questions that we can give people?
Lauren:
Oh, okay. So the first question that I'll usually ask clients when evaluating really the degree of their new brand is technically does this existing brand serve you? And so what I mean by that is, do you have a primary logo and do you have multiple logo compositions? Does your logo work when it's printed into small spaces? Can your logo fit a square shape? Could your logo work in black and white? A lot of times people when they're first getting started, we'll go to Fiverr, let's say and get kind of a, I don't want to say amateur, but kind of a less thoughtful logo because it does the job. But long term, it doesn't really serve you because if your logo can't work in black and white, if your logo can't print onto a small space, if your logo can't fit in a square, then you're gonna have to adjust your medium to the logo instead of your logo to the medium. Right. That's the first thing I asked. Yeah, what about you?
Phil:
I like your analogy there. We always say that branding isn't just about looking pretty. Branding needs to serve a business goal. Branding is business. So for us, really what our job and we're hired to create a brand is to create a tool kit, not just a logo. There's one simple logo that appears in every instance. No, that's not how this works. We have multiple logo compositions, or as we call them logo lockups. You love that word?
Lauren:
I do. I just found out I always thought it was a typo until like six months ago logo was I was like supposed to be I was supposed to be mock up. We've been skip over that on every brand board.
Phil:
What a lockup is. This is your logo that exists in a variety of ways. So it could be centered, it could be left or right justified. But it goes more than that. We usually create a rounded or a seal version, composition or a lockup so that would exist as a seal. It could exist as the small icon that displays in your browser, it could be stationary, it could be what shows, obviously, I'm traveling, I'm in Mexico right now, but if I was in a home office, if I had a home and an office, I could put my logo right here that would display if I was doing an interview on Skype or on zoom something like this.
And then we have to think too, about how its existing online, how its existing in person. A lock up basically accounts for all of the different possibilities. It also allows people to experience your brand in a way that has depth. It could be argued that it's actually underrated. binding to your audience to give them the same logo in the same composition in every single instance. That's boring. It's awful. It doesn't give dimension or depth to what you're actually doing product or service. And that's why these are really important so that you can account for the right moment when your brand shows up, that it's thoughtful that it's special in that instance. So yeah, more than one lockup. What else? What else?
Lauren:
The other question that I like to ask is, does your logo or your brand represent who you are today and who you want to be in the future? A lot of times people will have a logo or a brand that speaks to their business efforts for the past decade. But maybe they want to switch gears or maybe they want to do something different or maybe they want to cater to a different type of clientele or customer. So that's the less tangible question to ask, but it's still really important qualitative one to ask yourself, because if your brand from the past is misaligned with the brand you want to be in the future, to me, that's a real indicator that you might want to change some things up. Not necessarily everything but some things.
Phil:
Yes. And even the exercise of revisiting that and deciding, yes, no, that's an important one. I think it's an important one for you to do yourself. I also think like, not to toot our own horns here, but it helps to have people that don't know you, as well, as you know, you. Or even a business partner give feedback on that, because there's a bit of objectivity there in terms of identifying maybe what's so close to you, helping to identify what matters, what doesn't. We're in it day to day in the trenches.
And actually, we'll talk about my brand in this episode, where we always talk about other people, but today we're going to talk about our own brand and even visually how we’ve outgrown our brand over the years, and, you know, with some examples I will include in the show notes. So I'll be able to share my screen and show those examples. But for those of you listening, we record with the podcast listener in mind, we'll describe what some of those changes and instances of outgrowing look like and what we did, because I think a lot of entrepreneurs is where, you know, we're going through some of the questions that we asked to decide where you're at in this journey. I think that that's something that will resonate a lot with people is I feel like I've outgrown my brand by brand isn't serving me, your brand should be a toolkit, made up of logos, color, typography, sub brands, we'll talk about these and the different layers of what makes up your brand identity.
This isn't just a logo, and so you might have some of those components. Maybe you love your colors. Maybe you're sick of your colors. Maybe your colors aren't serving you or maybe in the development of your business you've identified by doing another audience that you didn't even expect would really take to your product or service. I want to at this point also include a giant Asterix. Because while it's important to have a beautiful visual brand and it helps you in a lot of cases from the beginning, I think that you and I, especially right now want to say something that there's value in starting.
You don't need a bazillion dollar brand from the beginning, but you need to start even if you start with something that's not perfect. You learn so much by doing would you not agree that people that we're able to help the most are people that have already been living in this space, trying things learning what works and what doesn't? And then they come back to us and we refine from there.
Lauren:
Yeah, yeah, basically, a brand is not a business but a business with a brand can be even better.
Phil:
Oh, sound bites, sound bites.
Lauren:
Write that down.
Phil:
I love that. Okay, so we talked about a few questions that people should be asking themselves. Where do we go from here?
Lauren:
So the last question that I really want people to ask themselves is related to the history or the notoriety of the brand. As mentioned at the beginning of this episode, a lot of times clients will come to us and they have a really, really deeply entrenched history of, over 100 years. And while obviously, their company is different from when they started 100 years ago, history can sometimes work in your favor. History can speak to your values. And so by asking yourself that question of how relevant is the history of my company to where I want to go, if the answer is very relevant, that's an indicator that you probably want to keep your logo mark, but possibly update the other elements of your brand.
Phil:
Yes. And actually, we have a good example of this. It's not on our website right now, but it's one that I plan on Including in our site relaunch. So the next few weeks he'll see this, but you could go there now, Canada, UK Chamber of Commerce is an organization that we rebranded a few years ago, two years ago, one year ago, one and a half years ago, two years, yeah, almost two. And we kept some of the legacy elements of their brand, but updated softer things like typography, typeface, those can get dated quickly. That's a really good example of keeping the things that work well that people identify with them, not reinventing the wheel, not drastically changing everything that actually keeping those elements.
Actually, I'm a good example of this, and I'll be able to show some visuals to accompany that. Maybe what we should do is talk about how our brand looked in 2016, I think it was, and I was really feeling like we outgrew it. So okay, we're gonna talk about that.
Lauren:
Let's go go for it.
Phil:
Let's paint the picture of what our brand looked like. In 2016. I think it was.
Lauren:
Yeah, yeah. So in 2016 this was a really big year for us because we were getting tons of new clients and really refining our process and our brand. We wanted our brand to communicate basically, trustworthiness, but also a modern sensibility. It really needed to be detailed, and it needed to be a really good brand, because that's what we're selling in a way that we had never really sold it before. When did you get your tattoo of the logo?
Phil:
I can't remember. It was around this time.
Lauren:
Okay, it was around we needed to stick with the logo. I can't remember if it was this logo first and then the tattoo or if you had a different logo. I can't remember the order of it. But basically, the logo can never change the logo Mark because it's now tattooed to Phil’s wrist. So that was a requirement.
Phil:
You're happy when I got that got tattoo because then I finally would stop rebranding.
Lauren:
Yeah, I was like enough. Now it's officially permanent. And so we really wanted to create a modern sensibility, I would say that we were really inspired by brands like Squarespace, which again felt like legitimate, trustworthy and fun. And in terms of the logo lockups, we needed to have a lot of different instances, not only because it's useful, but because we needed to be able to pull and show a full spectrum of compositions to clients as they inquired, so that we had them all in our back pocket ready to go. So from like a vertical seal to rearranging Phil Pallen collective in different ways to kind of almost like curved shapes, a stamp, everything.
Phil:
And what's interesting was using some of them and finding that actually, some of them didn't serve me as well. Sometimes you don't know these things until you try it. And that's, I think it Important thing is like in the stages of developing your brand, make decisions, but also, you're going to learn things from living in it. You don't need to make every decision the minute you launch your brand you're going to know from the last year 2,3,4,5 actually living in it, what resonates what works.
Lauren:
Definitely. So for the color palette, it was kind of an interesting balance for us at the time, because we wanted our brand to be really, really lively, and fun and dynamic, but at the same time, it couldn't compete too much with a portfolio of Phil Pallen client work. Yeah, exactly. I can't remember if when the Pantone like rose quartz and serenity pairing was.
Phil:
We were the trendsetters. We chose in 2016, we chose pink and blue as our brand colors. I just like to welcome Pantone. You're welcome. You can thank us for that trend also. Yeah. Then I got so bored with typography, remember, and I was like now I need a serif. And then the next year I'm like, now I need a san serif. And then I'm like, can I have a serif again? I'm a nightmare when it comes to my own brand.
Lauren:
Yeah. But now the logo can never change. So I don't care. You can change the typography as much as you want.
Phil:
Well, okay, wait, actually, let's talk about that for a second. Because color and typography I would consider to be softer elements of our brand, right. And as you're building your visual brand, you should explore the ways in which those things look so that other people have reference if they need to, for example, hop into Canva you know, and create something for your brand and ebook, a blog post, thumbnail, etc.
I’m going to switch over well not switch over but I want to talk about how our brand looks and feels now because it is completely different than what it was in 2016. But I was adamant about updating some of these softer elements like color and typography. And it is amazing how small changes make a world of a difference.
Lauren:
Yeah, so the first thing with the colors is our 2016 color palette was really fun. It was really punchy. I'm glad that it happened. But just as our way of doing business evolved, so to the nature of working with us, I feel like working with Phil Pallen Collective in 2020 versus 2016 is a completely different experience. You're getting more of a real boutique agency instead of have a group of creatives working with you, it's a bit more streamlined.
So the color palette definitely needed to evolve. So we ended up choosing a more of a sophisticated color palette that was really rooted in neutrals. Yeah, so you're not looking at standard grays here these are Gray's with some green tones and more beiges with some pink tones. So not your run of the mill neutrals and that way it gives us a lot of depth to work with. But without being too overbearing.
Phil:
Totally. And going back to what you indicated before, which was the need to not overpower with our own brand, from what we've done for clients, I think that's a good example of a business goal or parameter that should be identified and respected in the process, right, that relates to how we do business and how we showcase what we do. So those are the kinds of realizations that should inform the decisions you make. You shouldn't choose a color because it's pretty, you know. You should choose a color because it complements who you are as a business, who you work with as a business, who you serve, how you serve, where you're going. And you might think, well, color, how does that become a part of the narrative? It does, really, you have to think through all the ways in which people are experiencing you in person and online culture plays a huge part of that.
Lauren:
Definitely. And so in this case, since the breadth of work has increased so dramatically over four years, I feel it was really, really important more than ever to have a variety of neutral tones to choose from, so we could choose in a very, very strategic and purposeful way, which neutral tone would best compliment the client example.
Phil:
Absolutely, absolutely. Color, typography are things that you can update a little bit easier than revamping an entire logo. You know what I mean? Even if, for example, you're not in a position to be able to do a full rebrand, there's a lot of uncertainty right now, maybe Now's not the time. If you are looking to update some things that might keep it exciting. I think typography and color are two places that you can start
Lauren:
Without question and I feel like typography and color really communicate personality in a way that a logo can. If you want your brand to be more confident and loud, you can go for a color palette and typography combination that conveys that confidence. If you want to feel a bit more aloof and luxurious, you can also do that. So there's really limitless possibilities to suit the vibe of your brand. And it's really, really a pretty effortless tweak.
Phil:
Should we talk about textures, patterns, and maybe sub brands or icons? Oh, yeah, yeah, we love this topic.
Lauren:
Okay, you talk about the texture and pattern because you're using it a lot more than me.
Phil:
Sure. So one of the things I found in living with my brand, was that there were a lot of instances where I was, for example, getting photography from different sources. So I was traveling and I would meet photographers along the way that potentially we use for clients, but I'd also shoot with them and they'd use a little bit of a different filter or overlay or we had different light that day versus when I was in another country. I have photos from all different places, but it became tricky for all of those photos to live together. All right for all of those supposed to live together well, and I asked our designer to come up with a way some kind of texture or treatment that we could incorporate that would just almost be like the glue, the visual glue that brings everything together.
So if you see in my Instagram posts or even on my blog or even ebooks, I use them a lot. It's almost like a little plus sign, little plus sign pattern, which I use in behind and over top of images just remind you that that is fine, that that's my brand, right? It doesn't have a logo in it or anything like that. It's just simply a texture that hopefully you see more than once and start to associate that with me, regardless of the photo being a different filter. That makes sense.
Lauren:
Yeah, yeah. So if you're in Canva with your brand right now and you feel like every single social media template you're putting together looks and feels the same. If you're feeling really uninspired, chances are that that textural element is Really the missing component, You need to have an extra layer that helps create some contrasts and also just create some variety in your layout. So I would definitely approach a designer to help you with that.
Phil:
Yes, and I would say, also work with your designer to really spell out how your brand is going to live. In this specific instances. We had Kostya, our designer that works on our brand projects, and has designed my brand actually create a graphic almost like a template of how an infographic or a quote card could look on Instagram. And I use that that's the rule. You know, he created that I'm able to update text and tools I can buy. We do this with clients, but like when your designer makes a rule a decision, you have to follow it. You have to follow it. That's the most important thing because the minute you start to make brand or visual decisions, then sway from those decisions, that's when things are going to get sloppy and inconsistent, real fast, real fast.
Lauren:
Yeah. And that's also when you lose your investment in the first place.
Phil:
I mean, it's a lot of times a lot of money, but it's worth it, if you create rules, create parameters, and you follow those. You can always create more icons in the future, your business might grow in ways that you can't even anticipate now, and that's totally fine. Totally fine. But I would say, create rules, follow those rules. If you can't do a full rebrand now, even if you need it, then look to update some of the softer elements like color, typography, soft branded icons, etc.
Lauren:
Great. I don't know if I have any additional advice. Honestly, I feel like we really covered it.
Phil:
I would say if people want you know, it's one thing to, listen to a podcast and hear us talk about that, but what I was gonna say on this was go to our website, actually to see many, many, many visual brand examples. I'm working hard on the next version of the website. It'll be out soon, prioritizing client projects like a responsible adult, but also still working on it in the background.
We're really proud of it. We have over 50 examples of brands that we've designed, but even the site that we have now has many, many examples with all of our different types of clients, lifestyle, motivational speakers, people in media and entertainment, bloggers. We've got a lot of really cool visual examples on our own website that could inspire you for your next update, even if it's not a drastic, complete redesign.
I think we would also love to hear from you. You've taken the time to either watch us or tune into us live or you've listened to this episode. What are you Your challenges with your brand. If you have any specific questions for us, I'll tell you where to find us online. I'm @philpallen
Lauren:
and I'm @thelaurenmoore
Phil:
#brandtherapy is where we can continue this conversation. If you have questions, concerns, comments, you can reach out to us. You can find us online. If you enjoyed this episode, go to iTunes, leave us a review. We love when you do that, it helps other people discover this podcast that we work very hard to create. And until next time, thanks for hanging out with us right here on Brand Therapy.
Lauren:
Bye, bye.
