Resources
Desirable Futures Branding Part 1 Logo Design
21 May 2024
Case Study
Ken Tai
Overview
Desirable Futures is a cutting-edge consulting firm based in Australia, founded by three seasoned agile consultants with extensive experience in organizational development. Their vision revolves around Human-Centric Open Organizations, leveraging breakthrough innovative strategies and adaptive organizational designs to support C-level leaders in designing future-ready enterprises.
The company offers tailored consultancy services to drive transformative change for organizations across industries. From adopting open ecosystem and platform business models to fostering innovative, democratic workplaces, they empower businesses to thrive in dynamic environments. Whether you're a start-up or a large corporation, their solutions address unique challenges and drive sustainable growth.
The Requirements
The primary requirements were to create the core digital branding assets, including the company logo and website. These assets aimed to kickstart and accelerate their pre-sales and delivery activities, enabling seamless interaction with leads and clients.
In this article, I'll showcase the development of the company logo for Desirable Futures, the first part of the brand identity development.
The Mission
The primary mission was to manage the end-to-end process and deliver a best-in-class brand identity and website for Desirable Futures, ensuring their business success. This endeavor followed Mokujiro's core approach, encompassing three key phases: Understand, Design, and Build.
Project Management
Effective project management was crucial, involving meticulous planning and task completion oversight throughout the branding and website development phases. Adherence to a well-defined timeline ensured seamless execution and timely delivery.
Alignment
Regular meetings were scheduled to showcase progress and gather feedback, fostering alignment with Desirable Futures' vision and business model. This collaborative approach ensured that the final deliverables resonated with the company's core values and objectives.
Design and Build
The design and development phases were characterized by flexibility and attention to detail. Continuous adjustments were made to create a consistent and extensible design, serving as the foundational piece for Desirable Futures' brand identity. This iterative process ensured that the final outcome met the highest standards of quality and effectively communicated the company's unique value proposition.
Phase 1 - Understand
Challenge
One of the most significant challenges was to comprehend and consolidate Desirable Futures' vision, mission, values, and business model into a visually compelling logo design. This involved skillfully combining shapes, colors, and typography to create a cohesive and meaningful graphic representation.
Defining the Essence
Business Model Canvas
To gain a comprehensive understanding of Desirable Futures' business model, I requested the client to complete a Business Model Canvas. This powerful tool helped define and articulate the company's value proposition, customer segments, key activities, and revenue streams, among other critical aspects.
Mission Statement
The mission statement clearly defined the company's purpose, activities, and the audience it serves, providing a solid foundation for the branding efforts.
Vision Statement
The vision statement painted a vivid picture of Desirable Futures' desired future and long-term goals, serving as a guiding light for the brand's aspirations.
Values Statement
The values statement outlined the core principles and ethical standards that shape the company's culture and guide its actions, ensuring alignment between the brand identity and its underlying ethos.
Mind mapping
With the company name already established, I embarked on a mind-mapping exercise to understand the deeper meaning behind the name and its associated keywords. By analyzing the provided assets and identifying recurring key terms, I created conceptual links to explore potential graphic elements that could effectively represent the brand's essence.
Phase 2 - Ideate/Design
Sketching and Ideation
Building upon the insights gained from the previous phase, I embarked on an extensive sketching process. This involved experimenting with various shapes, company name initials, and symbolic representations, prioritizing quantity over quality at this stage. The goal was to generate a diverse range of conceptual ideas and visual directions.
Voting, Selection, and Refinement
To ensure a collaborative and inclusive decision-making process, I facilitated a voting session among the Desirable Futures team members. Each member had the opportunity to express their preferences and provide rationale for their choices. The key elements that emerged as essential for integration into the logo design were positivity, a rising sun motif, human-centricity, and a representation of collaboration.
Once the preferred sketches were selected, I increased the fidelity of the graphics, refining and polishing the chosen concepts. This was followed by another round of voting, allowing the team to narrow down the options and converge on the final logo design.
Navigating Challenges
Throughout this iterative process, I encountered challenges in reconciling differing preferences among team members or even my own personal design sensibilities. However, my role in this project was to actively listen to the client's perspectives and facilitate their decision-making process. I provided guidance and advice from a design and user experience perspective, while ultimately empowering the Desirable Futures team to make the final choices that resonated with their vision and values.
Phase 3 - Design/Finalise
Finalizing the Graphics
Building upon the selected concepts from the previous phase, I focused on finalizing the graphics for the logo design. This involved identifying the underlying logic and rationale behind the chosen visuals and removing any extraneous elements or "noise." The goal was to shape and simplify the graphics, ensuring maximum impact and clarity.
Addressing Challenges
During this phase, a unique challenge arose regarding the logo placement. The client expressed a preference for positioning the logo graphics on the right-hand side of the company name typeface. This unconventional approach required careful consideration, as logos are typically placed on the left side. I recognized the need to explore how this placement would translate across various digital platforms, particularly the website, to ensure a cohesive and visually appealing brand experience.
Additionally, since the client intended to use LinkedIn as their primary social platform, it was crucial to test the logo design in situ on that platform. This testing revealed the need for minor color adjustments and the use of a dark background to ensure the logo stood out prominently on the page.
Takeaways
Working on the logo development for Desirable Futures was a great experience that distilled the company's business model, mission, vision, and core values into a simple graphic form. Through a collaborative process, we successfully created a visually compelling representation that encapsulates the essence of their brand.
The primary use cases for this logo will be digital assets, establishing a strong brand image in the market, and accelerating their business activities.
In the next article, I will showcase the website development process, which was an integral part of this comprehensive branding project.