loyalkaspar recently rebranded global entertainment marketing association Promax to help it expand its community of marketing executives beyond the confines of traditional TV. The design team has created a fresh visual identity and a user-friendly superstructure that would promote clarity, community and inclusivity to future members while remaining flexible for Promax to use across sub-brands, annual opens and future projects.
"Our goal was to create a new brand that conveys a certain sense of authority while remaining approachable - one that reflects the supportive, playful community that Promax represents," said Beat Baudenbacher, Principle and Chief Creative Officer.
To achieve an open and confident identity, loyalkaspar created a slick yet personable masterbrand, including a new, modern logotype, a custom typeface, a range of patterns with a premium, singular blue color scheme, and a campaign line to highlight the human element of Promax.
"We wanted the masterbrand to be very graphic," explained Baudenbacher. The challenge then, was to keep the brand's personality warm and inviting, when 'geometric designs can sometimes feel cold.'
From the start, the team had an obsession with simplicity to clearly convey what exactly Promax is. The new brand had to be inviting, modern and confident, while also conveying a sense of community.
Baudenbacher honed in on the fact that the first three letters of Promax contain curves, while the last three contain straight lines and angles. That led to the idea of combining the "A" and the "X" which developed into an entire brand architecture where the forward-slash of the "X" becomes a functional activator, visually connecting Promax to its sub-brands and clearly conveying what the organization offers. The forward slash also is used to influence the organization's overall voice, adding a fun, text-based design to the way Promax talks about itself. Using these connected, almost knit together patterns represents the idea of community and connection between the different members.
To contrast the compact Promax logotype, Baudenbacher wanted a typeface that felt a little loose, a little "less serious." Because he couldn't find one, the team at loyalkaspar designed their own. Proxy Mono is based on the geometry of the Promax logo, so there's a visual connection, despite the purposeful contrast. It feels a little tech-y, a little vintage and a little not-trying-too-hard.
A light and airy blue was also chosen as a palette reducing the brand to one recognizable color that's displayed in different shades. The neutrals were very important because Promax needs to be able to live with a lot of other brands - networks, partners and sponsors - that they can't control. Together, those elements establish the Promax brand as fun, defined and community-focused.
A key function of the new brand structure had to be its usability. It had to work for Promax's small internal marketing team, loyalkaspar wanted to ensure that the visual identity was easily applicable in a range of contexts. Cue a massive "Aha!" moment for Baudenbacher: making the Promax logotype typable within Proxy Mono, so that the Promax team could "make the entire brand in Microsoft Word if they had to."
A typable logo allows for teams to use brand signaling quickly and effectively in all communications - all they need is the right keyboard command and to adhere to what Baudencbacher calls "The Promax Paragraph" - a simple enough formatting rule to follow: ditch indents and align all text to the top left margin.
In the same vein, the dominant use of patterns rather than narrative scenes in the visual language helped the in-house marketing team cut-down on time spent cropping images for socials - fewer heads to chop off makes everyone happy!
Beyond maximizing ease, these additions contribute to the brand's approachable feel, and its flexibility recognizes the human hand in the brand.
