As our digital environments become more stimulating, the essence of a brand becomes increasingly paramount. We believe in focusing on the essentials that truly define and differentiate an organisation.
In this article, we will illustrate our systematic approach to creating a brand identity by guiding you through a case study analysis of one of our clients, BELIFT. This case study exemplifies how we help organisations like BELIFT to redefine their brand identity, ensuring they stand out in a competitive market.
BELIFT, established in 2020, is revolutionising vertical transportation with their high-tech elevator and escalator solutions. Unlike their established competitors such as KONE or Schindler Group, BELIFT aims for more than just functionality. They strive to enhance efficiency, comfort, and safety. Operating from Southeast Asia, BELIFT offers a comprehensive range of services including supply, installation, maintenance, and repairs, catering to diverse customer needs.
The objective of rebranding BELIFT was to distinguish them from both international giants and domestic competitors by embracing a high-tech yet approachable look and feel.
Given their recent acquisition of a company with 20 years of legacy, our expertise as brand strategists and designers was needed to create a cohesive brand identity. This new identity should respect the past while paving the way for BELIFT to forge its own.
Furthermore, they sought to project an image akin to innovative brands like Apple or BYD, breaking away from the traditional, industrial perception of the vertical transportation industry in Singapore.
Having established the client's objectives and requirements, and gaining a preliminary understanding of the market, this article will guide you through our systematic approach to rebranding BELIFT. It is structured to mirror our visual identity process.
Mood board: A visual compass
A mood board is a visual tool that compiles images, colours, and textures to convey the desired aesthetic and emotional tone of a brand. It is important because it sets the overall visual direction, ensuring consistency across all brand elements.
For BELIFT, we selected images that communicate the brand adjectives of clean, sophisticated, premium, polished, and soothing. This carefully curated collection then serves as a blueprint, guiding every aesthetic decision from collateral designs to photography. This ensures a cohesive brand identity, enabling BELIFT to be top of mind for homeowners, developers, and architects in need of a vertical transport specialist.
Colour palette: Communicating emotions & experiences
A colour palette is a carefully selected range of colours used consistently across a brand's visual elements. It is crucial for creating a memorable visual identity, as it conveys emotions and experiences. A thoughtfully chosen colour palette serves to enhance recognition.
For BELIFT, we arrived at the colour palette through a series of exploration, positioning, and messaging workshops. Our understanding of colour psychology and the competitive landscape in Singapore, combined with these workshops, led us to the palette selection for BELIFT. Inspired by industrial and tech interiors, the palette primarily features blue. This colour universally symbolises trust, peace, and confidence, reflecting BELIFT's values of timelessness and commitment to innovation.
Typography: The rich tapestry of moods
After defining the mood board and colour palette, we proceed to identify a typography combination.
Typography refers to the style and appearance of text. By choosing the right typeface and applying it correctly, you can convey a variety of moods, making typography another element in expressing your brand's personality.
For BELIFT, we selected Roboto Mono and Urbanist to balance modern aesthetics with a nod to the industry's history.
Roboto Mono, with its geometric shapes and contemporary presence, offers a clean and modern look while also paying tribute to the limitations of typeface technology during industrialisation. This choice subtly acknowledges the vertical transportation industry’s roots.
Urbanist, a low-contrast, geometric sans-serif inspired by Modernist typography, is composed of elementary shapes commonly associated with modernity. Its neutrality makes it versatile and suitable for various display mediums, aligning well with BELIFT's desire for a modern, high-tech, yet approachable brand identity.
Together, these typefaces help create a brand that feels both innovative and grounded.
Logo: The embodiment of core identity
After shortlisting typography, we typically use either a single typeface or a combination to create a logo.
The logo embodies the brand’s core identity. It plays a pivotal role in broader brand elements such as headers, footers, letterheads, and websites. A well-designed logo ensures adaptability across different platforms. This maintains the brand's consistency and recognition.
For BELIFT's new logo, we utilised positive and negative space to incorporate an upward-pointing arrow, symbolising upward movement and progress. This design choice was inspired by the previous logo's emphasis on the upward movement of the "e", aiming to capture the brand's dynamism and eagerness to challenge the common perception of vertical transport as dirty, industrial, and mechanical. The upward arrow serves as a playful submark, representing BELIFT's primary service of providing vertical transport solutions while suggesting progress and innovation.
Visual direction: Creating a unified brand experience
Finally, because BELIFT frequently collaborates with homeowners, developers, and architects, we developed visual guidelines to ensure images of BELIFT's products and services align with the norms of architecture and interior design photography.
Visual direction refers to the overall aesthetic and style that guides all visual elements of a brand, ensuring consistency across various platforms. It is important because it creates a unified brand experience, helping to communicate a brand's values effectively.
For BELIFT, we introduced simple photography principles like the "rule of thirds" to create balanced and engaging images, allowing viewers' eyes to interact naturally with the visual content. Incorporating clean, straight lines maintains the integrity of the building's design and adds a level of professionalism. This standardisation not only enhances the aesthetic appeal but also aims to shift the perception of vertical transport specialists from subcontractors to valuable partners, thereby improving negotiation power with developers and architects alike.
The rebranding of BELIFT was strategically executed to differentiate them from both established international companies and local competitors in the vertical transportation industry, and to integrate two distinct brand identities following a merger.
This comprehensive transformation sought to position BELIFT as a high-tech yet approachable brand, distinctly different from the industrial perception typically associated with their line of work.
Through a deliberate process that included creating a mood board, selecting a colour palette dominated by blue symbolising trust and innovation, and choosing modern yet grounded typography, BELIFT’s new brand identity was meticulously crafted.
This rebrand not only respects the legacy of the acquired company but also clearly marks BELIFT’s ambitions to lead and innovate within their field. This strategic rebranding is set to solidify BELIFT’s standing in the market, making them a preferred partner for homeowners, developers, and architects.
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