UPDATING THE INFLUENCE BRAND

Influence are chartered landscape architects, environmental planners, urban designers and arborists. Based in Newark-on-Trent they have a considerable reputation throughout the district and beyond. Over the years they have grown in number and moved to new premises which meant the time was right to review their existing brand to ensure it accurately represented their current business. 

KYAK were appointed to undertake a brand review across both internal and external touchpoints. The original brand was created by the talented John Dowling and many of the component parts were still working well, however we felt that as the business had changed it had matured and some elements of the brand should be updated to reflect this.

Our first suggestion was to make some minor changes to the company logo. Although the essence of the logo was kept, by adding a few details and making small changes we created an updated version that has the appropriate gravitas.

The core Influence brand colour is yellow, we haven’t altered that since it’s a colour that has defined them for some time. However we have added a set of colours that define the various service disciplines they offer so they can better communicate their services in a joined up, coherent way.

The original typeface used by Influence was a generic Futura. We have updated the brand typeface to Wotfard by Atipo foundry, similar in design to Futura in that it’s a straightforward sans serif but with a few unique aspects to the characters that help to develop the Influence personality.

Although Influence already had some symbols they had been using to represent different aspects of the business, they had become slightly confused and diluted when new ones had been added over time. We developed a new set of symbols designed to represent the various market sectors they service.

The icons are designed to be displayed individually or as a group in situations where a project sits across a range of market sectors.

Designed to be an addition to the core brand elements, they can be used either as a small identifier or larger to bring the market sector to the front of the messaging hierarchy.

After the initial brand work was approved and finalised, we summarised everything into a brand guideline document providing Influence with all the files they should need – from digital files to vector graphics suitable for scaling at any size, InDesign templates, icons, typeface and colour references.

The Influence brand has a built up a legacy having been in existence for a number of years and well known within the industry, however we felt that it lacked some personality and had become slightly confused. As a Landscape Architecture practice the brand needed to work across a range of applications, we developed solutions to provide the Influence team with reports and social media templates they could develop themselves, to signage, interior branding and all other customer touchpoints. 

We created social media concepts designed to provide Influence with inspiration and guidance to ensure that their brand is consistently applied on various social channels. With yellow as the common denominator as well as the brand font and additional graphic devices, the solutions need to be flexible and inspiring without becoming samey and boring.

Of course a brand is more than just a logo and some colours, we explored solutions to apply the brand on and within their offices. From soft furnishings, furniture and large scale wallpaper graphics to bespoke finishes, the concepts below show the range of ideas we developed.

The final part of our brand work for Influence saw us produce and install branded solutions to the exterior of the building – yellow strips around the garage doors, a logo to the front door and a large logo in the upstairs office, visible from the opposite bank of the river Trent.

We’re incredibly proud of the work we’ve developed for Influence and look forward to seeing the brand develop further across other channels. If you’d like to discuss your own brand refresh please get in touch we’d love to hear from you!