Branding for a solar system of companies.

Evolving Identity - Our brand was growing but our old logo was not. We used this opportunity to evolve our identity.

My Responsibilities on this year-long project

I was the manager of the project. My responsibilities included:

Searching for and finding the Branding Consultant
Gathering historical information for the consultant and their team
Keeping the project on track and providing direction when roadblocks arose.
Consulting on creative direction and the first level of approval before including our Executive stakeholders
Planning, scheduling, and holding a 10 person workshop where leadership from the organization could talk about Vision, Mission, and Values together
Hold regular check-in with the consult for every milestone
Deliver the final product to the CEO.

Prep Work: Hiring

It was my responsibility in beginning this year-long project to research, meet with and hire a branding consulting agency. Here are a few of the 10 agencies that I researched, met with and worked with them to develop a recommendation for further meetings with executive stakeholders.

Meet with each agency, going over our unique branding situation
Gathering information on how each agency would solve our branding situation
Preparing both parties of further meetings and gathering information for both parties to help agencies present

Some of the work I did at this phase of the project:

Phase One: Brand Strategy

Taking into account employee interviews, and historical context - we held a brand workshop

Some of the work I did at this phase of the project:

Defining the Scope of Work for ColorJar

Gathering and Preparing historical material for their team to use in the discovery phase of the project
Point of content and project manager for the entire project
Resource for Historical context about company, products, process, culture, team, etc
Planned and set up interviews for Brand Strategy with employees
Planned and managed the Brand Workshop

It was my responsibility to introduce the Branding team to our industry, services, use cases, customer feedback, and company evolution, as well as recommend and set up interviews with a variety of employees, from the most senior to the most recent hire so they could form a comprehensive view of our company, it’s culture and our needs.

I worked hand-in-hand with the brand team to:

gather historical material
introduce them to the legal industry, our services, etc.
recommend and set up employee interviews
hold weekly calls with the team to clear roadblocks and keep the project moving forward
give creative and content recommendations to the team prior to presentations with the executive stakeholders to ensure the presentation was clear, defined, and complete.

Gathering Information

By asking various peers about the perception of our company and its culture, the brand team gained a clearer idea of areas that need more attention while working on the mission, vision, and purpose statements.

I worked hand-in-hand with the brand team to:

set up calls and meetings (Project Management) to ensure that the project stayed on track and continued to make progress.
help peers accountable for prep work
reviewed the data gathered after the call
assisted the brand team with any roadblocks

Interviews from Stakeholders

Collaborative work may not sound like something a law firm would do, but our company is different. We used a two-day workshop to gather peers from all departments (development, HR, marketing, legal, finance, and branding) to work on projects together. We can to a deeper understanding of our culture, which the brand team used within the new brand deliverables.

Some of the work I did at this phase of the project:

Secured the travel, meeting room, lunch, and materials needed for the meeting
Filmed the workshop to be used for our year-end event
Met with the Colorjar brand team in person to make progress on the timeline.

Workshop Work

Naming the new brand allowed for the ideas, products, and services envisioned by our CEO to have a home rather than limiting the scope of the company to a law firm we moved to a solar system approach and the new brand at the center. Each department would become planets and could pursue their own clients, work together, and have their own brands respectively.

Some of the work I did at this phase of the project:

I was the first set of eyes for all demos. I reviewed presentations, demos and materials to ensure they met the scope of work and were ready for stakeholder consideration. I helped refine the rubric that we used to determine the brand’s name.

Naming the New Brand

Working with the brand strategy firm, I reviewed the designs and gave feedback on the elements.

Work I did at this phase of the project:

I was the first set of eyes for all demos. I reviewed presentations, demos and materials to ensure they met the scope of work and were ready for stakeholder consideration. I helped refine the rubric that we used to determine the brand’s name.

Designing the Logo

We choose the first design, but did not like the color pallette.

Version One

I worked with an internal team to help develop more color options

Revisions

We submitted the color options to the firm and they re-worked the design.

Version Two

Part Two: Brand Reveal

Video

Empowering our crew to spot our values.

Creating and using Values emojis when we see someone using a core value

1

2

Making values tags required for giving recognition.

Higlighting top giver and receivers of culture points each month

3

Showing Value tag use each month

4

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Part Three: Final Products

Stellium Brand Book

Stellium Presentation Template

Crew Only Swag

A large goal of the Branding was to help our employees feel that they were part of a tribe, a community of like-minded people all working for a greater good, so I created merch crew only personalized merchandise. We chose these items based on feedback from the teams on what they would use and like.

Internal Meetings Templates

I took the initiative to make boring “update” meetings into something more fun. This process has continued monthly and we send out an email after every call to see how many are engaging with the information after the meeting. Because of these changes, attendance is up, participation is up and the meetings are more successful in delivering company wide information.