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Werksmans Attorneys: Digital Brand & Digital Corporate Identity Refresh

Written by
Luke Marthinusen

Werksmans Rebrands! 

Last year MO Agency had the opportunity to help refresh the Werksmans Brand CI. With Sunshinegun being responsible for the main CI refresh, MO was responsible for updating the digital guidelines of the new Werksmans Brand CI. We spent a considerable amount of time combing through the document that Sunshinegun had presented us, getting a feel for the new look and feel, and planning out how we were going to apply to fresh new feel to the digital landscapes that Werksmans had been advertising on.

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Planning is everything!

After reviewing the core brand elements like the logo usage and placement, the newly chosen colours and the new fonts, we proceeded to start outlining all the newly required digital assets Werksmans was going to need. We brainstormed social media platforms, their specifications and requirements, listed out all the various display banner sizes that were required and mailers, videos etc.

MO Agency Brainstorm DiagramWerksmans Digital CI

We then created some rules for the font usage on digital elements, like heading font and size, body copy font and size. For social media banners, the font size and usage is important as on Facebook, boosted posts require strict font application to ensure that the banners are approved and run without issue. Sunshinegun had also introduced a grid system to help apply the brand elements i.e. logo, tagline, corporate slogan and graphic elements, to any design but because of the layout differences of digital vs print, we created a digital grid system to be used in the digital elements.

Werksmans Mock-up

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The newly created graphic elements were informed by the geometrical shape of the logo, and are used as both a pattern and layout. This gives the new CI a fresh, vibrant feel as well as gives structure to the designs.

Getting to work!

Once the digital rules were created, we needed to start designing the various digital elements to test out the viability of the rules. We have been using Sketch since 2017, first implemented at MO for website design, but we have come to find that Sketch is an amazing design platform for all forms of digital design. The ability have have such a huge canvas with multiple artboards of various forms and sizes really allows a designer to plan out and create various elements and brand assets in one document. This really helped save time when testing out the newly created digital guidelines on the multiple digital elements we had to create. On one screen we could view social banners, display banners, cover banners, e-cards and animated banners, and this helped us ensure a consistent flow across all platforms.

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Introducing the new brand essence with a video

After finalising the digital guidelines, and getting sign-off from Werksmans, we were then tasked with introducing the refreshed brand with a video animation. We started by creating initial storyboards of what the possible look and feel of the animation could be. Storyboarding is always an essential part of the animation process as it allows us to get a feel for the flow of the animation, and also the look and feel. It also gives us a chance to layout the script and plan out where we can capitalise on the important and highlighted areas of the script.

With the Werksmans Animation, the end result looked nothing like the initial storyboard designs, but the storyboard designs informed the eventual outcome and allowed us to streamline the process by removing elements that didn’t look good in the storyboard designs.

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Ultimately the final Brand Video was a lot more simplistic than the initial ideas portrayed in the storyboard designs, but without the storyboard design process, we might not of realised that simplistic was the better way to go. As animation is a time intensive process, storyboarding helps cut down on the conceptualisation process immensely. Here below is the final Werksmans Brand Video.

Werksmans Man walking

 

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