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Climb Credit Union
Climb Credit Union Brand Strategy
Before embarking on a re-branding journey that involved a major name change, it was important to envision the next decade of this 70-year-old not-for-profit financial co-operative. Through our Resonaid strategy workshop, we jointly developed a new positioning, refined mission, and powerful new core values, all with the newly derived motto of ‘we exist to financially empower your life’s journey’ in mind.
Climb Credit Union Naming
Sooper Credit Union, serving 40,000 members across Colorado, felt that its name was holding back its growth and failing to resonate with the next generation of potential members. The new name, “climb,” reflects Sooper’s goal for its members to achieve financial growth. The credit union aims to support its members every step of the way, and the new name also gives it a more modern and competitive edge, resembling a fintech rather than a traditional credit union.
Climb Credit Union Identity
The bold Climb logotype represents the brand’s core values of empowering individuals financially throughout their life journeys. Using a lowercase font creates a welcoming and approachable feel, reflecting the friendly nature of the brand. The custom wordmark also conveys a modern and tech-forward impression, catering to the next generation of members. Each letter has been designed with rounded edges to evoke warmth, and the letter ‘m’ subtly nods to the brand’s Colorado heritage and locations. To further emphasize the brand’s identity, the iconic ‘m’ was extracted from the typeface to serve as an icon. Placed within a bold yellow circle, it symbolizes the rising sun, capturing the spirit of ascent and growth as its members climb toward their goals.
“Terrific to work with. FINIEN has a wonderful process of taking a team through the branding journey!”
— Cherise Lemoine Meany
VP of Marketing
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Coviance
Coviance Brand Strategy
Lenderclose was a fast-growing fintech company helping credit unions and community banks accelerate digital transformation and automate residential real estate lending processes when they approached us. As they were readying a pivot into SaaS, they needed to pressure test their competitive advantage and derive a new brand strategy to carry them through a re-brand. A core focus became the idea of time; time the company spends with their clients, and time they save for them as well as for the end customers. Derived during a remote Resonaid brand clarity workshop, ‘Magnify what matters’ turned into the core philosophy and platform for the subsequent re-branding effort.
Coviance Naming
The name Lenderclose was a barrier to the upcoming pivot of the brand, so we used the newly derived brand strategy as a platform to derive a new, future-proof, brand name. Coviance was born out of the core ideas of collaboration (Co: together), a direction (via: path), and growth (performance: the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function). A name that can tell its story in many ways but was derived using the pillars of a brand that was now set up for infinite growth.
Coviance Identity
The custom Coviance logotype takes advantage of its round forms, giving a friendly and streamlined appearance that accentuates the brand’s collaborative personality. Using black as the main color adds a premium feel while playing on the rebellious side of the brand. One can also see a keyhole in the letter ‘c,’ which talks to Coviance unlocking amazing experiences and leans on the core value of empowering others. A simple logo with deep meaning and legs that play out in stark iconography throughout the creative language.
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depsys
depsys Brand Strategy
depsys is a leading Swiss technology company that provides evolutive solutions enabling traditional electricity networks to cope with the new constraints of decentralized production from renewable energy sources. FINIEN was brought in to align the brand strategy and identity with the next chapter of the company’s story. Fabian Geyrhalter conducted the Resonaid brand strategy workshop on-site in Switzerland that served as the conduit for the re-brand. Next to defining the brand’s DNA and pillars, incredibly powerful values have been derived that represent the core ethos while providing day-to-day guidance for the brand.
depsys Identity
The new depsys brand identity design is based on three circles, which represent the three phases of an electrical grid. Similarities in color, shape, and negative space within the logo capture the transition from the former depsys identity to the new logo, disabling customer confusion while signaling massive change at the same time. A line connecting the center to the outer circle forms the letter ‘d’ while a visual continuous loop feels electric, the upward motion supportive and positive. The color orange is bold and energetic and often represents encouragement and stimulation while the lowercase font showcases the brand’s uncovered personality of ‘friend.’ Last but not least, the icon works in unison with the company’s key offering, GridEye, hence creating a brand family.
Appreciative of the very structured process and the resulting brand consistency.
– Marc Schreiber
Head of Marketing
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WorldRemit
WorldRemit Brand Strategy
When London-based WorldRemit approached us, we were faced with a weak brand story and a non-distinct visual language in an increasingly competitive market.
We started this fast-paced brand transformation project with our Resonaid workshop which we conducted with the C-Suite. A strong founding story was identified and we readied the team to lean into the emotional triggers of fairness and connection between people rather than the product- and feature-focused storytelling from the past: WorldRemit exists to connect people and their money across borders through delightful experiences because we believe fair financial exchanges create opportunities and strengthen human bonds.
WorldRemit Brand Identity
Next, we refreshed the iconic logo to be friendlier, younger, and more versatile in applications while rethinking the story behind the mark: The WorldRemit icon consists of an octagon which represents a world connected through technology, while the intertwined W highlights the relationship between the sender and receiver and WorldRemit and its customers.
A full brand refresh that encompassed social media strategy and digital property re-designs followed.
We tested the new visual brand and proposition and are overwhelmed by the positive response. Visual favorability increased by 60%, recall of brand story by 30%.
– Uwe Hook
CMO
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ANCHORY
ANCHORY Brand Strategy
Texas-based Peak Vantage Wealth approached us for a re-branding, looking at the financial consultancy with a fresh set of eyes with the goal of creating a brand that will differentiate in a crowded field. Through an in-person Resonaid Brand Strategy session held in Austin, a new path towards a niche audience was derived. Given a selection of current customers and the founder’s athletic background, affluent and active lifestyle US-based families were singled out, with much room to grow into professional sports.
ANCHORY Naming
ANCHORY is a trust-invoking name that communicates the brand’s mission well. The word anchor describes a person that can be relied on for support, stability, or security. Since ANCHORY leads with knowledge and guidance we leaned on the word advisory. The name ANCHORY, which was a readily available .com name, quickly became a brand name embodying what the consultancy provides: specialized financial guidance you can depend on.
ANCHORY Identity
The brand identity design for ANCHORY is simple yet powerful. A custom italic typeface was created to showcase forward movement and speed: a nod to the acceleration of your finances, the athletic nature of its clients, and the consultancy’s future-forward mindset. The letterforms A & Y are the exact same shape, flipped to tell the story of 360° financial advice from beginning to end. A deep navy blue was chosen for its symbolism of importance, confidence, power, and authority, as well as intelligence, stability and unity.
When the final brand strategy was presented to us, we could not believe how incredible the final product looked.
– Niels Buksik
CEO & Founder
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DUSKON
DUSKON Brand Strategy
A team of industry veterans approached us to launch an integrated LED outdoor fixture company. Brand was important from the get-go and through the Resonaid intensive we identified the need to own ‘outdoor’ in the B2B lighting space while crafting a very approachable and stand-out B2C brand positioning that has ‘striving for efficiency’ at its heart. We walked a fine line between standing out on the shelves and fitting in amongst the shelves of the few chains DUSKON needed to win over to gain the traction necessary to become a big player in the industry. With a solid brand foundation and culture road map in tow, we moved on to craft the overarching brand identity for the startup.
DUSKON Naming
We were tasked with creating a name that had to be snappy, easy to say, spell and recall, yet, given the hardware space, it also needed to have a robust, industrial feel to it. Being an outdoor-only brand, we set out to showcase the timeframe in which their products shine: from ‘dusk on’ – and so the brand name was born. Sounding industrial at first, once the meaning is revealed in the minds of the consumer, it turns into an approachable brand in an instant; exactly what the client envisioned based on the brand strategy.
DUSKON Identity
The DUSKON identity was created with smart simplicity at its core. A strong industrial typeface represents the reliability and durability of the lighting products. A deep purple was chosen over black to show the brand’s personality of friend (and mother). The yellow arch within the typeface represents the setting sun to showcase the time within which the products are best used – from dusk on – while also celebrating the name. The visual treatment further strengthens the brand’s core reason for being, and its tagline: to brighten your night.
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Reveleer
Reveleer Brand Strategy
Health Data Vision (HDV) is an Inc 5000 company that provides software to manage quality improvement, risk adjustment, and compliance initiatives for the healthcare industry. When HDV approached us, they knew a full re-brand was necessary to signify the big change from a service-based firm to a technology provider. Through the in-person brand strategy workshop the new brand’s why, how and what was being clearly defined in a single day. The product description gained clarity as ‘a hyper-connected platform,’ while the mission ‘to provide transparency, choice, and control within government-sponsored healthcare’ created a bigger purpose that is rooted in the newly derived brand DNA of ‘community.’ The reason of existence, or ‘the why’ of this Glendale-based brand, was summarized in one powerful statement: ‘To accelerate insight-based healthcare.’ The resulting brand summary empowered internal and external communications as Team Health Data Vision was getting ready for the brand re-launch, while it formed the strategic foundation for the next step in our brand work: Deriving a new name for the fast-growing brand.
Reveleer Naming
Health Data Vision needed a name that signified their move away from service-based into a full-fledged technology company. A short name was sought, one that had the .com domain and trademark rights fully available. A name that communicates the brand’s mission while providing the starting off point to a greater brand story. Reveleer was derived from the word ‘revelation’ (the surprising and previously unknown fact), which speaks to the platform’s mission to accelerate insight-based healthcare: To reveal insights and to revel in steering the government-sponsored healthcare industry towards transparency, choice, and control. An easy to recall, easy to spell and easy to pronounce name that hit home for all team members, and today seems like it’s been there forever.
Reveleer Identity
Having derived the name Reveleer, which talks to the brand’s offering, we now sought to focus on the Brand DNA of ‘community.’ The identity was inspired by the sociable weaverbirds who fully embody the idea of community: The birds are protectors, creators and natural architects who build the world’s largest compound community nests. This became a metaphor for the Reveleer platform and its communal drive. The three birds represent the brand’s three core values: 1) think customer first, 2) make every moment matter and 3) foster community, while also signifying the connectivity (and, again, community) aspect of Reveleer. A lowercase font was chosen to represent the friendly personality of the brand, however, still coming off as a strong leader with the bold-colored icon choice. An italic typeface and forwards moving icon were designed to mimic the notion of acceleration behind Reveleer.
I found it impressive that such great work could be done in the timeframe that we conducted it.
– Jay Ackerman
CEO
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KAPLAN INTERNATIONAL
Kite Brand Strategy
A global leader in English language education for almost 80 years, Kaplan International was founded on best practices for English language programs. Kaplan International reached out for outside brand strategy assistance for its first B2B product: a revolutionary, cloud-based, adaptive English language assessment system that delivers instant proficiency evaluations with best-in-class accuracy, efficiency, and accessibility. Through our proprietary brand strategy workshop, which was held in a single day in Santa Barbara, we created product focus and language clarity which enabled the KITE team to swiftly move towards launch. After the brand strategy was defined, FINIEN created a meaningful name, lasting brand identity design and brand language for various channels.
Kite Naming and Tagline
The FINIEN team derived the name KITE to signify the enabling element of learning a new language, which allows students’ careers to take flight and to aim higher in life. ‘Aim Higher’ quickly turned into the tagline and key talking point. The name KITE, which is universally easy to spell and pronounce, is further an acronym of ‘Kaplan International Tools for English,’ relating the sub-brand back to the renowned institution and enabling the startup spin-off to communicate easier within a B2B environment.
Kite Identity
The iconic brand identity design for KITE implies the shape of a flying kite and its enabling nature, while also hinting at disrupting the traditional learning method of the printed page. The logo is breaking out of the box, which is a brand story true to the mission of the brand itself, but also relatable to the student who will use her new language skills to break out of her current life situation. An icon simplistic enough to work in an app environment, yet distinct enough to become…iconic. The dark blue color and the iconic letter ‘K’ are part of the Kaplan International brand, adding to the brand parent/child relationship signified through this playful identity design.
Working with FINIEN was a wonderful experience. I loved the approach they took to helping us define our brand identity and pick our name and logo. We have been operating with our name and brand for a while now and it’s become even clearer to me that we made the right choice. Not only has the name and identity helped us position the product, but I feel like it’s really become a part of who we are and is a really integral part of our team culture.
– Danielle Chircop
Product Director at Kaplan International English
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Vimmia
Vimmia Brand Strategy
Fashion house Bordeaux approached us for the market introduction of a chic women’s activewear line that would bridge and combine great fashion details and styling with high-tech performance. Plans to develop strategic partnerships with high-end fitness venues and luxury resorts & spas were part of the positioning foundation. This meant FINIEN’s brand strategy needed to intrinsically appeal to both its female consumers and potential sales partners while differentiating from a rapidly growing industry. Inclusion was top of our findings; the creation of a brand that is highly targeted, yet fits into the activities from wake to sleep. That might involve yoga, but this brand was not to force a lifestyle upon its tribe. The brand stands for kicking serious butt nonetheless, but in the sport called life (amongst the other fitness activities she is doing). A badass brand that is motherly and kind. A big undertaking that was derived in our strategy phase and turned into a reality through the subsequent phases.
Vimmia Naming
Vimmia combines the latin-derived word ‘vim’ (“life force”) with ‘mia’ (spanish for ‘mine’) to empower the active women with a name that is easy to say, remember and automatically comes with the vim and vigor this activewear brand and its tribe stand for. We also set out to name the activewear line’s proprietary high-tech luxe fabric, which we coined Movvu, implying the obvious ideas of movement and ‘you.’
Vimmia Identity
Vimmia’s identity design was crafted for flexible use (excuse the pun) and immediate recognition. A strong orange-infused red circle brings vibrancy to the mark of this activewear line, while also working well in reflectors on the garments. A horizontal logotype treatment adds to the brand’s versatility and embodies the same symmetric concept as the mark and the design of the actual clothing line. Walking the fine line of appealing to the younger target while being still approachable and aspirational to the older target demographic, the Vimmia brand identity hit the mark right off the bat.
Vimmia X Identity
Two years after the birth of the Vimmia brand, we got involved in the creation of the next-level Vimmia garment line. As a brand advisor, Principal of FINIEN, Fabian Geyrhalter, worked with the team at Bordeaux to derive the name VIMMIA X and to assist the team in the creative supervision of the VIMMIA X brand identity design. The VIMMIA X logo adds an element of additional achievement, of outside-the-box quality, and allures to superior health and technological benefits, while fitting within the greater Vimmia brand atmosphere. Through its simplicity it enables VIMMIA X to make a powerful statement (on the garment itself and beyond) that does not pigeonhole the brand extension as it may grow into other superior aspects of fabric and garment design, something that is key to any new product (or startup) introduction.
Every asset FINIEN created was intrinsic to culminating the brand experience we sought to emotionally resonate with women looking for a line of clothing to complement their active, healthy, and stylish lifestyles.
– Kim Harlan
Sales + Marketing Manager
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Jukin Media
Jukin Brand Strategy
We were engaged by Jukin Media for a fast-paced rebranding initiative of a startup in high-growth mode. We started by dissecting a multi-layered business model in order to identify the unique solutions that the brand represented to each of its three key audiences: video creators, brands/media partners, and the viewing public. Brand personalities were developed and emotional connections with their tribes were uncovered as we set out on the branding of multiple sub-brands as well as the umbrella brand identity.
Jukin Identity
The Jukin brand identity design tells the story of the relationship between Jukin Media and its content creators; a select few are being brought into the spotlight, and those lucky ones see tremendous and immediate growth. Telling this story in a unique and powerful visual manner, we brought the immediacy of viral growth up front and center with a logo that leaves a lasting impression.
Jukin Video Identity
After the successful re-branding initiative, FINIEN was brought on to create brand identity designs for Jukin’s portfolio of sub-brands, or channels. Jukin Video is the leading viral video community channel dedicated to showcasing the hottest UGC videos from across the web. Keeping the audience in mind while continuing the strong visual language, we derived an identity that is as playful as it is recognizable. Scalability was key to the successful re-design, given that the logo would live mainly in the tiniest of icon-formats within the social media landscape – while it still had to remain impactful large-scale. With the camera symbol serving as a scalable icon, the typography was treated with a bit of roughness around its edges to support impact large-scale while identifying with the homemade quality of the content Jukin Video provides.
Poke my heart Identity
Another sub-brand within Jukin’s array of YouTube properties, Poke My Heart is a channel displaying a range of heartfelt video content, from marriage proposals to kids seeing rain for the first time. Poke My Heart is clearly a destination that makes grown men cry, while women formed the majority of viewers. The in-your-face concept ‘makes everyone’s hearts smile,’ while the identity design was directed to fall into the brand family and adhere to the scalability and vitality of its uses.
People Are Awesome Identity
People Are Awesome is the flagship brand of Jukin. The engagement numbers are staggering. With 4,769,798,500 total views and 36,733,964 subscribers/likes as of July 2018, the re-design had to be carefully orchestrated to ensure brand recognition, take advantage of the brand icon’s legacy while pushing the logo and visual language into its next chapter. FINIEN cleaned up the logo, created visual clarity and focused on readability and impact for true awesomeness.
Delivered beyond my expectations!
– Jonathan Skogmo
Chief Executive Officer
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The Post Host
Fabian Geyrhalter is the Principal of FINIEN, creating clarity for brand transformations.
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