Pyramid Investments
Brand Development
Preface
During my time as the Senior Graphic Designer at Mobile Defenders, the marketing team was in talks with company ownership regarding the possibility of branching off into our own agency. We had seen other teams, such as the website development team and the Chromebook operations team do so already, so it wasn't a stretch for us to imagine doing the same. As part of the proposal, I was tasked with putting together several logo designs as a means of demonstrating what our team would be capable of.
Business Concept and Research
The ownership group of Mobile Defenders also held other companies in their portfolio. One thought we had was potentially devising branding for them as they entered the Venture Capital industry. The Pyramid was my personal tongue-in-cheek jab at the idea of such companies ultimately being structured as multilevel marketing schemes (otherwise known as pyramid schemes). In corporate vernacular, however, the mental image of building a business from the base upward was how I sold it to the rest of the team.
Logo and Logograph Design
The pyramid may be on the nose, but my personal contention is that obscure references or inside jokes in branding are missing the point. I think the average consumer should be able to look at and identify branding imagery right away. If not, that creates a barrier, which means that it takes that much longer to achieve brand recognition.
The vertical striped lines on the facing face of the pyramid were a sort of play on the idea of bar charts. Plus, it added some depth to what felt like an otherwise incomplete design. In the display font, the team debated adding the curvature to mirror the base of the pyramid logograph above. Ultimately, we decided the curvature was a nice element for creating the image association, should the logo ever be displayed without the logograph.
Brand Colors
The primary brand colors, which are being used in the logo, are all high-contrast and easily recognized for being associated with sophistication. The two golds, while being reflective of Egyptian pyramid coloration also symbolize the color of wealth. For the darker color, we wanted to avoid using pure black, so we chose an approximation of black. Finally, the white was chosen simply as a means of rounding out the logo.
Sun-Scorched Yellow
#f9a035
R249 G160 B53
C0 M43 Y88 K0
Desert Sun Yellow
#fdb83e
R253 G184 B62
C0 M31 Y87 K0
Iron Sand
#302d2e
R48 G45 B46
C0 M0 Y0 K96
White
#ffffff
R0 G0 B0
C0 M0 Y0 K0
Brand Collateral
With an investment company, the potential for brand collateral was a little less clear to us. The standard office supplies of letterhead, business card, and pen were definitely a must; however, without some sort of physical product or service equipment in mind, we chose to mock the logo into various office settings to show the investment team what was possible depending on the space.
Click on the gallery to see it in full screen.
Conclusions
While the project itself was interesting, this particular project was a bit difficult in terms of creating convincing branding collateral. It's so much easier when a company has actual services or products to offer. Something more abstract, such as financial investment services, doesn't offer many exciting photo editing opportunities. That said, the office spaces still look rather convincing.
Conclusions
While the project itself was interesting, this particular project was a bit difficult in terms of creating convincing branding collateral. It's so much easier when a company has actual services or products to offer. Something more abstract, such as financial investment services, doesn't offer many exciting photo editing opportunities. That said, the office spaces still look rather convincing.
Interested in Working Together?
If you felt like this project resonated with you or you found it interesting and would like to work on something similar together, I'd love to chat about it. You can reach out to me via the info on my contact page, or feel free to continue checking out more of my work!