Staying relevant
How brands stay consistent without being static
Nothing ever stays the same and everything, from nature to technology and design, evolves all the time. And so can a brand. Making small changes to a logo whilst preserving the overall brand essence can help adapt the logo to current trends and keep it relevant.
Last year, createwerx helped the Hertford Rugby Football Club adapt the logo to their current needs, in an effort to create a more simplistic version of the logo whilst maintaining all the brand values.
Before
The original logo was a circle, carrying a logo mark showing a stag jumping over goal posts, a ribbon with the clubs’ initials and a circular text.
The colour palette featured wasp yellow and a medium blue. A circular gradient was used to fade in the blue colour from the centre across the circle.
All elements were using some form of drop shadow and / or glow, highlighting the elements.
This logo has served the club for many years, but the team was ready to make some changes:
The team wanted to apply a more modern look to the logo by removing drop shadows, gradients and changing the typeface to a sans serif, more simplistic typeface.
The current logo was also creating challenges in production for clothing, where logos get stitched to garments. The drop shadows, gradients and serif typeface could not be transferred to cloths and production costs were high.
Lastly, the team wanted to make a change to the colour scheme. The goal was to move from a wasp yellow to a more golden colour and transition the blue to a darker colour.
After
The new logo retained all the important features to keep the brand consistent. It was still a circle, with a logo mark showing the stag jumping over the goal posts and there was also the circular text.
To simplify the logo, all gradients, drop shadows and glows were removed and the typeface was changed to a sans serif typeface. The ribbon with the clubs’ initials was also removed as this information felt redundant since it was spelled out in the circular text.
The colour palette was changed to a gold colour and a deep ocean dark blue.
By simplifying the logo and adjusting the colour palette, it gained a more modern touch, and it also became easier to produce the full logo or the logo mark only on clothing and other brand assets.
The logo was re-created in 3 forms to offer more versatility for its usage: Complete logo, logo mark and text without background and the stand-alone logo mark.
Whilst brands need to be consistent, they don’t need to be static, and the Hertford RFC logo is a great example for a logo adapting to new requirements whilst preserving the brand essence.