RS&H Brand & Culture Program
RS&H is an architecture and engineering firm that's been in existence for over 80 years with over 1500 employees.
The problem with their brand was that they had an extensive visual identity, but no strong brand framework or verbal identity. Additionally, brand was something abstract and hard to use for the majority of it's employees. So, what began as a simple exercise in brand architecture became a full on brand refresh along with a culture program to get the message to 'stick'.
My team was responsible for defining the brand framework through extensive research, interviews and workshops, and creating the visual and verbal identities that bring it to life. I managed external agency partners as well as an internal creative team along the process.
Through extensive excavation, we discovered that the essence of our brand is 'care.' Also, other elements like being the firm of choice because we provide a better, more connected client experience, and we find innovation in the details. These are big differentiators in our space. These ideas worked their way from the strategy into the message and visual systems that bring them to life.
Additionally, an effort to introduce brand through culture became a wildly popular series of internal culture workshops. The data and stories curated in these workshops worked their way into a culture book that will be used for recruiting, client awareness and brand and culture alignment so that how we behave internally permeates externally in a way that's always impactful and on brand.
This program resulted in a strong, comprehensive brand framework, refreshed visual identity, and culture program that not only created a cohesive look and message, but also an easy way for employees to put brand in use in a consistent, impactful way.
Below are elements of the visual identity spanning from a repositioned logo, differentiating, bold color palette and various application examples that use the fresh new look, including a brand story video that combines all elements of the new brand framework into a narrative.
The upward and outward movement of the logo gives a sense of a directional motion or movement of energy
A visual way to give the same sense - is through of a ray of sun, particularly one that comes from the first light of a sunrise.
While a ray of sun visually represents our logo, the entire sunrise represents our brand framework.
For example, with each new day, the sun’s rays bring us….
a sense of seizing the day – working hard towards a greater purpose each day, also an exceptional journey from start to future (the sun travels along with us throughout our day, lighting the way, providing guidance, safety, care, opportunity). And a connected future, the sun’s rays touch us all, and through the light those provide, we’re able to create that future together
The color palette is based on the colors in the sunrise, and each reflects a personality tone in the brand framework.
Grit - earth, morning dew, early bird gets the worm, meeting our clients where they are
Boundless spirit - innovative ideas, creativity, possibility brought on by a new day
Approachably smart - bright, warm, optimistic
Genuine candor - trust, loyalty, tell it like it is
Graphic elements include sun rays as well as illustrations that personify the brand pillars of purpose-driven innovators, sustainable stewards and strategic connectors. These pillars act as a tool to bring the purpose and positioning to life by telling stories through these three differentiating qualities.
The sun rays which directly replicate the shape in our logo and represent the sunrise
They underpin the ideas of connection, and looking ahead to the future, Also these give a sense of how we’re ‘in it together’ and able to support our clients through out the life of the project, as we provide that exceptional journey from start to future.
Visually, they add distinctive RS&H colors and a sense of energy while also able to support all types of content, imagery and messaging.
Eidetic Neo OT, used as a graphic element reinforces new brand message, highlighting key sentiments and big picture words. As you’ll see in the examples, this typeface is treated as a graphic element, and could act as a replacement for an image, not to be used as smaller text or body copy.
A full range of swag items and toolkits were created along with a pop up shop experience to create excitement and engagement with the new brand. Other experiences we developed included teasers, a brand launch party, trainings and culture workshops all in an effort to get everyone living and breathing this new brand.
These are examples of behaviors spelled out in the new culture book. The behaviors help provide guardrails for the core values and give employees a sense of how each value is lived in day to day work. These behaviors were curated through a series of workshops over a three month period. The final version of the culture book is still in production.