Process Book for:
ClearSource
Discovery
The first step of any project/relationship.
Key Takeaways
Western New York Energy was separating it's ethanol manufacturing business from it's parent brand. Their company values remained similar however, there was a huge emphasis on sustainability, the local farmers, and the ethanol making process. They needed a name and brand identity that spoke to these three things.
Naming
Creating names for companies has always been a less quantifiable process, however I started integrating mind mapping into our process. Our mind maps would start with key words/ideas from our brand sprint and would expand by flipping through countless thesaurus pages to exhaust synonyms, and related words. Client's appreciate seeing this train of thought behind this part of our process. These mind maps would frequently lead to guided conversations, not just with this client, but other clients that would help us arrive at a final name.
Moodboards
Establishing our north star for look and feel.
In a perfect world, we would have a selected name to move into the next steps of our project. However names paired with look/feel starts making them feel much more tangible. For this client, I believe that a name couldn't have been mutually decided upon any other way. All of our moodboards incorporated elements of sustainability, locality, and process but explored many different interpretations of this.
Logo Concepting
The most funnest part of the whole thingy.
Even though there was love for the logo created to sell through our name "Source" we still conducted a proper logo exploration...they chose the one there was some love for, but we did our due diligence.
Fine Tuning the Logo
It started off as something and ended up being something else...typical.
The logo started off as reference to a compass, by the end of the project this mark had a few layers of symbolism without being overly complicated. We were able to add the leaf of a plant as a nod to sustainability, and the feeling of a horizon line as a homage to the farmers that make the product possible.
Finalizing the name and the branding
We're almost done and we still didn't have a final name.
Prior to roll out, we were uncertain what the final name was even going to be. "Source" was the name they wanted, but for legal and SEO purposes, lawyers and SEO specialists alike were advising a more unique name. "ClearSource" was the name we finally decided on (with lawyers, and SEO specialists alike). So our last step, was to make their new, longer, 2x character count name work with the logo we had created. When we thought the name was "source" there was flexibility for an all-caps treatment. The client enjoyed this all-caps treatment, and was sad to see it go, but realized the utility behind going to mixed-case and not disguising the logo of a dozen letters.
Final Outcome
“It's the not the destination, It's the journey.” ™
-Cris Moore
Actual quote by Ralph Emerson
The final outcome was a logo that had a nice amount of meaning without being overwhelming. I am a believer, that logos do not need a high amount of meaning to be good logos, but for this brand it worked particularly well.
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