The New Brew
Rebranding for Statusbrew.
Honestly, a Brand refresh was not on the list, we just decided to change.
But to what? We did not know.
The Website looked okay. Talked about the product, not too crowded and was just doing fine with navigation. But something should be done.
We started redoing the illustrations to improve communication with the user and anticipated a quick solution to our problem, a mighty good-looking Website.
I made new characters that could talk about the product, even their faces looked like coffee mugs.
Yes, we were obsessed with the concept of Brew and of course coffee.


All day long, the discussions were around how could we bring out the brew in Statusbrew. The brand’s promise, the feelings, and emotions were borrowed from the coffee drinking institution. There were correlations to coffee bringing people together and enhancing productivity.
I also did a small marketing pitch around the same concept, and then we got down to changing the illustrations.
We were not happy with what we had in front of us. The colors did not speak to us. Everything suddenly started to feel like a mismatch.

It just made us realize how hard we were trying to change what might not need the attention now. There was a more significant concern, being overlooked.
The Branding problems were manifold.
First, there was a chunky Word-mark and then a butterfly, that had about 7 shades of the blue, reason we don’t know yet. You in no way could produce the logo in black and white. Grayscale, yes maybe. There were a lot of elements to absorb in the logo itself. If I asked someone to draw the logo, no one could do that, too complicated!
Surprisingly we all started talking about how we needed a new concept, and a fresh approach and of course only Tushar knew what he was going after.
Minimalism.
Yes, I have watched the movie, twice. (Peer pressure)
If this meant scratching off whatever we had done in the past, so be it.
The team went on with multiple discussions around what we really wanted to change. We wanted to transform the purpose of the organization and cement a new reputation.
And now we knew that if we had to bring out the change externally, we had to start from the inside. We re-positioned the company, coherent to our parental Japanese cultural values.
I must mention here (for the kicks), we studied ‘Blue Ocean’ strategy extensively to come up with a plan. Perhaps, being a designer myself, I initially enjoyed people talking about color (Blue ocean, Red ocean)
We reconstructed the previous logo, holding on to the original and yet looking afresh. The bold Title Case Statusbrew typeset was the first thing axed. And now, the geometry-inspired Butterfly was made affable. Eventually, one of the wings were let go off too, and we got a bean. It started resembling a boomerang and an inflated arrow. Our well-worn Lato typeface was played, while a new font set was added. We now had an adaptation that we thought looked cleaner.

The interesting part came about two weeks later when the discomfort started creeping in. We asked ourselves if what we recreated made sense and the value each element added to the visual. Time to let go of the Bean!
In place of the overpowering and monotonous blue, we embraced the basic black, grey and white.

The new look now has everything that is required to convey what we behold upon. There is ‘Status’ that defines our Social Industry, and then there is ‘Brew’ which is the team, the brew crew.
The construction of B here is now a deflated bean, made into a sharp arrow, arranged twice.
Yes, it is as simple as that.
Again, for kicks, the edges may seem crazy sharp with some geometry because the accidental strokes made way for fractals. Read the concept here.
So now every time you zoom into the cuts, you may see another shape making another B and so on.
The logo now certainly flows together, creating a fresh new mark for Statusbrew’s future.
When things change, you adapt.
The company today has also updated its website’s style, design, layout, and navigation. We are sticking to the first principles, letting go off everything that add doesn’t value to our craft and culture.
