Rebranding our love story: The visual conceptualization behind the brand
It all started when we defined our brand vision: a world connected by healthier, happier relationships. Suddenly, our logomark was no longer relatable — a circle interrupted by a bright green cut, representing our bracelet’s more relevant feature. It lacked that vital emotional connection that we wanted to achieve visually.
The new logotype and logomark should be able to tell a story, be memorable, and distinctly recognizable across all our touch points with our customers, users and audience.
So that’s what we set out to do.
A quick recap on branding workshops
In March 2020, one week after the full lockdown due to the COVID-19 was announced, we had to adapt the 11 in-person workshops that we had prepared to a fully remote format. That was a challenge and an unexpected one at that.
I won’t go on for too long about these workshops to focus on the design rebranding process.
However, these workshops allowed us to get the whole team on board with a unified perception of the brand and how it relates to the product.
Could the brand be independent and inspirational without losing sight of the product’s ambition?
Both are so important and relevant, nowadays. We live in a reactive, instantaneous world, where the brand can engage quickly and can participate in. But we also have the opportunity to add value to people’s lives and make a difference through physical and digital interaction.
At the end of the workshops, the team was able to define not only the brand’s vision and mission, but also the brand’s core attributes.
Finding the visual path and concept
We started by building the brand’s universe by writing down a Mission, Vision, and Values. But the visual path still needed definition. And to start working on the visual concept, we extracted key attributes (visual, voice, and behavior) from those same workshops.
As in any exploratory research, we start by opening up. Since the Bond Touch bracelets mimic touch, we started by testing if it would be possible to translate physical touch into a visual vocabulary, or a range of stylistic forms.
We know that physical touch implies closeness and human contact. It’s warm and promotes a set of gestures such as holding, hugging, and comforting. On the other hand, distance and being out of reach is cold.
But, love and communication, even intimacy, are still possible — no matter how far the distance is. When two people are far away from each other, their gestures may be limited — but they can still be very expressive and charged with meaning.
We elaborated a mind map of words related to touch, distance, and connection. From these words, we selected the ones we could translate visually into design elements, such as color, texture, shapes, and lines. But these weren’t enough to create a meaningful vocabulary: it was getting too abstract and too complex.
So we simplified. We extract the physical element and focused on distance and love, which are the attributes that keep our audience bonded to us. This way, we were able to create a storyline and a creative concept that is at the root of our brand imaginary universe: every relationship tells a story where two universes collide.
The initial approach: Every touch leaves a mark
As a diverse and inclusive brand, real connections matter to us. We know when we’re far from the people we love, we feel the need to get in touch and even a small gesture can have a huge meaning. And when we’re close to our loved ones we want to touch them, to hold on to that physical connection. This makes every gesture is unique, and no two handshakes, hugs, or kisses are the same. But they all bring us closer together.
We started by exploring what makes each ‘touch’ special, aspiring to create a visual language.
Bond Touch lets users emotionally ‘touch’ one another across any distance. And we know, every touch leaves a mark (inspiring our fingerprint shapes) with different degrees of expression and warmth, so we developed a gradient color ranging from warmer shades to colder hues.
Through this expressive world of organic shapes, colors and textures, we found a way to tell the story of two shapes, with different natures, meeting and finding a comfortable fit: their cozy ever after.
We still felt that the brand imagery was too complex to be memorable, and distinctly recognizable. So we simplified the storyline, by extracting the core concept. We realized that the combination of the two universes (or shapes) combined could generate something unique and genuine.
And isn’t that uniqueness and authenticity the characteristics we all look for in a relationship?
Final approach: contrasts that complement each other
It’s a universal belief that the opposites attract each other. And we suppose this happens because it helps people find some degree of excitement in the relationship and allows them to feel a sense of complementarity.
As a brand, we loved this duality. Where different worlds find each other and co-exist as a whole.
Isn’t that what a relationship is? A union of two people in mutual acceptance fighting diversity together. We acknowledge there are numerous kinds of relationships, but this is still true for every one of them.
Step by step the brand imagery began to get stronger and more recognizable. We started with the color palette — six complimentary colors, which represent our core conviction, but also, one of our most substantial values: diversity.
Most of our visual communication is sustained by our logomark’s dual shape and from the conceptualization of the circle and square shapes, which I’ll explore further.
Evolution, not revolution
We were aiming at a brand evolution, not a full revolution. For us, it was important not to be totally disruptive with our audience — mostly Zillenials. We wanted them to experience it as a result of a natural and mature transition.
In the beginning, we had some constraints. For example, our master brand logotype could never be applied on its own, it should always be used in combination with a specific product name. Also, the logomark should detach itself from the bracelets’ resemblances, and get closer to the brand’s values and visual concept.
Evolution of the master brand
Regarding the master brand logotype, we aspire to a modern look. In that sense, we embraced the roundness of the letterforms and kept the geometric construction.
We started by exploring different line weights and choosing the heavier option to create more presence and impact at small scales and ensure screen readability. This allowed us to define the underlying grid and to rationalize the letter spacing.
The original short ascenders result in a compact logotype, which is versatile and adds a friendly feel, but they also needed to follow the proportion of the rest of the letterforms to ensure legibility. So to achieve a balanced typographic composition, we adjusted the straight and curved forms by optically arranging the letter “n”.
The geometric construction of the letterforms highlights the symmetrical structure of the typographical composition, enabling us to find the connection point of this ‘relationship’, where two syllables are connected, bridging the distance and creating the word “bond”. That way, our master brand reflects two worlds, which symmetrically complement each other, creating their inner world, or relationship.
Could we make this more visible in the logotype? And could it be done, without compromising the balanced typographical composition?
To do this, we limited this inner world with an invisible square shape that cut the “b” and the “d” in half. By doing so, the square space becomes suggested, but not visible. And like any relationship, it is defined and unlimited at the same time.
Logomark conceptualization
Throughout the process, we also took into consideration the feedback we received from brand validation initiatives. In short, we asked our community for their feelings and perceptions regarding each sketched logomark over the course of three days on our Instagram stories. Interactive questionnaires measured opinions intuitively and gathered data quickly.
On the first day, we presented different shapes and ask the audience to choose the one they like the most by pressing the pointing emojis buttons (☝️/👇). On the second day, we presented each logomark individually and asked them “What do you think this shape means?”. And on the last day, we used the shape with more accurate responses to validate the logomark in a contextual image, by asking “Bond Touch is all about…..”.
At the end of the three days, we had a positive outcome: 1664 views and nearly 200 participants.
And the feedback was conclusive: The “ring” shape was more uniform and more consensual, and it was also the one that was more aligned to our concept. Our community associated this shape with unity, togetherness, connection, wholeness, and completeness. In the end, with nearly 2000 views and 200 answers, the community’s opinion was clear. The “ring” was the majority’s favorite, and it was also more aligned to our concept: our community associated this shape with unity, togetherness, connection, wholeness, and completeness.
This enabled us to design the final logomark.
From the inner world (that suggested square space), we extracted two halves of the “b” and the “d.” And by combining these halves, we created a graphical representation of the relationship: together but autonomous and, sometimes, apart.
The two complementary semicircles are playful visual assets, allowing us to express emotions and dynamic combinations or patterns. It’s a powerful communication element that constantly reinforces the idea of connection
Products logotypes framework
The master brand logotype is constrained by its products’ names. This means each product can’t be presented without the master brand. To ensure great readability, we introduce a secondary typeface that also has geometric features. This echoes the bespoke master brand letterforms, is functional and elegant, and perfectly adjustable for small scalability. That’s why the product name should always be set in uppercase (take a peek at our Brand Book if you’re curious to know more).
In March, 2021, we relaunched our brand. Now we have a strong and coherent presence across all social media channels, and we’ve increased 20% in followers. And we are preparing to launch a new online shop, in line with the brand’s new imaginary conceptualization.
And now we’re preparing to launch a whole new online shop for multiple countries, incorporating it on the mobile app — all of this in line with the new brand.
Special thanks:
It’s important to highlight the important and relevant help from Inês Laureano, Visual Designer, for her effort and visual studies. Together we were able to prepare the briefing for the agency. Throughout this rebranding process, we have worked alongside Pentagram’s design team. They delivered distinctive and colorful graphical solutions in response to our creative briefing and conceptual approach. I’m grateful for their commitment and refreshing perspective.
If you are interested in getting to know more about the brand and our products, check out the blog, The Other Half, and the Bond Touch website.
