Rebranding Code Enigma
A while back I was tasked with rebranding Code Enigma. Everything from colours to the website. Given I’ve been their designer for almost four years, this was a change I embraced.
The past year has been a transitional period for us, so the fact that we were evolving married closely to the rebranding.
Deconstructing the logo and creating something meaningful
The previous rebranding was an iterative process; starting from a logo with unclear origins. It was improved with thought and meaning, but without stepping on the toes of its established (especially Drupal) identity. With this in mind I planned to do the opposite. We’re different! We’re better, bolder and we do more than Drupal!
Taking the muted pastel colours, I then went super vibrant. The thin Omnes typeface has been replaced by a much heavier Proxima Nova (technically the logo is Avenir with edited anatomy, but everything else is Proxima Nova) and the confusing motif has been replaced with icons that tell a story.
One family, four identities
We pride ourself on being a family. We’re a bunch of technical creatives, and creative technicals, but we’re all unique. The company can be divided into four disciplines:
- The family as a whole
- Create and build (totally the coolest of the bunch)
- Devops and hosting
- Support and training
With those titles in mind, here’s the thinking behind the motifs and how we can use it dynamically.
Bigger, beautiful typography
Any rebranding task comes with not-so-fun bits, and given that Code Enigma has been around for almost 15 years, you can imagine the cumulative number of documents and templates. Google Docs can be a bit of a nightmare without a consistent way of copying and applying styles to multiple documents, but being able to remember each document needs 1.75 top margin and a 2.73 footer height will come in handy… Right?
My colleagues have mentioned how much the rebranding of the documents has helped them and improved their day-to-day, which definitely makes it worth the time! Super happy to help.
The new website
This should probably be a blog post in itself as there is so much to say, but if one thing rings true again, content is king! I will definitely come back to this point, but aside from the pretty colours and funky imagery, the main improvement has been words. Fewer and more meaningful has improved this site many times over!
How does it come together in print?
Wonderfully! Well I’m really happy with it at least :)
There’s a lot more I want to talk about here, and will do in time. I hope you like the redesign and I’d love to hear comments.
(You can check out the design services we offer, too).
Cheers!
Aaron
