Five & Done. A Branding Story.
This is a true story about how we fell in love with the Sassy Pompadour.
Backstory
Some of you reading this may have known Five & Done when there were just 6 of us working in a small office in a strip mall. Others may have hired us around that time not knowing there were only 6 of us working in a small office in a strip mall. The point is, we’ve evolved a lot in our eight years but one thing hasn’t changed: our branding.
In the early days, we deliberately focused on our clients, not ourselves. Our priorities were delivering excellent work, being good to work with, and growing the business. Everything was new and everything needed attention.
We made minor updates to our brand over the years but at some point in 2019 we started to feel the need to rethink it from the ground up. It’s not that we hadn’t talked about it before, but this time was different. The way we presented ourselves wasn’t inline with who we were anymore. We grew. We gained experience. We hired wonderful humans. Our culture was light and the studio didn’t take itself too seriously. We wanted a logo that reflected that, one that wasn’t too delicate or serious. We wanted colors that felt fresh and identifiable, typography that worked with anything from video game clients to disaster relief initiatives. We needed something flexible, something new.
Learning to love the process
How would you start a rebrand? What comes first? Tone, values, strategy, or concepts? How do you decide what to include? Hint: there’s no right or wrong answer.
For us, it started by bringing the design team in to work on concepts. This phase was meant to explore different looks to see if anything would inspire a direction. In our brief, we told them everything was up for grabs except the name. One of the most important directives we gave them was the need for this new branding to be own-able. So many studios go through a rebrand just to end up with a black and white palette and predictable typeset logo. We’ve never wanted to look and sound like every other studio or agency out there, so why start now?
There wasn’t a specific vision to execute but rather an opportunity to help define it. Clever, honest, irreverent, fun, and own-able were some of the words we used throughout the process.
The act of creating is messy. There is no perfect approach; it’s born out of many conversations, trying different things, refining, and hard work. So, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. We started to find our groove after our first few design rounds. There was an energy that was exciting to be around. No idea was too far out there to have a discussion about. The creativity was contagious.
One of the most important directives we gave them was the need for this new branding to be own-able.
A flexible logo
We explored a lot of ideas but one in particular caught our eye. It had an illustrative expression reminiscent of the great Saul Bass, but more importantly, embodied a cleverness that really attracted us. The way a logo looks is important but we were equally interested in what it said.
It felt great but the concern was that the visual style wouldn’t be flexible enough. With the concept as our foundation, we began creating ideas inspired by it. The concept centered around the idea of 4 pieces that make a whole with the fifth either completing or destroying it. Give it a sec to sink in. No? Maybe designs will help.
Many sketches, variations, and discussions later we landed on a logo execution that was special. Everyone reacted the same way: the “5” as a logo with its sassy pompadour just felt right. By including the period next to the “5”, everything fell into place and tied back to our original concept.
The “5” became the foundation for the brand and a platform for creativity. We knew we would need a wordmark for those occasions when the brand needed to be more tame, and thanks to the logo, it fell into place fairly quickly.
Using color in a meaningful way
Color is a tricky thing to get right. For example, when featuring projects in your portfolio, do they take on the color of the client/project or do they use your colors? When presenting work to a client or pitching, does the deck use your identity of the client’s? There is a lot to consider.
Determining the color palette was one thing. Deciding on how we were going to use color was a whole other thing. We landed on a range of colors, both loud and quiet, that gave us something to work with.
The neutrals (too many to name them all) work well for things like presentations and our general background for the portfolio. It allows for project imagery to be full color and not conflict with the brand. Yellow (Nacho Bang), our primary brand color, is used upon landing pages and deck covers. It’s the color you first see when engaging our brand. Our deep blue (Blueberry Panther) and vibrant salmon (Brah-Berry) are used sparsely to help facilitate interaction on our site. Each color was carefully considered how they look on a screen but also in your hand.
What excites us about typography
Typography can be very expressive but it can also be incredibly neutral (looking at you helvetica. That’s right, I went there). It needed to be versatile, bold, expressive, and fun to work with, but not overpowering. We weren’t interested in selecting a sans serif, making it huge in all caps, and draping it over full screen photos or videos. We went through many options and landed on Surveyor as our headline, attention grabbing font. It was too heavy handed for long form copy so we paired it with TT Commons. Our design has a pretty mean eyebrow game that competes with the likes of Eugene Levy, which we achieve with Brandon Grotesque. We also wanted a font used very sparingly that helped unite the type with the illustrations, so Espa became our little type rebel that doesn’t play by the rules.
We ended up with a total of 4 typefaces used in specific ways that give us the range we were looking for.
Illustration as a support
We have flirted with illustration from the beginning. It can be personal, unique, expressive, and adventurous. It’s also something that can be own-able. We liked the idea of incorporating illustration but didn’t want to overpower the brand. We didn’t want it to be the brand. We landed on this idea early on that project detail pages on our portfolio will not be giant photos. It could be type, or even better illustration. After reviewing some proof of concepts, it felt right.
So, we explored several styles from Adventure Time to Brosmind and ultimately ended up with something slightly imperfect and conceptually driven. It had to work in a small form factor which dictated how much detail to include. It brought just the right amount of odd and quirk to the brand. It shows up in presentations, our website, our t-shirts and business cards. We feel pretty good about it.
All about the feels
When looking at a brand, you look at all of it. What does it feel like to engage with it? A lot of our work is digital, but not all of it. We thoughtfully considered our business card paper which we refer to as “hairy chest” because of the texture. We tried out numerous t-shirt manufacturers to find quality, comfy shirts and even debated tote bag colors, texture, and handle length. It was very important to us that no matter how you interact with us, whether it be through physical or digital, you walk away with the same impression.
Interaction, behavior, and motion play a significant role in our industry so we explored what should move and how. When the suggestion came up about making our illustrations come to life, it was a no-brainer. But could we keep the file size manageable without sacrificing quality? How much bounce is too much bounce? Should we animate the inner workings of our logo? Learning to practice restraint is part of the maturing process. Now, you might not think that we practiced a lot of restraint when looking at our site, but I can assure you, we did. A lot.
We accounted for everything we could think of because the new brand needed to stand the test of time.
Looking Back
We aren’t the studio we were. We’ve grown. We’ve gained new experiences. We’ve developed new skills. We’ve broadened our perspective. This rebrand embodies who we are today. It’s the outcome of how the people at Five & Done identify themselves. We aren’t just a professional “design and technology studio”; we are also parents, friends, sons, daughters, advocates, athletes, partners. Hopefully, you can feel the people and humor behind the brand.
From the hand drawn illustrations to the slightly unhinged logo, we hope it brings a little joy into your day and puts a smile on your face. If you didn’t catch our logo reveal video on instagram, don’t worry, we got you.
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