The Brief
I was commissioned to develop a corporate identity and range of materials for this new high street mortgage company.
The solution
Whilst a fish and chip shop can do perfectly well with poor company branding (the product is cheap and an impulse buy), a ‘Mortgage Shop’ by its own definition, is selling the most expensive things most of us will ever purchase: houses. Certainly not cheap, nor an impulse buy. Unlike the chip shop, your clients (and your company model and presentation will naturally appeal to young, first time buyers) will be anxious about the process and nervous about their money. It is crucial, therefore, to incite trust in this very specific target client group, as they take the first step up to your shopfront.
The solution needs to be strongly branded and flexible. A full range of designs, from signage through to letterheads, business cards and leaflets, will foster an impression of an established, reliable company, and allow for easy expansion into new outlets.
The idea to use photography came about after unsuccesful attempts at rendering pebble-like icons and logos. It is a very difficult form to reproduce graphically as it is difficult to avoid it looking like an egg or an unidentifiable blob.
Even a photograph of a single pebble didn’t work. It seems that pebbles are best recognised when kept in context, ie surrounded by other pebbles! Mevalyn (Blue Pebble partner) had mentioned the idea of having a single blue pebble in a sea of pebbles, and this idea eventually led to my solution.
I have sourced a stock photography site which sells extremely affordable, high quality images. In looking at different ideas for presenting the ‘single pebble amongst many’ idea I suddenly realised that you could use an infinite amount of different photographs, as long as they all had a single blue pebble picked out. Rendering all the images in black and white at once unifies them, and the pebble in the signature blue instantly brands it and creates a recognition ‘hook’ which is incredibly flexible, moving from the close up of pebbles on the letterhead and business card to the sweeping coasts (images of the sea and coast are loaded with positive connotations of space and freedom) on the leaflets. There are endless possibilities for signage, literature, and advertising in this idea. Some people I discussed the idea with said ‘this could represent the one special home out of all the different houses’ and others said ‘this says that they are not just another mortgage company, but take a different approach’. It is at once a subtle, yet easily deciphered graphic device.
The greys and blue that result are beautiful colours for a financial company: subdued, classy, assured. Whilst working, I increasingly came to realise that, in a sense, the use of black and white imagery and cool blues could be as sober as you want, because the name of the company, Blue Pebble, is in itself very informal and balances the seriousness of the graphics.
Lastly, two colour printing is at least a third less expensive than full colour, so this solution will save a lot of money over the earlier ‘tropical fish’ presentation.
