Rebranding Your Business
Rebranding Logo Project
Hey, my name is Martin Williams and I work on rebranding projects. I am a creative logo designer with over 25 years professional experience. Below you will find an example of my work, more can be found in my portfolios, thank you.
The Challenge:
This rebranding project was completed in late 2022 for Nemea Athletica when I was approached to work on creating a new logo identity for the brand.
You can check out their products at:
On the right/below you can see both the original logo and the new logo that I created. The original logo is the one at the top with the full leaping lion.
The client wanted a new logo that would be simpler and more minimalistic. They were also keen to retain the lion theme if possible (as the brand name refers to the Nemea Lion fought by Hercules). However, they also wanted to incorporate the brand initials NA or Na.
The client already had an idea/sketch of their own for simplified lion head design formed from the letters “Na” that they had devised themselves.
As a part of the rebrand I agreed to work up and refine their design, but also to create several concepts of my own design as well.
I really liked the core concept that the client had come up with themselves it showed great creativity, however, it just didn’t look quite right because of the way the letters needed to be deformed to form the lion head. The other issue with their own concept was that it made the “a” letter look more like an inverted number “5”.
After I had worked up their concept and refined it, the client agreed with my assessment, that it still didn’t look right because of the same reasons, so we pursued other options.
The design right/below was one of several alternatives that I came up with for the client. It uses the same core principle of forming a simple lion head from the “Na” letter forms but it does so in a completely different way to their own design.
Here the “N” and “a” flow into one another and I have used the “N” to form a mane for the lion, something that their own design lacked. I then used the abstract lowercase “a” shape to form the lion’s face. The “a” is subtle, but that isn’t a problem as not everything has to jump out at you right away.
Having elements hidden more subtly adds a talking point, depth and interest to a design. The “a” was also secondary in importance anyway as the brand is predominantly known as “NEMEA”. So it is nice to have it in there, but it wasn’t essential to the brief.
One of the issues with the original logo I found was that it worked great in black on white but not quite so well when the logo was inverted white on black.
This is because the original relied heavily on shadow and negative space to define some of the features.
For example, the shadow inside the mouth looks better when it is a darker tone than the background the logo sits one. The same can be said for the shadows that run underneath the lions neck, body and legs.
But other than that, I loved the original lion, it was very well executed by whomever designed it.
In my rebrand the new logo is less reliant on shadows and negative space for definition of the lion, so it works equally well in any colour or when placed on either a light or dark background.
Other benefits of this rebranding are that the proportions and ratio of this new simple lion head emblem have been designed to work better when used on social media, even when small as a profile image.
In the original logo, as much as I like that leaping lion, the text was very small in comparison to the lion and there was an imbalance to the overall layout in my humble opinion.
All of this was considered carefully and addressed in my rebranding work, and as a result, I believe that the new emblem is considerably more versatile.
Another element that I addressed whilst rebranding this logo was the text. The old text was probably my least favourite part of the old logo as I found that there was a lot going on with all of the pointed flourishes/serifs on at the tops and on the bars of the letter-forms.
For example, if you look at the top right of the “E” letter you can see how the slant there is set at a different angle to the slant at the top of the “A” letter, this creates an awkward, distracting shape within the negative space between the letters.
I was also not very keen on the short middle of the “M” letter as that gap was also quite distracting to the eye.
That said, for continuity in brand recognition, I did not want to stray too far away from the original text element. So, I kept a similar weight, height and italic slant to the text. I reduced the number of flourish points on the letters to just a singular one which I left on the “N” letter at the start, I also softened that a little to better compliment the new emblem by adding a slight curve.
I made the middle of the “M” letter the same height as the rest of the letters to eliminate that distracting negative space. I also added some simple cuts to the “E” letters to compliment the new flourish on the “N”.
Lastly, I changed the slant of the “A” letter on the far right so that it ended in a vertical surface to allow the new emblem to sit cleanly to the right of the text when required. See the image right/below for an example of the modifications I made.
Do you have a logo rebranding project of your own?
When rebranding your business it can be intimidating, however, with an experienced designer on hand it doesn’t have to be stressful.
If you are looking for a very experienced logo designer then please get in touch, I would love to discuss your project with you.
I have worked on hundreds of logo design projects over my long career so I am certain that I can be of assistance to you.
You can find further examples of my logo design work in my logo design portfolio, or read reviews from my previous clients here.
Have a question?
If you have a question about my logo design services you can find answers to the most frequently asked questions here.
If you cannot find an answer there then please do not hesitate to contact me and I will be happy to answer your questions.
You can find more information on the types of logo design packages I offer here. However, I have designed most things over the years so don’t worry if what you require is not listed there.
