welcome to your new Pad!
7 January 2025
behind the scenes of our rebrand
Like the new look? We really think it suits us, and we hope you do too. To be honest, it was made with you in mind.
Because you’re so important to us, we thought you might like to know some of the secrets behind our all-new brand identity and its design. Spoiler alert – it’s not just about our new good-looking logo or our radical online transformation, it’s also about the things we’ve learnt along the way, and boy, have we learned a lot. Ready for some serious (and not so serious) brand-building insights? Ok, let’s go.
why?
Have you heard the term “a cobbler always wears the worst shoes?” Well, that was us. We’ve been so dedicated to our client’s brands we neglected our own. We had a good brand, but it had started to feel, well, a bit ill-fitting. Our business has grown, and we needed our brand to grow with it. It was time for the cobbler to use those sell-out skills to make a new pair of shoes. In other words, it was time for a radical new design identity and a brand transformation.
Over the last 20 years, Pad has evolved. We started as a graphic design agency offering specific services and we’ve grown into a strategic partner that can help you deliver against your objectives. We wanted our brand to capture how we communicate and what we’re like to work with – our rebranding journey has seen us get to the nitty gritty of who we are.
who?
Who is Pad? To communicate who we are, we needed to drill down on our brand’s DNA. This meant deeply understanding and defining our core values, mission, services, and unique attributes.
The challenge was to design a brand identity that not only communicated our services but expressed Pad’s personality and spoke our language, in our tone of voice.
With 20 years of experience building brands, 20 years of incredible clients, and 20 years of invaluable contacts, we thought we would turn to the experts – you.
how?
How did we do it? It started with a brand strategy and a 360-degree view of the business. We went out with our clipboards and surveyed our clients and stakeholders.
We won’t bore you with the details, but it turns out that being fun, friendly, collaborative and responsive is our jam.
Our agency is in the Goldilocks zone – not too big and not too small. We like clarity and we like to keep things simple. When it comes to branding, web and print, we are a one-stop shop. We’re here for it all – from brainstorming and marketing advice to business consultancy and brand strategy. With 20 years of industry knowledge and a trusted network of long-established contacts, if you’ve got a business problem, we have a solution.
We asked you what you liked about us, what worked and what didn’t. This formed the solid foundation from which we built the brand.
Brand strategy enabled us to understand where we are in the market, how you perceive us and how we can connect with you. Getting this right in the early stages taught us a big lesson. 7 days after we launched, we received 7 enquiries from clients that were the perfect fit for us and vice versa. Strategy works.
what?
So, what’s changed?
Well, pretty much everything – new logo, new typeface, new colour palette, new icon style, new presentations, and new technology.
Our new vibrant visual identity is designed to stand out. Inspired by Christmas lights and neon tubing, the website features bright type against rich black, making it pop like a firework. Hand-drawn graphics, soft curves, lowercase letters and interactive elements reflect our approachable collaborative way of working. Alongside our shiny new visuals, we have a website that communicates the complete and comprehensive nature of our agency. In language and layout, we’ve sought to emphasise our simple and direct approach to branding, web and print design. Behind the scenes, our materials have had a make-over and our collaterals have had a glow-up, making communication more efficient and impactful.
The transformation of our brand and design identity has been radical. It also allowed us to walk in our client’s shoes (there goes that shoe analogy again). We now know how it feels to have a brand identity that’s aligned with our personality and our ambitions as a company – and we want that for you.
If you have any questions about how we can help with your brand, give us a shout!