Case Study: Corporate Rebrand

AmWest Rebrand

Visual Identity & Brand Strategy

The Problem:

AmWest needed to define their brand beyond a logo to make an impact in the mortgage lending space. The logo also needed to be refined and used consistently across collateral.

How might we improve our brand to be more aligned with the company and our customers?

Example of AmWest's Previous Logo Usage

The Solution:

Develop a brand strategy that aligns AmWest's mission and values with their customer's needs and goals.

Create a visual identity that establishes guidelines for consistency while also providing flexibility for creativity.

The Team

Creative Director
Global Marketing Director
National Marketing Manager

My Role

Brand Strategy
Graphic Design
Design Systems

Tools Used

Historical Analysis
Stakeholder Interviews
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe XD
Milanote

Discovery:

Gather all assets that used the old logo to see how it was applied to a variety of media.

Understand our customers and identify where they were interacting with the AmWest brand.

Touchpoint Matrix

From there, the team created ideal customer profiles using interviews with stakeholders, sales staff and customers. The result was two main customer profiles.

AmWest Price Shopper Persona

AmWest Loyal First-Timer Persona

Next, user journeys were created to uncover pain points and identify quick wins using the least amount of resources.

Price Shopper Customer Journey

Loyal First-Timer Customer Journey

Process:

After the discover phase, I looked at the existing logo for areas of improvement that would have an effect on our customer's perception of our brand.

AmWest Logo Update Comparison

Once the improvements were approved, I created a logosheet with a variety of formats to define and establish consistency early on.

AmWest Redesigned Logo Sheet

Using stakeholder interviews and our ideal customer profiles, we defined a brand archetype to serve as the foundation of the brand. We then created mood boards to flesh out the visual and content style of AmWest.

AmWest Tone & Voice Mood Board

A series of collateral pieces were then created to represent the AmWest Brand. To get a bird's eye view of how the pieces worked together across touchpoints, we created a design ecosystem to test our designs and ensure there was enough freedom in the framework.

AmWest Design Ecosystem

My largest deliverable was to collaborate with the development team to build a design system which could be flexible and scalable yet provide consistency across projects and departments moving forward.

I used Adobe XD to create the AmWest Digital Design System so that I could share the prototype links with departments for reference and provide a design specs link to the development team.

AmWest Digital Design System

Outcome:

The end product was a comprehensive brand strategy and visual design system that aligned the company with its customers. We also designed several new collateral pieces and redesigned existing collateral.

Feedback from stakeholders has been that the AmWest brand is now more recognizeable and impactful in the eyes of our customers. It has been so well received by upper management that they have invested in branding the corporate headquarters with it.

AmWest Corporate Building Signage

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