Chronicles of Progress: pt II, Visual exploration
Owner and ownership
In the last installment, I did an initial iteration of brand strategy for a startup called Owner. I was brought on a Brand Advisor and I am helping strategically position and visually align the brand. These posts chronicle the process in real time.
Previously we established Brand Archetypes and Attributes. In this post, I’ll share some visual explorations on the established verbal position.
Round 1
Going into the first round was entirely open. There was strategy, discussion, and tone-setting but as with any visual kickoff, it could have gone anywhere. The great folks at Owner shared some inspiration and motivation and we all seemed on the same page.
COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE:
Featuring familiar names like Doordash, Toast, Grubhub, UberEats, and Square. Owner is positioned far right: the most blue of the blues.
MOODBOARD:
Takeaways:
Simple, vertically symmetrical logo (see logo grid)
Wise by Ragged Edge (color, typography)
Linear’s website… of course (#darkmode)
Maybe some split color system: something facing restaurant owners (customers, in-product) and something more general for billboards, ads, marketing website. (I believe that reference — far right, below Webflow — is from Marshall’s.)
Typography
I’m a proponent of strong typography — something that stands out. I liked the idea of Disc (by Lucas Descroix) paired with Juneau (by TypeMates) for one direction. Another direction was Multima and Stakkat, both by René Bieder. Each of these had a punchy typographic voice.
A third direction came from Levi Jones, Head of Design at Owner. They had started moving away from Gilroy on their marketing site and liked how Söhne was feeling on some trial landing pages. So I proposed parts of the Söhne superfamily: the standard width as the core with parts of Schmal (narrow) for big headlines and Mono for rarer bylines.
These can be seen more clearly in the pages below.
SPECIFIC REFERENCES:
Color
I should almost skip over color for this first iteration. I had a warm palette, a cooler option, and a final grayscale version. For this first round I was least interested in color and much more so in the form of type and a logo with general art direction. Color is the easiest thing to change through a project.
(And in the end, we did decide to “ignore” color and focus on form — we will revisit color more specifically next round.)
Logo
Okay, to the heart. The logo for Owner was intended to communicate the brand story: Owner empowering small business/restaurant owners. What could we design as a mark that puts that persona in the middle, that sets them up as the hero?
ABBREVIATED VIEW OF ROUND 1
The conclusion here was that the first/top option seemed too much like real estate or housing-centric. Understood. The second/middle option of a portal/monogram was too abstract and just didn’t stick.
But the third/bottom created some conversation around symmetry, monograms, and general appeal that opened the door for an interesting follow up.
We discussed how to make it less like a smile and more like an abstract monogram (“O”) — something that could communicate value, and the idea of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.
Up next
I’ve got the next iteration lined up and drafted.
Be prepared for some “final” decisions and follow progress ✌️