Weve Acceleration
ABOUT:
Weve (Formerly NUMA New York) was a US branch of a Paris-based acceleration program for international startups expanding to the US.
THE ASK:
We need a fresh new identity to mark our independence without completely cutting away from the brand image we’ve established.
STEP 1
The Wordmark
The initiation call revealed that their team was highly unified in their understanding of their company values. We narrowed them down to five main missions.
During this process we arrived at the new name, Weve, for their next chapter, a succinct, playful word carrying tones of togetherness and movement from the past.
The brevity of the name and the industry they were competing in made this a great opportunity to design awordmark logo: a stylized typeface that doesn’t need a separate symbol.
We spent several rounds of iterations exploring the best ways to interweave (it was punavoidable) and balance the divergent qualities of smooth, flowing, connectedness, and sharp, competent, decisiveness.
Eventually we found a form that rang just right, garnering unanimous support across their leadership team.
Following a brief round of polishing for visual balance across multiple sizes and color contexts, we arrived a the final form: a legible wordmark that could contain associations with professionalism, adaptability, and support.
THE STYLE GUIDE
Colors, Typefaces, & Textures
Again we needed to capture the right balance of competence and fun. With WEVE, we opted for a bold, stand-out sans-serif header typeface to go with a classic sans-serif body typeface.
Color scheme was constructed by anchoring in a neutral and dark blue professional tone (similar to a primary color used in their former identity), with splashes of bolder colors to reflect WEVE’s adventurous energy, including a less conventionally used Robin’s Egg Teal to punctuate WEVE’s characteristic quirkiness.
Textures were built from visual elements of the logo to add variety to their assets in situations where photo or graphic assets weren’t available.
DEBRIEFING
Learnings & Takeaways
Allowing Peeks Under the Hood
Allowing the client to see more of my sketching process made it possible for them to point to exactly the design they felt most drawn toward, when they couldn’t articulate exactly how they wanted the forms to be balanced.
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Great Team Unity = Clear Constraints
WEVE was a client with extraordinarily clear values, not just within the CEO, but also across the entire team. Review processes went smoothly, because they were able to quickly unify their opinions and decisions by anchoring themselves in their agreed-upon values, which they’d established during their own internal processes.