Inga Chira is a Financial Advisor. Her goal is to ease the confusion and to bring simplicity into the financial lives of academics. – Love that. I imagine we all need a little bit of Inga in our lives.
She has a very straightforward attitude, is lots of fun and just straight-up brilliant.
I work with a lot of creative businesses, so working with a financial advisor was a breath of fresh air. It was very interesting to observe her thought process, hold discussions with her, and of course to make that practical, number-crunching world beautiful and easy to digest with a final goal of attracting her ideal client.
When Inga initially contacted me, she was actually “only” looking for a site and just wanted “something” for her logo… My response: “you are telling a branding person you just need “something”? 😉 That’s like telling a financial advisor, “I don’t need to see profits”. :D” So off we went to start creating a foundation with a logo, colors, fonts etc.
I always ask my clients to fill out an in-depth questionnaire/workbook to learn more about their business, goals, visions, ideal client, etc. I also ask for images that inspire them. These could include colors, textures, buildings—whatever they like— so I can get an idea of what style appeals to them and, if it is a good fit for their ideal client, incorporate it into their new brand.
After reviewing the questionnaire with Inga, I put together an inspiration board to make sure she and I were on the same page in terms of style and visual direction. Determining that before starting the logo concepts is a big time saver. It also serves as a guide for me for the remainder of the project. I kept it next to me during the process to make sure I stayed on the right track.
I wanted to include blue, as it’s a color often associated with trust, wisdom, depth, strength and intelligence. Gray is a neutral and calm color, which also works great as complimentary color (plus, Inga really likes gray!). In her inspirational photos Inga included some images with yellow in them. I thought that could be a great mix to keep the color palate, modern and energetic, especially since she wanted to portray the feeling that it’s fun and simple to work with her.
Then based on our discussions, her answers from the workbook, my research on her filed and competitors I dove into the abyss of creativity. Here are the concepts I came up with for her.
I wanted to make sure all were simple, but with some interesting touches that include elements we’d be able to use throughout her marketing material and brand.
We decided to work with #5, and although I wanted to include the yellow dot to represent the energetic and sense of fun, ultimately we decided not to. Instead we brought in the A-flower to the concept as the representation of those attributes.
This is the final logo, variation and sub mark.
I made a variation logo, just so Inga has a more versatile logo. The horizontal version works well in places like website, heading, cover photos, etc. The variation logo is quite similar, but it has a shape that works better for square or round places, like profile pictures. The sub mark is for icons, smaller places, the favicon (the little guy in the browser tab), or could be used for stickers etc.
I also created business cards for her to go with her new brand. Yes, we decided on two different ones, because why not!
Finally, I created the website and pulled all the colors, graphic elements and styles together. Inga wanted to make sure her free step-by-step guide was enhanced, visible and easily accessible for the user. Additionally, she wanted her photo throughout the site. With that in mind, I started creating. Tanya Craft Photography helped us take this site from great to really great! Have a look for yourself and make sure to sign up for Inga’s step-by-step guide. Nope, you don’t need to be an academic. She can help us all.
What do you think about Inga’s new brand and website?
