Creating a brand that truly represents its core values and resonates with its target audience is a crucial step in establishing a successful business. This was our mission when developing the branding for a new German company: Radfit.
Radfit are a new chain of bicycle repair and maintenance shops in Germany. They needed a brand that quickly and easily signified the speed, efficiency, and premium quality they want to become known for. This is how we did it:
Understanding the Brand Values
Before diving into the design process, we spent considerable time understanding Radfit’s core values and unique selling points. Radfit’s promise to its customers revolves around three main values:
- Speed: Quick and efficient service to get cyclists back on the road
- Efficiency: Professional and reliable repair and maintenance services
- Premium Quality: A high-end experience and top-notch service
Working with the client, we built a clear brand voice document before deciding on look and feel, colours, or any design elements.
Mood Board
We then worked collaboratively to build mood boards on Pinterest, to begin our creative direction:
The Colour Palette: Dark Gunmetal Grey and Turquoise
Colour is one of the most powerful tools in branding, influencing perception and evoking specific emotions. For Radfit, we chose a colour palette of dark gunmetal grey and turquoise. Each colour was selected for its psychological impact and ability to communicate the brand’s essence.
Dark Gunmetal Grey
- Signifies Sophistication and Premium Quality: Dark gunmetal grey is often associated with luxury and high-end products. It conveys a sense of durability and reliability, which aligns with Radfit’s promise of a premium service.
- Modern and Professional: This colour adds a modern touch to the brand, making it look sleek and professional. It reassures customers that they are dealing with a cutting-edge service provider.
Turquoise
- Symbolises Speed and Efficiency: Turquoise is a dynamic colour that signifies movement and agility. It evokes a sense of energy and speed, which perfectly represents Radfit’s commitment to service.
- Refreshing and Inviting: Turquoise is also seen as refreshing and calming, balancing the darker tones of gunmetal grey and making the overall brand feel more approachable and customer-friendly.
The Logo and Visual Identity
With the colour palette in place, the next step was to develop Radfit’s logo and visual identity. As a branding agency, this is a process we enjoy the most, as a clients idea comes to life! We know the logo has to be simple yet impactful, representing the brand’s core values at a glance.
Logo Design
- Mechanical Elements: We opted for a clean, minimalist design that is easily recognisable and versatile across various mediums. The logo features a streamlined bicycle gears that are interrupted with negative space to symbolise a bike’s frame, to help potential customer easily understand what the company stands for. The main symbol is made up from the gear element, with parts of the ‘R’ from Radfit cutting through, representing the chain stay and structural components of a bike frame.
- Balanced Use of Colours: With dark gunmetal grey as our primary colour, we chose accents of turquoise to highlight key elements. This combination ensures the logo stands out, in an industry dominated by monochrome and red colour palettes.
- Adaptable: Ensuring the logo worked in linear as well as vertical spaces, and stood out enough when used for small formats was one of our main objectives. Having an element of the symbol that related to the overall brand name part of the logo was important, so the two elements could be used independently. Therefore a strong font that was easy to read was crucial…
Typography
- Font: The client wanted a modern and bold font, to reflect the new brand’s forward-thinking approach and robust service quality.
- Bespoke: After many iterations, we developed a bespoke sans-serif font for its clean, horizontal lines representing speed. A thicker weighted version for Headings and the Logo was used for readability. These ensured clarity across all marketing materials. The result is an unmistakable identity, that can be rolled out across other more tangible elements.
Iconography
- Quick Cues: To effectively and quickly represent Radfit’s range of services, we developed a set of custom icons. They’re designed to be simple yet distinctive, ensuring they are easily recognisable and align with the brand’s aesthetic and values:
Application Across Touchpoints
Consistency in branding is key to building recognition and trust. We applied Radfit’s new look and feel across all customer touchpoints to create a cohesive brand experience.
Digital Presence
- Website and Social Media: Radfit’s website was also designed and built by Stockley + Turner, to further enhance the new branding. The colour palette and logo are used consistently to create a visually cohesive online presence.
- CTAs: We utilise the turquoise highlight colour for our CTAs and main buttons, to ensure customer journeys are easy to follow across the site. This same approach can be applied to Email and other channels, to help key information stand out.
The Impact
The clear and cohesive brand identity has helped Radfit stand out in a competitive market in Germany, helping to establish its reputation for speed, efficiency, and premium quality.