City National of Rochdale
Full Brand Identity
A CASE STUDY
A CASE STUDY
CITY NATIONAL OF ROCHDALE
PROBLEM: NO DIRECTION
A bank wholly owned by another company presents its own set of challenges. City National of Rochdale needed its own voice to set itself apart from City National Bank and remind people they were a part of that brand structure. This meant polishing what was old into something fresh and exciting. We started with a color palette update and the project rippled out from there organically.
Stodgy and dated in its original format, the problem became brightening the brand up and giving it livelihood and the energy it was lacking.
The design process is a fluid and subjective cycle.
The spot a project starts in is almost never where it ends up and the journey is sometimes as important as the destination.
The Process begins with a design brief; a series of questions related to the company as a whole, and discovering the reason the product/brand exists. For CNR, this extended to internal templates, PowerPoint decks, white papers, and more.
THIS PROJECT ALSO INCLUDED
Phrasing & Messaging
Presentation Design
Brand storytelling
Custom illustration, icons and build-out of image library
Internal vs external communications
Template customization-education for skill sets and involvement
Expansion of the brand as a whole
THE SOLUTION: A BRIGHT ENERGETIC CLEAN AND MODERN APPROACH
With 'pops' of color, and an updated typographical organization of information hierarchy, the new brand brings a much-needed facelift to the company as a whole. A clean organized brand identity that can be carried through all materials used by the CNR brand blossomed like a flower and continues to expand ever outward with events and new opportunities for design solutions.
Much of the previously design materials had way too much information in them, making them look heavy and hard to digest. The redesign allows an open fairly feel and gives easily accessible blocks of information to absorb.
Brand Style Guide
As the project expanded, so too did the need for consistency so the brand identity was key to locking everything in place across all channels.
The structure became important, to illustrate how the document was created and why, and all the notations harken back to the brand guidelines so users have a clear line from how the document got built.
With the template build-out, tutorials were offered for the team at CNR so that a confidence level was reached for everyone who needed to pick these documents up.
With any brand identity design, its important to establish rules for the logic behind the new design, and these structure documents helped the team visualize easier.
Establishing design rules for everything from chart creation and information data visuals to external documents such as white papers, brochures and promotional materials, the CNR brand guidelines covered it all. It also provides a series of Dos and Dont’s within the brand. This established an easy-to-follow direction for the brand solving for any eventuality that may present itself.
Before & After
Sometimes, knowing the software isn’t enough. This particular piece wasn’t using its design elements effectively. It had a table of content s for a 6 page document, and the title was absurdly long. Building a clean layout made all the difference in the final product.
Applying the new brand identity to old documents sometimes proved a challenge. Organizing information on the page was proven successful when given the current treatment of the brand guidelines. Creating custom illustration enhanced the brand and allowed for an expansion of not only ideas but an easier way to effectively communicate across all channels.
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