Redesigning a logo, especially one of an established brand similar to McDonalds, Apple, Shell, or MasterCard, is often a necessary move to keep up with the times.
Having worked with a handful of real estate brokers and agents in the past as a graphic designer, the logo redesign of three major players caught my attention.
Real Estates Giants
Coldwell Banker, Century 21, and Remax have collectively over 200 years of experience in the finding potential homeowners their perfect home. Comparing the before-and-after logos, one can clearly see a common theme in the redesign; a simpler and more refined look.
My personal opinion about the old and new logos aside, I find it worth examining how companies like these manage a logo redesign, sometimes also known as a brand refresh campaign.
Brand Story RETOLD
All brand refresh campaigns affect both employees and customers, and it is essential to communicate the motivation behind the change to all parties.
Coldwell Banker used their blog/press release to announce “Project North Star” . Century 21 has a fancier website to introduce the new brand. Remax used a similar method as Coldwell Banker. The important thing is to clearly explain how the redesign aligns with and reinforce the corporate brand.
Customer Touch Points
Every business, no matter how young or established she is, has some level of presence onprint, online, and onsite. Learn more about these core touch points as we briefly looked at how the real estate giants apply the redesigned logo in these areas.
TOUCH POINT 1 • ON-PRINT
There are some on-brainer on-print brand assets that every real estate business should have; namely business card, real estate signage, and property flyer.
TOUCH POINT 2 • ONLINE
A real estate business website is essential in making known available home listings. And with the use of social media to extend the reach of such content, the visibility of the logo in profile picture and app icon is important too. At this point (ie. October 2019), Coldwell Banker has yet to implement their redesigned logo.
TOUCH POINT 3 • ONSITE
Beyond the real estate offices, branded yard sign and flyers in and around the listed property, the presence of the real estate agent, either dressed in full uniform or wearing a name badge, and even the mannerism of the agent are all critical onsite customer touch points.
Explore the following links from BrandNew to dive deeper into the redesign of these brands.
DeSi9n HouSE 