Laundryheap, a long-term client of d.labs, has grown from the initial idea in 2013 to a reliable UK service-provider and successfully expanded to the US, Middle East, and Singapore, all while processing millions of deliveries. Its success story had reached a stage where the brand could not follow the rapidly expanding company's values and created a visual gap that needed to be filled. The challenge was to define a foundation that can carry the main essence of the brand. Visuals need to stay recognisable at a glance on various mediums and a steady base helps the visual designs to follow its main thread.
We decided it's time to make a bold leap and start with a complete brand redesign that will create room for the company's future growth and ensure the needed dynamics of visual identity.
Discovery
Company vision & goals
Competition analysis
Brand positioning
Brand personality
Visual assets
Logo & placements
Typography
Colour palette
Imagery
Instead of leaping blindly into neat colour combinations and extravagant typography choices, we started with a thorough discovery phase in close collaboration with Laundryheap’s team.
During the first two workshops, we reassessed the company vision, future goals, evaluated their target audience and competitive opportunities in the global market. We examined other successful brands and competitors and analysed their strong and weak points. The results were complemented with a short brand positioning exploration, which will later resonate the brand personality and its messaging. We also established two main brand goals: to build awareness and create an emotional connection with their end-users.
In the third workshop we explored a few brand personalities in a series of mood boards. The brainstorm led to designing two design directions in a series of visuals and imaginary product placements. One was a bit calmer and minimalistic but we decided to proceed with the second, more organic direction.
The last step in the redesign process was transforming all conclusions into actual visual solutions. New brand goals helped us outline a set of adjectives and project them onto a new, stable foundation. The brand was now described as strong but dynamically scaling, leaning toward trustworthiness, confidence, happiness, and warmth.
Therefore, we defined a vivid but non-intrusive colour palette, and selected a few examples of photography that evokes lightness, happiness, and emotional connection with customers. We updated the current logo to fit into new brand standards.
The services are online-based so we decided to use a bold typography that fits digital mediums but still evokes a distinctive tone and character. It was important to move the current copywriting principles that were based on listing features into focusing more on user benefits.
The new brand guideline now acts as an instruction manual on how the visuals communicate with target users. It consists of rules that form a foundation of the brand such as brand goals, company vision, and visual guide like logo placement, imagery, colour options, messaging, and tone & voice.
The new brand now can successfully adapt to different markets by adjusting the range of visuals based on the brand recognisability. On newly acquired markets the brand starts by introducing itself to customers with leaner design solutions but expands its dynamics and emotional value on markets where the brand is already known and established.
The brand acquired a new perspective that fits the current company's needs. The team was closely involved in the entire redesign process so they are aware of the background of all design decisions and confident enough to help with expanding its current reach into new possibilities.
Designing a brand can never reach a definite end. We need to perceive it as one of many ingredients in the ever-changing recipe that needs to be readjusted continuously to maintain a perfect fit. With this brand redesign we started a new circle of growth and expansion that has enough room for the brand, team, and users to be comfortable in.
The brand launched in October 2021 and is now under close observation which will follow a further refinement based on the brand’s performance and customer feedback.
