HumanKind Business Leaders

HumanKind Business Leaders is a executive coaching business based in Boulder, CO. It is led by the amazing Beck Sydow who decided to bring their wealth of knowledge to a new business helping leaders connect to their people. Beck has spent years in different C-Suite roles, most recently as the CEO of Sticker Giant, and paired that with their previous experience as a counselor to create a People-Hearted & Business-Minded coaching practice.

Beck knew from their previous experience how a solid brand can drive customer loyalty and communicate value to their clients. They came with a strong understanding of the value and a passion for their message, helping leaders become People-Hearted & Business-Minded. The direction outside of that would evolve over time. Oh there was one more caveat, they had an upcoming event they wanted to attend and do a soft launch of their new business. We had 2 weeks to come up with some kind of visual to represent the business and get some things printed. They assured me that it didn't need to be the final thing but something they could at least present.

We went through the normal branding questions. How do we want it to feel? Who are we trying to attract? What space will it live in, who are it's neighbors? What kind of style do you like?

Here is where we hit a crossroads.

The answers were mostly what I expected, the feel, the goal, who we are targeting. Beck said they preferred clean, straight lines, san serif fonts. But we also want to feel organic, safe, human. I don't know if you have noticed in your time with humans but we usually don't have straight lines or hard corners. I decided to go where the feel was because at the end of the day that it what people are going to buy, the emotion. I went with a cursive wordmark with a little personality for the Human Kind and a San Serif for the Business leaders. We still got a little of what they wanted while bringing in a human, organic, and approachable feel that I felt was what the feel needed to be.

It was a bit of a gamble, I knew we had no time but I felt strongly about the direction and that it met all of the criteria. I put together the mockups, the business cards, the logo styles and I sent it. And waited. Not sure if this was going to be a celebration or a nice try kid. I felt confident that it was the right direction though.

Well my gut was right and Beck responded with a "I would have never picked that but it feels exactly right" Great! We were able to get the graphics off to be put on shirts and hats and get the business cards printed in time.

After the conference Beck brought on a fantastic marketing team and we worked together to shape HumanKind Business Leaders. We had a day where Beck's friends, peers and past co-workers came together and it was great seeing Beck and what HumanKind should be through all of their eyes. I usually loathe design by comittee but this was something different. It was like everyone coming together to build a house, each bringing their own expertise and experience to make the whole better.

Something became super clear. They consistently spoke about how you dont have to choose between your profits or people. You don't have to make a decision on growing your business or taking care of your self. Beck was all about "and". I had been struggling to come up with an icon, we had the word mark which had some tweaks but was pretty much the same as the beginning. I always like to have an icon though and now I did. An Ampersand! One of the most fun pieces of typography and I had seen a great one on this hand painted sign Beck had in their workspace. The sign happened to be from a family grocery store and was painted sometime in the 1930's. It had this great ampersand and I thought what a cool story it would be to include this in the word mark. I then spun the ampersand into a sort of wheel mark containing multiple ampersands to reflect all of the "ors" that Beck hopes to replace through their work.

Go Grow Coaching

Andrew Etenhoffer has spent a number of years on sales teams and as a sales coach. He was looking to expand his offering to more business strategy but felt restrained by his brand, Sales Toolbox. He came to me with the idea that he wanted to rebrand to something that was more encompassing of business coaching and not so niche. He also had a strong idea of where he wanted to go and a solid name which is always helpful. One of his main drivers is he didnt want it to feel like every other coaching brand of muted colors, feel good imagery and soft tones. He wanted it a little more punk rock, a bit more bold. I liked that.

Go Grow Coaching came from a latin phrase Cerscit Enundo which is loosely translated "It grows as it goes". It refers to lightning and Andrew liked the idea of people also growing as they are going. He believes that its moving and building as you go that creates success. So with the idea of wanting to be bolder, stand out among the other coaches and lightning I went to work.

We then went to work on coming up with the logo mark. It needed to relate to the brand, be recognizable, still fit in a business setting and Andrew didnt want the lightning to be too on the nose. After several iterations we settled on a simple circle design with a simple lightning bolt shape that extended past the confines of the circle to represent growing. I then found a font that had a bold feel with a little bit of character, modified a few of the letter forms and we had a logo.

Now a color palette was needed. I first started with a dark warm gray and yellow, it would gain us the more bold feel and stay away from the pastels and muted tones so present in the industry. Andrew also asked for an extended palette to use with the numerous events he plans throught the year so we came up with a series of colors that are in the same tonal range as the yellow, keeping the bold nature of the brand. It works well as a system with each type of event having its own color language while still having a tie to the main brand.

Once the main brand pillars were set we moved on to using the brand to create new assets. I created a series of editable social media graphics to help promote the different events he puts on throught the year. We built out a SquareSpace site utilizing the brand concepts of bold graphics, our color palette and matching the tone to the strategy we developed.

The brand so far has been a hit with his current clients. It has also attracted new clients because of the way his new brand stands out against his competetion. Andrew now feels more confident because his business now visually reflects his personailty and coaching practice better. He no longer has to try to work against his brand like he did previously and it will only grow more impactful as we flesh it out further in the future.