Rock Content has been innovating since the company was founded in 2008. Rock Content was originally known as a live blogging platform but has evolved into one of the industry’s leading content marketing platforms. This evolution was natural. Marketing and technology rapidly change as a result of innovation. We enhanced our visual identity and branding to reflect our position in the marketplace as trailblazers that provide innovative marketing solutions. Today, we’re very excited to launch the new face of our company and hope our insight can help inspire you and your organization.
Long Live Rock Content
You might be asking yourself, why’d we do it? Why all the change? Our rebrand is all-encompassing and signifies more than just a change of fonts and colors. We wanted to rebuild Rock Content as a creative and effective platform for anyone that interacts with the brand or uses our products. We’ve added an image that contains our old logo, which was an appropriate representation of what our organization once was – a live blogging platform. The chat bubble and emphasis on the word LIVE were unmistakable.
Our primary red was a bold use of color. We added subtle shades of gray and included simple icons and screenshots to communicate our message. However, combined with the italicized typeface and chat bubble, it didn’t exactly scream modern. What seemed cutting-edge in 2010 wasn’t holding its own in 2016. We had great success with the Visually rebrand launch earlier this year and decided to execute a similar strategy to energize the Rock Content brand.
Where to Begin?
Rebranding an established organization is quite a challenging task. Instead of creating everything from scratch, we had to incorporate the brand’s early success into the new tone, style, and messaging we want to convey in 2016 and beyond. Rock Content’s suite of products set us apart in three key areas. We allow marketers to:
- Make decisions with data
- Channel their creativity
- Deliver content effectively
Making of Our Mark
Data, creativity, and effectiveness. How were we going to effectively represent these three values in one cohesive mark? Since we have top creative talent at our fingertips, we partnered with Agent Illustrateur from the Visually talent community, who provided invaluable direction during the Visually rebrand. Before starting to sketch, we did extensive research on tech logos to see what was already on the market.
“You’d be surprised at how many ideas are already in use and have been done before – some good, some bad,” says Agent Illustrateur.
We had to illustrate how data (used to make rational decisions), creativity (unique, outside the box thinking) and effectiveness (people, operations, and scalability) combine into one platform. That’s a lot of things to consider visually. We went through many brainstorming sessions before deciding on a few creative directions to explore.
“After few experiments, I knew I had to simplify the rationale behind the visual cues. I ended up with the idea of interconnectedness, something they all had in common.”
To Infinity and…
After crafting a few early concepts loosely inspired by the infinity loop, the Möbius strip and arches/radiations from connectivity, we explored countless variations of the mark. We made simple tweaks and wild new concepts before merging the infinity loop with the Möbius strip concepts into a distinct « S » shape that represents Rock Content.
What exactly is the symbolism behind the infinity loop? It’s the universal metaphor of infinite possibilities, harmony, balance, flow and unlimited potential. We believe the infinity loop accurately represents Rock Content’s evolving mission, vision, and values. The rational, math-related aspect of the infinity loop symbol resonated with the data-driven elements of our content marketing platform. What about the symbolism of the Möbius strip? We uncovered this fascinating concept while researching ways to visualize the effectiveness of data. It’s a powerful symbol of never-ending transformation and unity across the multidimensional.
Once we decided to blend these two concepts into our stylized « S », we fine-tuned the sharp edges and played with the roundness and width of each curve. We explored different fuchsia, magenta and orange colors before finalizing on a bright, profound style. The logomark is paired with a geometric sans serif font with the highly legible and harmonious Galano Grotesque. The intense warm and dynamic color palette of the symbol is grounded by the charcoal lowercase wordmark for a balanced and versatile arrangement.
The Brand, the Look, the Feel
Our new logo isn’t the only thing we’ve been working on. We’re completely updating our branding across all mediums – from our brand new website to our product interface, messaging, and more. The energetic motion of our new logo inspired us to carry these same ideas throughout our rebrand by using geometric shapes and icons complimented by bright contrasting colors, and round legible typography. We’re ecstatic to share our transformed look with the world! See more at scribblelive.com.
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Eddie Shrake is the Senior Brand Designer at Rock Content.
