The Millers came to us with a fun challenge, they wanted to reinvent their commercial video production company with a new name, a new brand, a new website, and a new focus. They had big dreams for the company, and wanted a brand that felt like them now, but would also grow with them into the future. We love longevity, and our goal is always to create a lasting, flexible identity that will feel relevant for years and years to come.
We started with strategy; exploring their goals, defining brand values, and learning the marketplace. We then began to brainstorm name ideas. We knew we wanted something quick, unique, and poppy; something that sounded like an established and trustworthy company. We took references from Aaron’s past as a musician and landed on Forte, a musical term denoting a louder part of the dynamic range. Besides just sounding nice, we loved the reference to amplification, taking their customer’s work and making it loud through quality video. The double meaning of forte as “a thing at which someone excels” was the icing on the cake: “film is our forte”.
Once the name was settled we moved into the logo, we tried a bunch of literal marks and icons of film equipment, but ended up landing on an abstract mark. Initially built from the curve of the “f” in the wordmark, it felt like volume turning up, it felt like movement, it felt like collaboration, it felt like forte.
As we expanded into the rest of the brand, we landed quickly on our color palette, an incredibly cozy set of colors that felt timeless and inviting. For graphics, we relied on simple shapes remixed with gradient and texture. The corners of the icon became heavily rounded corners on rectangles to organize information and content. The primary application of the brand was the website, which we designed and built from scratch to pay off the wonderful cozy vibes we’d developed so far.
