Helping a startup elevate its brand in order to heal the world’s supply chain.
I came to Stord in mid-2021 as a Senior Brand Designer. I helped bring a small brand out of its first iteration and graduate to the level of a global competitor as the pioneer of “Cloud Supply Chain”. We selected Studio Freight in Brooklyn, NY as the firm to not only refresh our identity but to give us a web presence unlike any other in the logistics and supply chain space.
Credits: Studio Freight (design, development), Mario Paganini (stakeholder, strategy), John Williams (creative direction), Myself (direction, brand advisor)
The prior identity was very limited.
The design in place around the original mark was very basic, had no sense of dynamism, didn’t inspire nor disrupt the logistics space as it intended, and was made on a quick turn. It had semblances of a system tacked onto it over the years.
We sought a partner to help.
We chose Studio Freight out of Brooklyn, NY. Working with them, we performed a brand audit and threw everything on the wall. Ultimately, we decided we wanted the brand to be:
disruptive
break industry standards
push visual boundaries
come with a serious design system
From here, Freight began exploring visual history, current trends, and exciting ideas for us to mull over.
Studio Freight Style Moodboards
Refined Design System
Simultaneously, we explored a new mark.
Something that really bothered us was that a “box” mark was susceptible to “collapse”, like the nature of cardboard boxes. Stord needed to be something strong, impenetrable, and clear. The roundedness of the S and circular/pointed shapes began to emerge as front runners.
SF went as far as to begin crafting in the style of old trucking logos, to give us visual street cred in the logistics world. Something new that honoring the past got very close.
Studio Freight Logo Exploration
The final brand mark came into view when we encased a triangle into a unique shape we could own. A strong evolution from the box, this new form, “the emblem”, displays the strength of trust you can place in Stord to help make your supply chain a competitive advantage.
Final Mark and Variants
But you can’t disrupt with just the basics…
SF brought in 3D artist Tom Hoying to render elements for us to show what logistics could be seen as. We guided them around certain lighting effects, dramaticism, and functionalities we desired to give a unified feeling and reason to the illustrations.
Then we brought it all together online.
Studio Freight’s team of devs took our vision of having the best website in logistics and took us down to “Stord City”. Built on gaming code, the user can scroll through each part of the supply chain in the city and see how Stord offers it better than our competitors. Visit stord.com for more (and to visit Stord City, find the secret text under the tower).
We then proceeded with identity guidelines. As our single source of truth, we sought input from diverse sources across the company, and made them easily accessible for all.
Learnings & Results
The overhaul of the brand was immediately bought into by the two founders, the exec team, and a few customers that had just come onboard with Stord’s services. It made some big waves across the 3PL and supply chain industry on LinkedIn and at a few tradeshows as the talk of the town, visually. Having just come from the agency side to this role, I understood the dexterity needed to effectively balance the communication and deliverables with Studio Freight, and learned how to work as the “client” in receiving new creative ideas for the first time.
