Developing a brand world and making it tangible
Fidlock manufactures innovative magnetic-mechanical fasteners for bags, shoes, helmets, and many other products that turn everyday opening, closing, and fastening into an aha experience. Founded in 2007 as a one-person start-up, Fidlock has since grown into a medium-sized company with over 90 employees and sales partners in 40 countries.
Identifying the challenges
But dynamic growth also brings new challenges:
How to communicate Fidlock's brand personality and brand strategy to new employees, partners, and customers and make it tangible? We were entrusted with this task and worked closely with various stakeholders to conduct research and interviews. The starting signal was an internal brand sprint workshop. The aim was to:
→ To conduct structured discussions about the Fidlock brand.
→ To define and examine the corporate identity and explore the need for realignment or readjustment.
→ Express and visualize insights and ideas.
→ Evaluate previous brand communication in light of the newly gained insights.
→ Involving employees in the brand development process.
Story telling of the brand
With the input from the brand workshop, we developed a brand book as an entry ticket to the Fidlock brand world.
The book communicates to a broad target group of people interested in the brand and stakeholders with a personal approach at eye level:
→ what Fidlock is and where the brand comes from, what the people at Fidlock do, how they do it, and for what reasons (What, How, Why)
→ what they are like, what drives them, what they believe in, and what they dream of (Personality, Values, Vision) and
→ what makes the readers addressed an integral and significant part of Fidlock! (Culture)
Figures:
brand book prototypes
To make the book's reading entertaining and ensure broad accessibility, the brand book is enriched with the Fidlock founding story as a brand comic, exciting interviews with employees, heavy users, and long-standing brand companions, and a behind-the-scenes photo story.
The brand book was created in collaboration with graphic designer → Hannes Nordiek.
Brand Design Guide
In addition to the brand book, the first consistent brand design guide for the Fidlock brand was created based on the potential for improvement in brand communication identified in the brand workshop.
The Brand Design Guide, which documents the brand and communication strategy using a variety of practical application examples, regulates the use of all important design elements of the corporate design - from the logo to colors, typography, graphics, layouts and imagery. The primary goal is to ensure a uniform brand presence at all touchpoints by providing employees and external service providers with clear guidelines for the design process. This is achieved without restricting their individual creativity and design expertise, ensuring that the potential for strong ideas is not left untapped.