Our award-winning logo for BTY Group received the bronze medal in the A’ Design Awards in Como, Italy in 2022.
Of all the things we do at Etude.Digital, nothing takes more work and is deceptively complex than what goes into designing a brand identity. In particular, a logo has so many values it needs to represent, and it needs to do so with radical simplicity. It takes a lot of work to communicate a clear set of values and vision in one stylized and straightforward idea.
1st Step - Actionable Intelligence
Our goal is to understand thoroughly what our client does and be able to define it in a simple thought. This statement should describe beyond the services or products they sell; we need to understand what the client “ultimately” sells:
BTY Group provides real intelligence to transform the built environment for people, the planet, and collective prosperity.
In growing cities worldwide, BTY’s award-winning independent professional services push the built environment forward through viable projects that provide the foundation for thriving and sustainable communities.
2nd Step - Create a Brand Benchmark
As a second step, we need to define a set of branding principles that will be our north star and benchmark by which we measure all efforts:
BTY’s Brand Guiding Principles:
In growing cities worldwide, BTY’s award-winning independent professional services push the built environment forward through viable projects that provide the foundation for thriving and sustainable communities by focusing on:
The Future.
With the exponential revolution that computing power and artificial intelligence are bringing to our lives, we need to ensure that all decisions shaping the communities of the future are rooted in:
Real Intelligence.
BTY takes a stand against artificial intelligence by understanding that it is a tool and not the end game. The critical decisions shaping humanity’s future will have to come from:
Human Capital.
BTY believes in people that act locally yet think globally. People that are hungry to make the world a better place and have the drive and intelligence to do so. BTY believes that its role in shaping the communities of the future is to serve as a:
Catalyst.
BTY understands its purpose to be an agent of progress and innovation by providing real intelligence to transform the built environment for people, the planet, and collective prosperity.
Having established our guiding principles and strategic direction, we can begin the design process. Designing a brand identity without a clear strategy and guiding principles is like starting a trip without a plan or a map. It sounds like an exciting adventure, but most likely, it will take longer to get to where you want to go.
3rd Step - Build Sweat Equity
Start drawing. Let the research begin.
A fundamental aspect commonly forgotten these days is to always start sketching by hand using an old-fashioned pencil. This makes sure you are using the correct side of the brain where your creativity resides, allowing a much richer set of options to be drawn and considered.
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Thomas Edison
At this stage, we are looking at the most essential components, trying to define the direction of the shape; the brain starts exploding with newer ideas that were not thought out before.
Once an idea has been established as the desired direction, then we begin reducing it to its most essential components, no different than the process that needs to happen between chicken stock and a great consomme. All great logos are the equivalent of a consomme, reduced to its best parts, removing all the unnecessary items. Leaving you with an irrefutable solution.
The final outcome is the result of hard work from countless explorations. Above is a small sample of the number of options that were evaluated at the pencil stage for this logo.
The Final Solution -an Award-Winning Logo
About the Logomark
BTY’s new logomark is an analytical & mathematical interpretation of the moment a gennaker sail gets deployed. It is also inspired by the disruption that a gennaker sail brought to the sailboat racing world.
This logomark represents the excitement of a more purposeful future, a future of people leading technology, not the other way around.
A gennaker sail provides efficiency and speed. Maximum lift with minimum resistance. Gennaker sails were integral in the changes that allowed boats formerly racing at 35km/h to increase their speed upwards of 100 km/h.
But just like artificial intelligence, without people making the right decisions while racing the boat, the boat’s newly acquired performance and speed would be without purpose.
You can see how this brand identity has been applied in our BTY project page here.
CONCLUSION
If you have made it this far, you now have an insight into the complexity of ideas and values that go into the design of an award-winning logo. To make it memorable, we had to commit to expressing this set of values and ideas with radical simplicity and clarity.
We sincerely hope you like the final design solution; more importantly, BTY Group believes it represents them perfectly. We believe it will make BTY Group stand out in a market saturated with old and starchy logos and wordmarks coloured in boring blues and grays.
