Have a look at this:
You know what it is immediately - but more importantly - you feel something about it. Good or bad, you feel it. And we do it over and over and over again with brands. Apple, Coke, even brands in the arts industry - we pour emotion into them. Because of this, rebrands can be risky. Remember Gap’s rebranding misstep? That is why we have taken our own rebrand slowly. With plenty of time for research and feedback. Our current brand - black and deep pink with Louie at the helm - has been with us for a long time. Louie has always been a part of the brand and we have tried our best to imbue him with a little personality when we can. But as much as we love Louie he couldn’t quite capture the company we have evolved into. As we started to explore where we wanted to go with the new branding, the first step was trying to hone in on our core values - figuring out who we really are. Part of that process was also getting a better understanding of how customers viewed us. Through our early research, there were three main ideas that stood out about the perception of Ticketsolve: our excellent customer support, our human approach to everything we do, and Ticketsolve as problem solvers. These ideas really seemed to resonate with customers, but equally important, they resonated internally. Especially intriguing were the ideas around friendliness and solving problems. The challenge was how to visually communicate these ideas. How do we encompass all that in a brand identity? Could Louie do that for us or did we need something new?
Working with a professional branding company has meant we were able to explore these ideas further. They were able to bring our story to life exploring the idea of Ticketsolve as problem solvers, while still keeping the very human face of Ticketsolve intact.
The idea we hit upon when thinking about Ticketsolve’s main messages, was around the idea of a puzzle. Puzzles are really interesting as a concept. There are many pieces, when put together form a coherent picture. They can be simple or complex. You can work on them by yourself, but it is much more fun to work on them with others. They require problem-solving skills, the ability to see the bigger picture and even creativity. Puzzles are a great analogy to our Ticketsolve work. The incomplete puzzle represents potential challenges and problems arts organisations face. Ticketsolve helps to solve the puzzle. We help arts organisations overcome these challenges, through a feature-rich platform, and direct collaboration and consultation with customers.
Our new brand id is a tangram (dissection puzzle consisting of flat shapes called tans). When the geometric tans are put together they can form a variety of different shapes. For Ticketsolve, this works well on so many levels:
Both visually and conceptually the puzzle can be an engaging a unique way to convey our messaging.