Cumberland Resource Group Brand

DESIGN PROCESS

For this piece, I’ll use it as an opportunity to briefly walk through my branding process.

My branding method has four stages:

Discovery & Education
Research
Exploration
Design Refinement

1. DISCOVERY & EDUCATION

First, I ask questions of the client. A LOT of questions. A few might be:

How does their product work?
What goes into their process?
How do they feel like they’re perceived?
How would they rather be perceived?
Who is their buyer persona?

Other questions are about dichotomy. Of course, a client wants to be all things to everyone, but that’s not possible to communicate. Making them decide between contradicting terms helps them understand who they are and which qualities are most important to communicate.

Using a brand card deck, I like to gamify the experience and ask them to decide between two (or neither) of 50+ pairs. For example:

Innovative vs. Traditional
Crafted vs. Engineered
Exclusive vs. Approachable
Timeless vs. Trendy

This all helps establish the brand’s personality, archetype, and what we hope is communicated to a potential viewer.

Conversations then move to educating the client on what a good brand should accomplish and look like. Mainly, that it should be unique, ownable, and symbolic. It shouldn’t be an illustration of your product or workforce. It should be a visual hook, a symbol of a feeling or quality your brand embodies.

Apple doesn’t have a phone or computer in its logo. Starbucks doesn’t have a coffee cup in theirs. Nike doesn’t depict a shoe. It has a stylized wing: a symbol of mythical strength, speed, and the sky, for which there are no limits to achievement.

I encourage the client to be willing to open themselves to ideas outside the expected.

For Cumberland Resource Group, they were a coal mining conglomerate (which was arguably evil), but they wanted a fresher, less industrial look that still communicated serious work and hinted at the nature of the segment. They felt dated by their stock 1970s text-only logo and wanted something more eye-catching to draw more business, as well as attention from bigger investors and companies looking to buy the company and its operations.

2. RESEARCH

I dig in. I learn about the client, their product, and their industry. As much as I can.

I also tap into my classical literature, mythology, and art history background, exploring the wealth of symbolism and references that might be drawn upon.

In the word cloud of concepts that might be explored for this particular job, one might find:

coal, energy, carbon, light, ground, earth, sun, Apollo, Ra, lyre, chariot, obelisk, archer, fire, Fuji, Freya, Hestia, Prometheus, Vulcan, shovels, spades, plants, ferns, fiddleheads, leaves, fossils, prehistory, coal trains, cars, electricity, power, backhoes, cranes, buckets, miners, helmets with lights, canaries, lanterns, integrity, tradition, history, etc.

If possible, I immerse myself in the brand or product. If it’s restaurant, I go eat there to learn about the complete experience. If it’s for a tech product, I’ll use it for a few days. If it’s for a venue, I’ll go see a show there. Of course, products have varying degrees of availability. For this one, I couldn’t really experience the product as it’s a broad commodity, but I could meet the people who work there, hear their perspective on the company, and try to be sympathetic to their needs.

Then I let that all marinate a bit.

3. EXPLORATION

I sketch. Pencil on paper. A lot of paper.

I fill up sheet after sheet, circling doodles I feel have potential. I try to weave in as many visual elements as possible to build in meaning, relevance, and feeling, while keeping in mind the tone of voice the brand will be projecting and the potential applications the brand will manifest in.

4. DESIGN REFINEMENT

This is where the final mark and logotype take shape in vector form. If the design warrants custom type or vector illustration, this is where those get tightened up.

For me a logo is exceptional when it’s a sort of “visual haiku.” Where nothing is wasted or extraneous and every stroke, color, shape, or other element of the design is intentional, contributing to the brand’s story either in mood or metaphor. Even if it’s decorative, it should mean something. The style could hearken back to a relevant time period. The thinness or thickness of strokes might communicate elegance or strength. The sharpness or roundness of forms may suggest warmth versus aggression. All colors are chosen for not only their aesthetics, but for the symbolism and feelings they convey as well. As you can see in the logo anatomy above, every element of the Cumberland logo was considered and crafted with care and intention to tell both the company’s mission and an elemental story of coal that is millennia old.

Other brand considerations happen here as well. Colors, typefaces, textures, potential swag, and applications of the branding are considered here. For Cumberland, I decided t use the fern form as a graphic element in greens as well as incorporating a topographical map texture to compliment the primary elements.

After all, a brand is more than a logo. It’s the entire mood, personality, tone of voice, and platform for the brand’s voice.