Branding, ads, and print design for the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors
This 75 year old company has a large collection of long-time members, so rebranding it we had to be sure to pay respect to the brand and celebrate it’s age with our new designs. In addition to a new logo and brand guidelines we also created advertisements, print materials, enamel pins, and even an issue of their quarterly magazine.
Evolving a 75 year old brand without losing the love of it’s members.
Research, research, research
A fun part of being a designer is getting to steep yourself in information about some field you know absolutely nothing about, and this was definitely the case with SIOR. Through talking with members and stakeholders I went from knowing nothing about realty groups to understanding how its members see themselves as being part of a long-honored tradition, how wearing the SIOR pin is something they have great pride in, and how the small communities in each city were close-knit families of supporting members.
Concept testing
After designing a series of great concepts we did extensive testing with existing members to gauge reactions. The intensity of the response was unexpected and some of the designs got torn to pieces by these emotional and invested members of the group. It was an incredible learning experience and helped guide us to create a logo that truly honored the traditions of this group instead of something that felt fashionable or overly modern. The final shape of the mark is an evolution of their original logo, with inspiration taken from Mercedes and other classic car brands.
The mag
In addition to the brand and collateral we also redesigned and established the guidelines for their monthly industry magazine, the SIOR Report. This was a fun project, especially figuring out how to set the rules that would enable a small in-house design team to create visually striking title pages for the cover stories.