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How We Formed Our Brand Identity

We’re not the ones to be all talk and no action, so instead of providing you with more theoretical information, we decided to get practical and vulnerable. Today, we are presenting how we formed our brand identity.

Atlas Authentica poster with our slogan: Morphing Brands

Forming our brand identity didn’t start with visuals. We started by defining who we are, our why, our values, finding our name and our brand personality. We then continued by defining our internal culture, our brand voice and key messages. Visual identity came last, which enabled us to incorporate all of the previously described elements into a visual blend that perfectly reflects our brand as a whole.

Who are we?

Atlas Authentica is a creative studio focused on brand strategy and branding. Our approach is agile, meaning we build brands from the inside out, aligning them with the ever-changing market and its customers in the long-run. We help passionate small business owners grow their brands in the long, thorough strategy – meaning we help them implement it and adapt it according to objective results—everything to keep the branding powerful and consistent.

Our why

To define our why, we needed to think about what and how. Having our what and how defined, we formed our why. Here’s what we concluded.

  • What: brand strategy, agile branding, branding, brand identity development, visual identity design, business design, coaching, consulting, brand research, brand validation.
  • How: transforming conscious businesses, guiding SMB through their brand journey, agile strategy frameworks, original interactive tools, and solutions for implementation, thorough research, in-depth auditing, specialized in green living & well-being industry, well-networked, international grounds.
  • Why: To morph resistant and disruptive brands. To make the future more green and more kind. To make business ideas grow beyond dreams.

Our values

Values are essential to us in everything we do. We think about them quite a lot during our working processes, but defining them came quite naturally. Our six core values are listed below.

  • Agility. Disrupting the static world of one-time brand strategy services.
  • Transparency. We believe in shared knowledge, displaying processes openly and always referring to the source.
  • Interdisciplinarity. By combining knowledge of strategy, marketing, sales, design, business design, user experience, customer experience, service design and design thinking, we aim to generate full-stack impact.
  • Curiosity. Digging deep provides us with better insights.
  • Integrity. Should probably be higher on the list.
  • Circularity. We strive to make this world a better place by shaping our partners into more sustainable and conscious businesses.

Our name

Why Atlas? Why Authentica?

  • Atlas, a book of maps or charts. Navigating you through the world of business.
  • Atlas, the topmost vertebra of a backbone, supporting head and brain – the part of the body we cannot live nor function without. Just like a strategy.
  • Atlas, the Greek Titan who for his part in the Titans’ revolt against the gods is forced by Zeus to support the heavens on his shoulders. To hold up and carry the brands.

Authentica is pretty self-explanatory. We aim to work solely with passionate business owners that are building purpose-driven brands. 100% authentic, 100% pure. While doing so, we strive to stay authentic ourselves and do the best work we can possibly do.

Atlas Authentica Visual

Brand personality

Archetype: sage

A sage brand provides guidance and helps consumers feel more informed to make better decisions. A sage values critical thinking, objectivity, sharing knowledge, and research. 

If you aren’t familiar with the archetypes yet, check out our Instagram stories highlight.

We also took some time to define our brand personality with the help of our brand personality worksheet.

Our two main personality dimensions are sincerity and competence with a splash of excitement.

Atlas Authentica's Brand Personality

Our culture

Atlas Authentica is a collective of young minds. We value interdisciplinarity and pride ourselves in being able to connect talent from different areas of expertise. Only that way, we are confident about bringing the best results to our clients. As a remote team, we value our freedom and ability to adapt to each and every day. Growth mindset unites us – learning new things, discussions and knowledge sharing are our main drivers. In order to fuel that eagerness to grow, we host monthly educational workshops for our co-workers and knowledge-sharing sessions, when each team member gets a chance to share what new they’ve learned recently. Easy-going brainstorming, in-depth discussions and immense love for comfy brunches unites us into a group connected by more than working hours. We take life, time and organization very seriously, but we don’t let that kill our creativity.

Brand Voice

Atlas Authentica is a small team of people who are easy-going, calm, and friendly. Our team loves laughing and wearing comfy clothes to work. Feeling relaxed makes strategies flow with much less effort. Our brainstorming sessions involve brunching and browsing through a vast collection of books filled with scribbles and doodles. We’re professional, yet sassy when appropriate. We don’t want to sway our clients and pretend we’re something we’re not. Therefore, we want our free spirit to be reflected through our works and digital voice.

Our voice: calm, serious, yet informal (occasional personal inputs) – casual, respectful, matter-of-fact, vibrant, familiar, smart.

Key messages

Our key messages revolve around agility, sustainability, brand strategy and building relationships. We have messages defined for each of the mentioned categories.

Here’s our example of key messages about brand strategy that we always strive to communicate:

  • Brand strategy is a blueprint to brand success, stellar business performance and long-term growth.
  • Crafting brands that drive business success.
  • Business strategy, marketing strategy, and luck do not bring you long-term advocates and envy-worthy brand experience. Brand strategy does.
  • Stop taking screenshots of brands you love. Become one.

Our visual identity

Because our slogan is “morphing brands” one of the critical elements of our visual identity are morphing orbs that represent change, agility, flexibility and also how each brand strategy is entirely different from client to client.

Atlas Authentica visual identity shapeshifting orbs

With the choice of our colours, we wanted to emphasize previously mentioned characteristics of our studio, so we chose a spectrum of colours that is the best representation of all the varieties of brands and challenges we operate with. The spectrum of our collaboration is endless and ever-changing. Colour shifting puts an additional emphasis on the agility aspect of our work.

Atlas Authentica visual identity colors

 We put quite some thought in the details, as details are a crucial part of brand strategy. In strategy, not everything is visible, but some elements have to be there to paint a perfect picture. To visually represent this vital aspect of brand strategy, we use halftone dots that are usually only seen when magnified.

Seeing things up close and in detail is what we do with precision and passion. But our goal is to move away from the detail at the finish line and see the whole picture. Making this picture the best possible is our mission within every branding project. When you look at it from afar, the halftone dots are not visible, but that doesn’t mean they are not there. Without them, there would be no picture. Combining the precisely designed 3D spheres with seamless textures and fluid movement with 2D halftone effect depicts precisely that.

Atlas Authentica visual identity halftone

To perfectly round up our brand identity, we defined our typography. Our choice of fonts complements our modern visual identity. They are bold and, at the same time, offer legibility and readability, our brand personality requires. High contrasting weight signifies our daring nature, but at the same time doesn’t steal away the focus from core visual elements (spheres). Typography, as a graphic element, never steals attention from the overall creative idea.

Atlas Authentica visual identity typography (fonts)

If you are currently in the process of defining your visual identity, we have created a Visual Identity Notion template that will help you with the process. 

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If you have a specific question, book a free introductory call and discover how we can work together. 

Founder and lead strategist at studio Atlas Authentica. Her mission is to help businesses form agile and strategy-driven brands as well as mentoring young creative enterpreneurs.