Title	THE HUMAN LAYER
Brand	THE NOVARE GROUP
Product/Service	HUMAN CAPITAL
Category	A02. Rebrand / Refresh of an existing Brand
Entrant	BERGHS SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION Stockholm, SWEDEN
Idea Creation	BERGHS SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION Stockholm, SWEDEN

Name	Company	Position
Tobias Lundqvist	Berghs Studio	Creative Director
Jone Fjellstad	Berghs Studio	Senior Designer
Cecilia Sjödin	Berghs Studio	Account Director
Maxime Jonsson	Berghs Studio	Production Manager

Background

Novare had a nice problem. Success, growth and market diversity meant they’d outgrown their playful, hand-drawn wordmark. They needed one that represented their core values and worked for across all ten of their brands. From Novare Executive Search, who headhunt CEOs for banks, to Novare Potential, who help immigrants integrate into the workforce and into Swedish society. The new identity needed to be as flexible as Novare’s offering is broad. They needed something that captured the wide range of exciting things happening in the company.

Describe the creative idea

The idea was to add the human layer to a more professional word-mark. We wanted to create a symbolic link to the past, and to keep parts of the existing identity that still felt vital. The human element. The juxtaposition offers a counterweight to the human layer, suggesting a conversation, and an harmony between two people. The result is a design system that’s inspired by people and delivers a human layer to to a business that’s all about people.

Describe the execution

It was important that the human layer system could be executed everywhere with flexibility and power. By choosing the Gotham typeface for the word-mark (and for all the body copy) we created an equality between the brand and the content. The colour system is inspired, human, and allows almost unlimited combinations. It allows all ten brands to talk with fidelity. The content system uses a 10 column square. It’s modular, flexible and iconic. But most importantly, the content breaks the underlying grid, making photos of people the real heroes. We reimagined the brand across all touch points. From business cards to brochures, letters to leave-behinds, email signatures to environmental signage. A focus on high-quality soft-touch paper stocks also helped bring the human touch to life.

List the results

Since the launch of the rebrand, Novare has enjoyed strong growth and added two new companies to their group. Thanks to the flexible design system they could instantly implement the design and choose versions of it that fitted their new offerings.