Marika Mihalache › Living – Rebranding: strategy, identity, web, print +

Living - Rebranding: strategy, identity, web, print +Pro

ject description/briefing: create a new visual identity, strategy and website for the luxury real-estate brand Living. The image has to be aligned with the target, the top notch services and the off-line extensions of the brand and stand-out from the increasing clutter in the niche market that belongs too.

Very important, the message has to be clear and has to attract, especially, clients that want to sell their property through Living not only clients that need to find a house. The big number of properties have to be easy to navigate, organised and all the brand touch points have to deliver quality. The whole atmospherics needs to breath and live excellency and sustain an “aspirational brand” in the target’s perception.

old image: The branding was not aligned with the target, the whole identity was outdated, heavy, the website was hard to navigate and the properties were not shown at their best with small, bad quality pictures.

Approach & solution: after careful research of the real-estate business, interviews with the stakeholders and the real estate agents - learning from their experiences and listening to their needs, analysing the target, researching the market and taking into consideration the business goals, we created the concept of “art collection” for their listings, combined with beautifully written strategic copy aligned with the values and a high-end elegant design & image for all the brand elements and extensions: "A collection of thrilling properties!"

A human 2 human experience, a brand focused on delivering value and meaning through commitment and transparency:

“A different way of understanding luxury”, “Elite experts in the art of living that live the art of selling and understand the art of living”.

Logotype, icons and key visuals: All the visual elements of the brand breath elegance, simplicity and beauty. Logotype refresh: The archer is the symbol of the brand for years and it’s emotionally linked to the stakeholders. We objectively analysed the benefit of keeping it as a symbol and we came to the conclusion that it works as it is a clear statement of the values of Living: precision, elegance, goal accomplishment and discipline.

With the help of talented designer Bianca Dumitrascu, the logotype was refreshed and given a clean, strong and beautiful modern look. Part of the visual playground, we developed a “royal stamp” that resembles the royal approval marks to relate it to the concept of “royal treatment experience” that comes with the brand’s services.

The two chosen typographies stand for elegance, grace and tradition: Didot and Verdana. The main color gets a revival by up-toning it a bit and giving it more life and vitality, yet keeping it vibrant and transmitting passion and strength.

The icons that build the visual playground are specifically designed for the brand, based on the same graphic balance and grace as the other elements.

We detected the 3 key Services and gave them an identity of their own with different user gains and value propositions: Premium Buy, Exclusive Sell and Elite Rent - in order to emphasise their powerful efficiency and quality.

Website: Taking into account that Living customers demand excellence in any service, we designed and developed the website by previously studying and understanding carefully the different user roles to offer a clean and easy browsing experience and, at the same time, highlight the brand added values, key services and maximize the beauty of the properties.

For these reasons, we made very detailed wireframes and various corrections in the process with the Manekoteam of designers the developers and the stakeholders. In these wireframes, we placed voice&tone brand inputs, and strategic business goals to help us and the stakeholders understand and create a more efficient new structure and immerse in the brand, in order to deliver a more assertive design and better-flowing UX/UI.

With rigorous organisation of the information, that has a strong “Why” behind every block and marks key4user info discovered in the previous phase, we made a complex architecture of information accesible and understandable.

Once solving the the challenge of navigation and making it efficient not only for the user but also for the business goals, we concentrated on offering hi-end design that will accompany and elevate the quality of Living's services and the spaces it commercialises. The web space has to accomplish its practical role and at the same time generate emotion, a space that breathes the professionalism and commitment of Living, but also comfort, sensitivity and exclusivity.

Blog posts

We made the blog an active efficient information tool for the user, sharing information about the areas where Living has properties and integrating fragments into the property-file page. This helps the client understand more about the area he is interested in, creates quality content and is SEO-friendly.

SEO We made a detailed SEO study and integrated essential and advanced elements to optimize to the maximum the efficiency of the website across search engines. The copy was adapted to the key words without losing the brand voice & tone, a true work of balance with the help of copywriter Cristina Altimir.

The press campaign for La Vanguardia and El Periódico

By carefully choosing the best image for the property advertised that week and elegantly integrating the claim, we manage to create a elegant, clean and straight-to-the-point ad that ran every Sunday full-page 1year in the two most important papers in Catalunya.

EVENT CONCEPT & PRODUCTION:

Living participated in two hi-class events during our collaboration:

Polo CSIO Barcelona 105th Edition and Godó Trophy 65th Edition.

We created the concept, the installations, managed the production, designed specific promotional materials and participated actively in the activities that we proposed to integrate as part of the events.

The Polo CSIO Barcelona 105th Edition

Concept: Vernissage “A collection of thrilling properties”

Stand Design & production: We prepared the stand as if it was a hi-end art gallery. The futuristic white designer furniture gave the space a feeling of lightness and modernity: two bar like tables and stools for adults and 2 small rocking horse chairs for kids were installed in the white wall space where we hanged amazing printed picture of properties. To give an analog and elegant touch we painted the frames and the a mural with the claim: "Úna colección de propiedades que emocionan!" in beautiful hand lettering in situ in order to create the perfect minimalist setting for the selected properties displayed on big prints and screen tv. One frame was left empty specifically with the message “ Your Living property” to encourage participants to sell their property with Living.

Objective: leads for property owners, property seekers and brand awareness

Activities: The main attraction was the live sketching session for the kids, during 3 days, the visual artist Marika would be drawing and giving the kids that were passing by a personalised portrait stamped with the logo of the event. The activity created a lot of animation and awareness of the stand. Interaction was welcome also with the magnet panels that everybody would have to choose a word inspired by the brand.

Promo materials: event logo, invitation, magnets with words from the Living brand vocabulary, cowboy hats, personalised drawings, stamps with the event logo.

VIPs Participants: Mariona Planas, etc.

Note: The Polo Event was produced before the official logotype change, so you can see the old one in all the materials.

Production and live sketching session:

Official event media:

Photos: https://www.facebook.com/pg/living.oficial/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1430763386961702

Video: https://www.facebook.com/living.oficial/videos/1205326549505388/

https://www.ccv.adobe.com/v1/player/ccv/QigEtDa-d5b/embed?bgcolor=%23191919

The Godó Trophy 65th Edition

Concept: We say GAME, SET, MATCH in Luxury Real Estate” The space was based on drawing parallels between "the white sport" and the luxury real estate world. These two ideas, tennis and luxury real estate, seem far apart at first glance but, when you take a closer look, you realize they have many things in common. Both ask for their professionals to have a great technique control, strategy, concentration, effort and an enormous dedication. And both are an art. We also made a short concept video. Besides, even though it may look like it is an individual effort, behind every success (it doesn’t matter if it’s winning a match or finding or selling a luxury property) there’s the work of a whole team of professionals that gave it their best.

Stand Design: This time the space works as a elegand black box, as we dressed the walls in matte black mousseboard and hanged 3D printed white tennis objects: raquets, balls. This objects communicate between eachother with white dynamic lines, very sporty, that we also use to mark short phrases that explain the concept. The art gallery concept of the brand is also present here, as we show the beautiful printed pictures with a past-part-tout typical of art work. We 3D printed the “Royal Living Stamp” and placed it on the black walls under the screen tv where the movies of the properties where displayed. Situated at right side of the entrance and the new logo, 3d printed at 110cm height, looking as if it was floating ( fixed on a transparend metacrylate board) acted as a separation line and an intimacy creator from inside. The high-end design furniture is light and black, almost unseen in the space. The table held beautiful red roses and copies of the book we designed specially for living and promo materials.

Objective: quality leads: property owners, property seekers and brand awareness.

Activities: The main attraction was the book signing and rose giving away as the event was at the same time as St. Jordi one of the most important and beautiful catalan Festives. Interaction was welcome also with the magnet panels that everybody would have to choose a word inspired by the brand.

Promo materials: illustrated book with brand personalized story, corporate red St. Jordi roses with personalized stamps and event logo, invitation, leaflets with properties, homemade bio cookies with logo.

VIPs Participants: Mariona Planas, etc.

Note: The Godó event was produced before the official logotype change, so you can see the old one in all the materials.

THE BOOK “Do you want to live with me?” / "Quieres vivir conmigo?"

by Marika x Living

Event: Saint Jordi by Living @ The Godó Trophy 65th Edition.

Concept: Exploring the challenges couples confront when finding the perfect place to move in together and aligning it with the brand promise of Living - finding the perfect house and listening carefully to their clients. Every space of the house has a defining phrase that is motivational, emotional and emphatic. The illustration were done in watercolour and ink by Marika, that also developed the copy, and the lettering and DTP by Bianca Dumitrascu.