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The Business Network – brand refresh

The Business Network business is a Membership organisation for companies, predominantly, but not exclusively, in the SME sector. Members are provided with a monthly networking opportunity, based on a long established, “round-table,” lunchtime format, aimed at providing an environment for senior decision-makers to build long-term business relationships as well as exchange ideas and “knowledge-share”.

A new brand for a changing world

After many years running The Business Network, Russell and Helen Bennett felt that the brand needed a complete refresh, which coincided with having to pivot their business, and run online, “virtual” events, as the physical “round-table” events were prohibited under the COVID-19 lockdown rules. 

The current branding had served them incredibly well, for over 10 years. But with COVID-19, things had changed almost over night! Looking ahead, they realised that the new branding for The Business Network would need to align and support a new world, consisting of “physical” and “virtual” networking events.

Plus, they knew that the brand needed updating – displaying a more contemporary aesthetic, whilst embodying and communicating its value proposition:

Helping Members make mutually beneficial business connections. And help make the expertise of Members more visible.

Helen and Russell approached and invited Kite in the summer of 2020, to work on this exciting and important project, which we were thrilled and delighted to do, and to be involved with. As members of The Business Network – Bryan James, Creative Director of Kite, came with an imbedded knowledge and personal experience of belonging to The Business Network, which he was able to draw upon and get under the skin of the brand.

Creating a logo with purpose

The first phase of the re-brand was to create a new logo for The Business Network. Using our Emotional Marketing specialism, Kite’s design team got their creative juices flowing, and set about creating a variety of new logos – applying the psychology of colour and type, combined with a graphical device – creating a strong lock-up.

One of the biggest challenges our design team faced, was the consideration of The Business Network’s long standing and established logo, which utilised a “hand shake”. Following in-depth brainstorming and exploring various ways to articulate The Business Network’s brand, including the use of a “handshake” graphic as part of the new logo, our designers concluded that this would not work as a visual cue, to straddle both, the “physical” and “virtual” networking events. And as importantly, we a felt a “handshake” graphic did not wholly reflect and communicate The Business Network’s brand proposition.

Kite created and presented a variety of different logo designs and rationales for each. Following rigorous filtering and a series of design developments, we worked in close collaboration with Russell, and arrived at a final logo, that both he and Helen could be proud of. And one that strongly represented their business and resonated with members, as well attracting new people to The Business Network. 

For the chosen logo, we used a contemporary, sans-serif typeface called Proxima Nova. With its modern cut and confident stance, it gives The Business Network brand a professional and self-assured aesthetic. Integral to the new logo is a radial graphic. This represents, as members get to know each other, their circle of influence increases within the Membership, leading to mutually beneficial business connections. With the concentric circles, emanating from the centre and spiralling outwards, also communicates increased visibility of Members, like a ripple effect.

The selected colour palette is contemporary (but not jazzy), and carefully curated to provide a strong visual language, that reinforces the dynamism and premium offering of The Business Network.

We are incredibly proud of the new logo we created for The Business Network, which we used as the basis, to establish the visual language for The Business Network’s new website that we created and completed in April 2021. www.business-network.co.uk