Another Similar rebrand

On the Design Week website the other day, I noticed an article about Design Bridge creating a new identity for Homebase. Apparently one of the aims was to appeal to a broader range of customers. It has been classed as a re brand but I don't think that is the case. I have included this as there seems to be a lot of subtle re branding at the moment where the new design is not that different from the old one.

All they have done is apply a subtle gradient. What made me think was what would happen, as a design student, we were given the original logo identity and asked to re-design it. If we had then presented the second design, how well would it be received? We are always taught to push the boundaries and delve deeper into our understanding of a brief but what happened here?

There is a quote from Becky Brock, the brand controller at Homebase:


"We appointed Design Bridge because they are renowned for digging deeper and bringing consumer insight and the integrity of the brand through to the creative solution".


Now don't get me wrong, Design Bridge are a fantastic agency and have won countless awards for their sterling efforts but I am at a loss to understand if it was worth doing.

I always think of the furore over the Tropicana brand which was perfect to begin with. They stress their juice is 100% pure and natural. So what could be better than sticking a straw into an orange. It was fine as it was and shouldn't have had a radical makeover because in the end the sales plummeted and they ended up trying to take the design agency to court to save face.

On a sad note, 300 Million has been forced to close. The problem was that a major client was in debt themselves and couldn't pay its bills and also they lost another major client at the end of last year. There are so many companies in trouble because of their clients not paying their bills on time or not at all so there is an eventual knock on effect. Always sad when an award winning agency falls.

With regards to invoicing clients, it is something I have been looking at recently with a choice of going freelance sooner than later. In the past I always insisted on staged payments before I started any work and if they found this unacceptable, I was more inclined to lose the work than having to worry if they were totally committed. Something that I will touch on again soon as the new copy of Computer Arts has some great features about going freelance.