Challenge
In an increasingly digital world, the importance of personal service and relationships is often overlooked. With its 27-year reputation of providing leadership solutions for the mining industry, Swann is known for its diverse specialist teams, bringing different perspectives and custom solutions to clients’ unique leadership challenges.
With ambitions to grow, Swann created a new brand called Cygnet within its portfolio to penetrate new areas of the market. Cygnet focuses on professional search and selection to build high performing teams that maximize value. This requires an agile and proactive data-driven approach to recruitment, a proposition that sits at Cygnet’s heart and sets it apart from Swann.
Idea
Swann’s new core positioning reflects the organization’s focus on partnering with clients as strategic advisors, providing insight, advice and tailored leadership solutions to address the industry’s ever-increasing complexity.
To visually unite Swann and Cygnet, the organization also needed a brand architecture and identity solution. Working closely with the leadership team, Brandpie designed a ‘digital first’ swan symbol; a much simplified and modernized expression of their existing symbol and one that imbues precision, dynamism and personability.
Collectively, Brandpie’s new brand positioning and creative execution for Swann and Cygnet forms a comprehensive and compelling strategy designed to ensure that the organisation continues to express its passion and single purpose, to help the natural resources and industrial sectors thrive and grow.
Brandpie really got under the skin of our business, coming up with forward-thinking ideas that immediately challenged and impressed us. Their designs have helped to position us for future growth while remaining respectful of our 27-year history.Lorraine Meldrum
Group CEO
As Swann is a global executive search and advisory firm focused specifically on mining, it was particularly important to reflect ‘precision’ in the symbol. This was achieved by chamfering the terminals of the key-lines of the head and the wings to a sharp point.
Dynamism was conveyed in the direction of the wings of the symbol; drawn pointing upwards at 45 degrees, suggestive of growth and positivity.
Personability was reflected in the soft curves of the head and neck and the rounded terminals on the base of the wings.
To create a familial feel between Swann Group brands, Brandpie created individual wordmarks.
Each letter of ‘Swann’ and ‘Cygnet’ has been carefully crafted to reflect the characteristics of the new digital swan symbol, creating distinctive wordmarks that imbue Swann Group’s brand values while also providing scope for the visual identity to reflect the personality of each individual business.
Swann and Cygnet’s built out visual identity systems are respectively designed to emphasize certain brand characteristics: Swann calls out confidentiality, discretion and professionalism through the use of a premium color palette, abstract imagery and conservative typography, whereas Cygnet’s more contemporary color palette, layouts and typography reflect the firm’s bold, driven, technology focus.
