Digital brand guidelines
Brand:
Specsavers (Global)
Channels:
Paid social, Digital Display
My role(s):
Digital Designer, Digital Studio Lead
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In 2018, I was at the forefront of the urgent and transformative global rebranding of Specsavers. Tasked with reviving a brand that had lost its cohesive identity, we received a pressing brief from the CMO to execute a global rebrand within a tight 12-month timeframe.
My specific focus was on defining the new visual identity principles specifically tailored for all paid digital advertising channels. I embraced this responsibility, crafting comprehensive guidelines that paved the way for a consistent and captivating digital presence worldwide.
Our collective efforts culminated in a successful global rebrand in 2019.
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The primary challenges we faced were:
As everything was brand new, any defined principles and guidelines required thorough testing and refinement where necessary to ensure they were practical in the real world.
The lead times for the overall rebrand project and resulting guidelines were insanely tight. It was business critical so there was no flex in the timelines.
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We meticulously tested our proposed guidelines against various real life scenarios to ensure they would be practical once released to each region. Any issues we ran into, we addressed iteratively until we arrived at a suitable solution.
In order to meet the firm deadline, we worked late every night for a few weeks. We were then given time back in lieu post-delivery.
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Clear and concise instructions were produced on how the logo should be used, including minimum safe areas and acceptable/unacceptable background colours.
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We set out clear guidelines around colour and accessibility. Accessibility was something that I championed in particular, despite push back from several directions. Their opinion was that it would be restrictive from a creative perspective. My opinion was that we should be prioritising legibility for the visually impaired over general creativity, especially as we were the world’s largest optometry business.
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Curves were developed to become a key part of our new visual identity. The curves were taken from the ellipses in the corporate logo. The proportions of the ellipses needed to be respected at all times.
The curves could be filled or outlined, etc… so we needed to define clear guidelines around how they should/shouldn’t be used online (which was consistent with offline, where possible).
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We were required to define specific typography rules for online. For example, whereas in print we tightened tracking by 20%, we opened tracking 10% online to enhance legibility/accessibility at smaller sizes e.g. on mobile display ads. We opted for different leading rules as well to make them easier to implement in dynamic creative.
In terms of CTA’s, it was important to define a consistent look and feel to be used globally. This included standard variants to be used, and also considered region-specific variants such as nordic ‘final call’ and CTA combinations.
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We offered examples of various template styles available to be used. We also built subsequent template libraries that were available from the global brand team on request.
Summary
The rebrand was a success, and we nailed the tight deadlines. Our guidelines were shared with all regions and have played a key role in shaping Specsavers’ look and feel online since then.
The guidelines also enabled me to produce a comprehensive template library consisting of paid social, digital display, rich media, native and website assets. These were made available to all regions in a effort to further improve global brand consistency.