More, more, more.
When it comes to brand development, it’s sometimes difficult to foresee every possible thing that needs to be defined. Sure, there are basics to be covered—logo and usage, typeface and rules, color swatches, guidelines on photography, maybe even some design elements that help make things more ownable. However, things like data visualization, animation, and even illustration can be left undefined at a brand launch.
That’s where we enter stage right. When it comes time to execute and go to market is when the discovery is made: A lot of questions need to be asked, and rules previously undefined need to be agreed upon.
Rocket science.
For Intelsat, we had the good fortune of working on a robust foundation that included rich, ownable graphical touches and tone guidance that made its brand far more mature than most organizations even twice its size. However, time and time again it became clear that there hadn’t been a lot of exploration done in the realm of illustration or data viz—two extremely useful tools for describing the complexities of operating objects in outer space. It literally is rocket science.
Building the car as you drive it.
In many cases, the groundwork for this brand extension happened organically when developing market-ready assets—from social posts and infographics, to ebooks and explainer videos. Every step along the way we (and by we, we mean our team and Intelsat’s) learned something new—refining rules with each new opportunity.
Carbon fiber, a.k.a. Goth Earth.
A crucial moment in development was an execution where the team huddled up and defined visual styles that could be applied to many assets with everything from data visualization to video animations. On one snowy evening in Portland Oregon (oh yeah, it snows every once and a while here and everything shuts down) we started working on a style we dubbed “Goth Earth”—an effort to show space in a half-realistic, half-abstract way that felt sophisticated, technical, and ownable.
Intelsat Environment Social Short
Bringing it home.
While it was clear more fleshing out needed to be done, it was one of those “aha!” moments that become a bedrock of everything moving forward—finally solidified and road-tested in two enormously important projects at the end of 2023.
Intelsat Social 'CatSat'
About the client
They broadcasted the moon landing. No big deal. WIth decades of communications firsts under their belt, Intelsat delivers high-performance satellite connectivity solutions to the aviation, mobile communications, maritime, and media industries, as well as government.
What started as one campaign for one business unit has grown into work spanning their entire organization. From brand exploration to content creation, social, events, and more—there isn’t much we haven’t touched.