The early years
Launched in June 2004, my vision for graphility was to release graphic and web design productions at a faster pace than what seemed to be the norm around me (Belgium) at the time. To this effect, I laid the foundations of an open, honest, and frequent communication with my clients, as well as cementing Agile methodologies in the company’s philosophy.
However, what started as a one-man band caught the attention of colleagues and fellow free-lancers faster than I predicted. Having had different jobs and functions in the past, each person who knew me promoted me from their own point of view. “I know this all-round designer/developer guy”, “I know a creative you could commission for your photography event”, “I bet this Belgian artist can help out with your interior design project”, they would say. While they were not wrong, and I am ever so grateful for this early promotion, these people were promoting me, and not the brand I had just created.
Needless to say, I was happy for the PR generated and accepted most of the projects thrown my way. As an individual, I gained a lot of experience dealing with all sorts of customers and creative projects. As a brand, every new project diluted the intended name.
Summer of 2010
This summer, our team decided it was time for a change. Our skill set, the size and complexity of projects, what commissions to accept and what to refuse… All this had matured into a full-blown entity. We did not want to be seen as a conglomerate of cool free-lancers, when we had in fact evolved into an identity & design agency. It was time to heed the same advice we were giving to our clients, time to revitalize our image and face the challenges of a brand repositioning.
As creative director, I tackled the audit of our past and present customers, analyzing facts such as the project goals, budget, scope, time to delivery, customer size, customer satisfaction and our team’s satisfaction of said relationship. This is as good a time as any other to remember that any business relationship is, first and foremost, a human relationship. No hard data can emulate the empathy generated by one project over another, so this is when communication comes into play: how do your customers remember you by? How did your team like working on said project?
The result of this audit was enlightening. We realized that many artistic projects that were thrilling in the beginning ended up generating a lot of frustration and delay. In the meantime, our brand was well perceived in businesses with small or no design team, looking for a long-term relationship. We clearly needed to move away from the image of “a friend of a friend can design this for you”, and raise our brand awareness to that of an experienced agency justifying its price tag. We thus decided to focus our efforts on the mid-sized companies, while hoping to be convinced by talented individuals for their odd but very interesting creative project.
Additionally, with more and more branding projects coming our way, it became increasingly important to emphasize the privileged relationship we create with our customers, based on high level communication and mentoring, as well as a rapid pace of production that we do not only accept but actually seek. To illustrate this, we decided to change our logo, from the Agile gecko to a crown for our customers. That, and the promise of regal designs, of course.
The end result
Four months and nine iterations later, we have a new logo, business cards, quote and invoice templates, and of course, the website you are currently browsing. Take a look.
