Glyphix. The creative group you thought you’d never find.

Behind the creative: ICG Advisors

ICG Advisors is a investment group which had grown into a large company primarily through word-of-mouth. When they realized that they needed new documents to better communicate with their growing list of clients, they also realized that they no real corporate identity.

Due diligence

From the start, we knew this project would be more difficult than usual. Not only did they have no experience with creative, but because they were in the middle of their corporate launch, they didn't have time to provide input about their look-and-feel preferences, corporate personality or goals for their identity.

Instead, we interviewed a small group of satisfied ICG clients, distilling their responses into a set of words which represented their view of ICG Advisors:

Entrepreneurial. Smart. Honest. Proactive. Responsive. Disciplined. Candid. Forthright. Objective. Accountable. Able to explain things in layman’s terms.

Start your engines

We generally begin with a series of rough pencil sketches to test ideas. Some of those ideas are developed further for an internal creative review.

The responses we got from the interviews suggested a number of metaphorical concepts. “Smart,” for instance, was aptly represented by an owl (which connotes “wisdom” in addition to “intelligence”). We symbolized ICG’s entrepreneurial strengths with acorns and rising arrows, while the “nest egg” concepts were an aspirational depiction of ICG’s aims. We also pursued several non-metaphorical options, such as monograms, typographic treatments, and abstract symbols.

After reviewing the initial sketches and abandoning the weaker concepts, the stronger ideas were developed further. At this stage, all work is still in black-and-white to keep the focus on each logo’s concept, rather than the execution details. After this, another internal review was performed to narrow the options down to a half-dozen or so of the strongest ideas.

Making sausage

Being creative is like making sausage: it’s messy. This project was no exception.

The concepts which survived the last internal review were then refined for presentation. Color and font options were explored to fine tune the visual tone of each logo. When we present the work, each logo concept is shown individually, and we often mock-up business cards to give an idea of how the logo looks in real-life applications.

The verdict? The client rejected all of the metaphorical concepts, but reacted favorably to the more abstract versions, which seemed to remind them of the logos of larger financial entities.

After much discussion, they approved the green abstract symbol, asking for more exploration. Even though the client selected a single logo, the work still wasn’t complete. They were concerned that the font we used for the name ICG Advisors “didn’t look financial enough.” So we got rid of the contemporary sans-serif font and explored a number of more sober serif typefaces. We presented the client with 4 options, from which they selected the final version of the logo.

Wrapping it up

This project illustrates how difficult it is to create a mark that represents a group of people, particularly when those people cannot describe their own company in those terms. Our creative process and tenacity was the saving grace in this situation; the final mark is solid and professional, accurately reflecting the client's vision.

However, this entire process underscores the importance of knowing how to get great work out of your creative agency. Follow these guidelines, and your creative project will benefit, particularly if you don’t like sausage.