We recently completed a brand overhaul for Halbro Sportswear, a 90 year old business that has a famous history in manufacturing bespoke sports kits for schools and rugby clubs worldwide. In this post, we will highlight some of the processes involved in creating a new, refreshed logo for the company - an important element in the re-branding process.
After a number of conversations, it was clear that there was a common perception of the Halbro brand as a rugby clothing specialist who create cut-and-sew items using traditional manufacturing techniques.
Whilst their brand certainly had heritage - their products were now created using cutting edge manufacturing techniques and the latest performance materials. They had diversified over the years into other sports such as football, netball and tennis with successful co-ordinated ranges and leisurewear items. They were now able to produce virtually any shirt design using printing techniques giving their customers vast amounts of choice. Despite this, many of their competitors and potential customers still perceived them as a traditional, grass roots rugby brand.
Along with this, over the years their brand collateral had become disjointed and there was disparity between their regularly updated print materials and thier online presence.
Our task was;
Change the perception of Halbro away from being a traditional rugby company
Retain their 90 year company heritage
Unify the brand across all channels
Modernise and relaunch their logo without losing customer confidence
Create a logo that retains legibility and consitency under their production processes (embroidery, heat transfer etc)
We split the logo into two distinct variants - first, a clean typeface which would form the main backbone of the new brand material. The previous logo had an abstracted rugby-ball motif which we removed, and featured a typeface which we could not source. We ended up re-drawing much of it and manually adjusting the angles to work with the distinctive slanted "H" the company was known for. We wanted a sense of movement and speed, so we pulled out a few small serifs to make the logo look like it was in motion. The simple addition of the date the company was established reinforces their 90 year heritage.
The second variant was a mongram of sorts - a simple mark which could be used on their products and in labels, recognisable in small applications and in motion on the field or court.
During the process of developing the identity, we worked with Halbro's manufacturing facility in Lithuania to gain an insight into how our artwork would transfer onto their garments. This was invaluable, as some of our initial ideas just did not transfer into embroidery in the way we wanted. Several material testers were sent back and forth which were used to tweak the weight of the supporting typefaces used to ensure legibility, and to make sure that the logo could be reliably (and accurately) reproduced.
The logo was then used as a starting point in developing a new identity for Halbro - one which included new promotional print materials, tone of voice, image guidelines, brand story, typography guides, photography and digital strategy.
This was an interesting branding project to be involved in - maintaining the company heritage but modernising the brand could easily be seen as a contradictory brief, but the team at Halbro were open to ideas, and they understand the importance of branding to shift perception of a business.