Industry: Technology
Client: GCA
Creative Director:
Presh Marketing Solutions / Wonderment
GCA is made up of a select group of experts who have an unparalleled understanding of IAM best practices. GCA is not trying to be okay at anything and everything in tech—GCA is the authority on IAM (Identity Access Management).
Where other companies fail, GCA succeeds. Almost 50% of GCA’s IAM consulting business comes from failed implementations by other consulting firms. It’s GCA’s absolute authority on IAM that empowers.
Goal
GCA thrives on transparency, and customer experience, and has Access Management at its core. Their ultimate goal is to be the #1 IAM company – they are aware that they are not the biggest operationally, but see themselves still competing with the heavy hitters in their space, To do this they required a solid foundational voice, it all started with their visual representation. They asked for a mark that told the full story of who they are, and what they do.
Discovery
This industry for the most part is very clinical, it is made up of big brands that are most recognized in the medical space. Due to the restrictions that the medical industry has on personal data, access to such, and also access to physical environments, the brands tend to be simple and clean. Our first step in this discovery is to create a narrative behind the story of the mark – this brand mark represents the whole process of; listening to the client, understanding the story to be told, and executing that story in a very simple but effective way.
Development
Logo
The brand mark is made up of a rounded diamond with four blue arrows pointed inward. The negative space creates a separate four arrows pointed outward. The inward-outward idea represents GCA as a guardian of granting and denying access to data.
The Arrows
The arrows pointed inward also represent GCA’s promise to align the client’s needs and objectives.
The arrows pointed outward mimic a directional compass (North, South, East and West). The compass is a traditional navigation tool that represents the IAM journey with numerous adjacent solutions.
The Diamond
This type of diamond shape is formed by a perfect square sitting at a 45° angle. It is comprised of four equal sides/lines. The fixed lines invite a feeling of status, fixation and immutability.
The rounded corners are not only easier for our eyes to process, but they also make information easier to process. They make effective content containers because they put focus inside the shape, unlike sharp corners. We tend to avoid sharp edges because in nature, they can present a threat. This provokes what neuroscience calls an “avoidance response.” The rounded corners add depth and a bit of physical realism.
Application
Business Cards
We kept the design simple in areas where it needed to be and then had fun with exploding the brand mark across the canvas, the goal here was to highlight the arrows, just in case, it was missed the first time around.
Print Collateral
Strong branding always helps a sales team that is continually asked for details to be sent.
The name of the game is consistency!
Social
This is an ongoing exercise to elevate the brand and the positioning, with scheduled quarterly campaigns that focus on individuals in the company along with strong messages around the promise and the diligence of the services that GCA offers.
Twitter Banner
Linkedin Banner
Web
GCA works very close with Gartner. They offer a business mentorship to the C-Suite of GCA. After completion of the website, it was sent to Gartner for review – they came back with a resounding ‘Yes’ and ‘Well Done.’ This is a fully responsive site, built on Word Press with Landing Pages and Blogs built-in HubSpot (Their CMS).
We created dynamic content that had a simple category tagging system so that any material produced would automatically be assigned to the bottom of the related service page.
A clever animation was introduced to the home page to echo the sentiment of the brand arrow. We opted to use static graphics on every other page after the homepage in order to keep the site as clean, small and optimized as possible -keeping to the core web values that Google outlines as best browser and search practices.
