LOJEL

Rebrand

2017

Branding,
Identity,
Print

Since 2014, we have been working with travelware brand Lojel on revitalizing their brand imagery and the production of their yearly campaigns. In 2017, Lojel approached us with the task to rebrand their 28-year company. This was an opportunity to work on something that is very personal to us—travel. From the people we meet to the creativity we seek, travelling has always been a huge source of inspiration for our studio. Lojel wanted to create a new brand identity to showcase the direction for the company.

Process

Having worked with the Lojel team on their brand collateral in the past years, we understood the brand applications that would need to be considered when designing the new brand identity. In previous years, the Lojel brand had relied heavily on their signature green as way of building brand distinction amongst their competitors. Yet, as the company began to explore different colours for their products, pairing some colours with the green proved to be a challenge. At the same time, the Lojel team had been relying heavily on the square format of their logo as the square was visually more recognizable. Yet, the square format would provide difficulties when used in small spaces both in print and online.

Taking these issues into account, we looked to create a new brand identity for Lojel that provided application flexibility and a visual direction that could withstand the test of time.

One of the main brand elements we collectively agreed was needed for the brand was the creation of a logo mark. We wanted to design a mark that was reduced to simplified shapes, allowing it to fit in small surface areas like a zipper tab and had the weight to stand out when placed on top of a photo. Creating such a mark can often prove to be challenging since we wanted to achieve a mark that was ultra-simplified, while still being unique and iconic to Lojel.

During our exploration, we were looking into the idea of a journey, and drew our inspiration from the iconography found in road maps. Our final iteration of the logomark combines the symbols of a pathway and a flag to create Lojel’s “journey” logo mark. We liked the visual of a pathway to represent a journey, and the flag as a mark of arrival. These images resonated with our team in terms of what we were trying to convey in the spirit of Lojel’s brand.

Typographic inspiration

Branding

For the brand typeface, we wanted to use a classic sans serif that expressed a certain international quality; one that could be seen used in airport way finding. We landed on Univers and liked the extensive family of weights that it offered for Lojel’s brand system. The final wordmark is set in Universe Black Extended while the 45 Light, 55 Roman and 65 Bold weights are used throughout the brand collateral.

In addition to the brand identity, we also had the opportunity to establish a new colour system for Lojel’s future products. For the new product spectrum, we chose more earthy and natural tones to reflect the colours one might come across in nature while travelling.

Throughout the branding process, one of the main obstacles that our studio and the Lojel team came across was deriving history and meaning from the name Lojel—a name given by the founders in 1989. With the meaning of the name unclear, we worked with Lojel’s creative director, Kenzo Yoneno to derive a slogan from the letters in Lojel. From our explorations, we landed on the slogan “Let Our Journeys Enrich Life” as the overarching mission for the brand moving forward.

Logomark explorations

Product tag with layer graphic system

Application

Once the brand identity was established, we moved onto brand application to translate the brand elements onto their products and print collateral. Along with the rebrand, Lojel was set to release their first line of travel accessories as well and looked to us to establish the design system for the packaging.

We wanted to create a design system that could be applied to all accessories to create a cohesive family of products. While exploring potential options, we found the concept of “levels” to be a continuous theme in travel. Our team identified the idea of layers through three lens: the topographic layers in the environment, the layers of experience during travel, and the layers of travel information. Using this concept, we created a layered visual system for Lojel to lay out the layers of information for each product. This design system was then applied to product hangtags and the online website as well.

It has been truly rewarding to see the new brand identity continue to take shape as Lojel grows and repositions their company. Lojel recently opened their second retail store in Hong Kong’s busy Causeway Bay district.

Spring/Summer 2018 Campaign — Morocco. This was the second campaign with the new brand identity implemented.

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