Where are we going?
Ever since Alan rejoined the practice in 2017, a rebrand has been on the to do list. The practice was growing well beyond just me and the name and image of the business needed to reflect that to be able to work in the way we wanted and needed it to. Al and I worked with Nadia Porter at Go Strategy to understand our position in the market and to help identify what really made us tick as a practice.
What’s in a name?
Most importantly, it’s no longer about one person, but is the brand of a team.
In my 10-year anniversary blog I expressed my conflict as losing the practice name and changing it to something new. But, I (we) believe it’s the only way we will get the practice to work most effectively and to deliver the very best services for our clients. The team are as capable as I’ll ever be (more so) and should be driving our work.
We were really clear that that our new name should be short, easy and say something about what and who we are. After lots of brain-storming and voting we’re delighted to have settled on a new practice name of HEM Architects. HEM is Swedish for home and has a familiar, homely feel to it. Most importantly, it’s no longer about one person but is the brand of a team.
How was the brand developed?
We’ve worked with some fantastic Sheffield businesses to get us to this nearly ready to launch position. From those initial direction finding sessions with Go Strategy, we worked with Leap to develop the logo. Leap were fantastically creative and got us to a design that felt distinctive; high quality; constructed and accessible.
To then develop the wider brand assets and website we appointed Simon and Tom at Ink & Water. They have been fantastic at taking the raw logo and our brand direction to develop a beautiful identity that we can be really proud of. Their knowledge of web development, especially, has been invaluable and we’re so excited to be able to soon introduce our new website to the world.
What does this mean going forwards?
For the most part the changes will be very subtle. The most obvious will be changes to web and email addresses and to our branded output. Most importantly, the way we run as an office and the way we manage our projects won’t be any different. Our team; the people you already know and work with, aren’t going anywhere.
If you have any questions, please do give us a call on 0114 442 0123.
Ready to take the next step?
Let’s start planning your project together