Studio Direction 2.0: How we revamped our brand

As industry enthusiasts (and a bit nerdy), we love discussing how brands go through redesigns. It sparks fresh ideas and insights, and some of the boldest brand choices ignite passionate debates within our team. One thing’s for sure: we have a soft spot for rebrands with sass and boldness. We love watching brands evolve and transform while staying true to their visual roots, maintaining the vibe and character they’re known for and that people appreciate.

We realized it was time for a bigger change

We thought of a design that was modern, fresh, and attractive, yet still had StudioDirection written all over it and reflected what we’re bringing to the market: an offering that considers design as a power fuel of the business.

So, we dove in, experimenting with the sitemap, adding and subtracting pages until we found the right mix—at least for the time being—because we knew it would need to change in the upcoming months.

We also played around with different menu layouts, trying out several options until we landed on the one that looks good and provides easy navigation to the website visitors.

The visual and conceptual presentation of our services was super important. The market is oversaturated, and "design" has become a blanket term. But, we’ve found the niche through years of experience and decided to offer something that brings value and moves business/decisions/products/experiences forward. After a few rounds of changes in how we wanted to present them, we wrapped it up in our four core services.

This prompted a need to rethink our brand identity, color choices, typography, and the logomark

Regarding the look and feel, black and white with a pop of color served as our visual foundation. Finding the right hue, however, took a few iterations. Committing to a single color wasn’t easy.

From the turbo-charged energy of Ferrari red to the bright, cheerful vibes of yellow, and now to a calm, modern shade of blue complementing the shade of red we landed on.

From the vintage utilitarian nostalgia of Courier to the contemporary warmth of our favorite, Aeonik, we explored a range of fonts before landing on SuisseIntl - a typeface with timeless neutrality.

For the last five years, we’ve used the arrow as our brand device and visual representation of the process: starting with guidance (input), following a deliberate course (direction), and reaching a successful conclusion (goal). It was flexible, adaptable, and worked at the time as a familiar symbol from Material Design.

Spontaneously, everything we’ve done around the website led us to revisit the logomark. (we’re pretty happy with the name!).

We needed something different - something that better aligns with our energy, team dynamics, tempo, and workflow, which is pretty thundersome. The initials of our name — an 'S' and a 'D' — shaped the form of the lighting that now serves as our brand device and logomark.

An extra mile with brand identity

The new vision of us, shinier and louder, needed a fresh representation. Words alone can’t fully capture what sets us apart. The impact is much greater when we engage all the senses, and video makes that possible. We wanted to tell our story through a short film that reflects our personalities as individuals and as a team.

DIY wasn’t an option. We needed professionals and a studio setting to create a video we could be proud of—at least for the next few years until it’s time for the next version.

Nađa from Monther.rs understood us and proposed a script to which we immediately said, 'Spot on!' From there, we shaped it into the words that define SD as a brand. Through the process of organizing the video shoot, we befriended Nađa, so it felt natural to invite her to our office. On that occasion, she took photos of our team members that captured the look and feel of our space, which were a great addition to our online resurgence.

The energy during the image video shoot was incredible, thanks to the collaborators' amazing patience with our non-professional cast. We worked with the IDJ video crew and photographer Ivan Pantić, who both created amazing BTS material. In addition, we collaborated with Milan Bauranov to get us camera-ready and Ghost Stylist to perfect our styling.

Days of effort, planning, and organization are distilled into a single powerful minute of video. You can read more in our story about the process.

Now, we're rolling out the red carpet for the premiere of our new look

Through precise wording, photography, and video, we felt our transformation peaked, capturing the essence of where we are now and where we’re headed.

People outside of our world are asking why we’re undertaking this. We wanted to reflect our mindset and approach to our brand while loudly opening the door for Studio Direction as an independent team in the Middle East and APAC.