FOCAL International brand refresh

Updated logo

The old FOCAL logo had a number of issues:

• loose font tracking that over accentuated the name resulting in an uncomfortable long form
• there were too many colours
• a mixture of font weights and sizes that became illegible when used at a small scale

Using the bold version of the existing typeface, we modernised the logo by condensing the words ‘FOCAL’ and ‘International’. In addition, we removed the tagline to create more space for the bigger wordmark.

Expanding the brand

There were no recognisable brand elements within FOCAL International, aside from their ‘globe mark’. So, we added two elements to accompany their new logo and colours. The first was scribble/doodle forming a letter F, for FOCAL, emulating a hand gesture wiping a dust on a surface to reveal an image/graphic/video behind it — a window to the past. The second element is the starburst, an evolution of the ‘globe mark’ of the logo, where the globe explodes to reveal new footage. Instead of circular dots, we used an elongated ellipse to showcase the breadth of experience and genres that FOCAL covers.

We even jazzed up the globe icon too…

Simple brand guidelines

Not all brand guidelines end up being so in-depth that they could double as a door stop. We often create simple brand guidelines for our clients that cover the essentials providing advice on the preferred implementation of the identity. Even basic guidelines like this are better than none at all.