Every so often Neon Sumo likes to flex our collective creative muscles and do a creative design exercise. This time around we elected to examine the process of creating a new snowboarding brand.  As snowboarding and skiing are a big part of life here in Colorado, we decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to explore the community in a little more depth.  Since snowboarding is so dependent upon climate we also found it to be a perfect example of a business that would benefit from going green. This series is going to be released in 4 separate parts. 

Part 1:

The Mission:

Sauce Snowboards is an imaginary company hoping to break into the highly competitive snowboard market. It is Neon Sumo’s task to develop a business identity that will distinguish Sauce from the competition while maintaining a firm commitment to sustainable environmental practices. 

Step One: Logo Design

Sauce has no established identity (because it is imaginary) so Neon Sumo will need to develop everything from scratch.  While a logo isn’t necessarily a “business identity” it is a good starting point.  Solid logo design can provide a base from which to build a brand identity and can influence the “personality” a company projects to the public.  With the Sauce Snowboard logo we looked to create a logo that could influence the future of the brand. 

 

 

We started by taking a look at other logo’s within the snowboarding industry. Analysis showed that there is a wide variety of logos that make up the snowboard industry each reflecting the sort of heritage of a company. Some are more urban in nature, targeting the younger street riders and terrain park crowd. Others are more traditional in nature and traditionally target the backcountry and freestyle snowboarders.

Given the rise of a more urban and big trick feel in snowboarding we elected to take the visual identity of Sauce Snowboards in a younger direction. The latest style trend in snowboarding seems to be a sort of super bright 80’s coloring with a modern hip-hop influence.  However, styles change and we didn’t want Sauce’s logo to be color dependent.  So we designed a simple “dollop” logo with the word sauce in it. The idea of being independent of color got us thinking, that perhaps color could be used as a branding tool.

 

Future ad campaigns could use various types of Sauce as a general theme, with each Sauce type supporting a different cause.  Maybe “red” Sauce supports funding for the fight against AIDS, while “green” Sauce supports tree planting. “Fish” Sauce could support ocean revitalization, and “safe” Sauce could help fund clean drinking water projects. “Pink” Sauce could be a line of women’s boards that supports breast cancer research. The point is that, there are vast amounts of possibilities with this sort of affiliate marketing. Plus, it encourages support for the social and environmental bottom lines.

In the end, something as simple as a logo has given rise to multiple possibilities of promotion and product development. That’s why when you start a new endeavor its important to develop a logo that can be used to help expand upon the business identity.

Keep checking back to read parts 2 through 4 of this continuing series.