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Established in 1981, Abaco is a savings and credit cooperative that operates as a non-profit credit union in Peru. It offers personal finance, business banking, and corporate and institutional finance services. Late last year, Abaco introduced a new identity designed by Lima, Peru-based Brandlab.
In order to make the firm more attractive, Brandlab organized and revitalized each graphic element of the brand. A new logotype, simpler and more functional, capable of being reproduced on different formats where the brand lives, was generated. Their corporative colors were modified and some others took the main place: ‘green pine’, the worldwide cooperative’s iconic color and cyan to create a contrast of contemporaneous fresh color.
The old logo was bad, with an abstract icon that looked like an “E” and its use of ITC Eras — they awkwardly closed the gap in the “a” — that made it look heavily dated. The new logo is a fantastic wordmark that looks like nothing else out there. It has a sturdy structure that makes it look like a confident financial institution while the “A” adds a touch of playfulness and personalization. The blue circle alludes the company’s name, “abacus”, with a lone bead filling in nicely what otherwise would have been a wide open space. Also, in Spanish, “Ábaco” has an accent over the “A”, which is not acknowledged in the old logo or even in the way the company writes its name but it also works on that level.
The old sub-brands were a mess and a clear case of logo-itis — far too many logos that dilute the brand. The new sub-brand system is elegant, functional, and consistent.
The applications are quite nice, with a strong use of the green brand color and accents of blue. They introduce a high-contrast serif, Caslon Graphique EF, that clashes a little bit with the logo and demands more attention than it should. A serif was not a bad idea but maybe one with less of its own personality would have been a better complement. Nonetheless, everything looks polished and contemporary.
Overall, this is a great evolution for the organization, giving it a contemporary and distinctive identity and, for us, toiling daily in logo redesigns, it’s nice to see something that breaks away from current trends.