Обзор лучших ресурсов по разработке бренда, разработке упаковки
contact us | ok@ohmycode.ru
contact us | ok@ohmycode.ru
Established in 2007, ecobee creates smart home solutions through the company’s pioneering sensor technology with the power of voice, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to help customers control their home’s comfort and energy consumption. Based in Canada, ecobee created the world’s first smart thermostat — Nest, the more well-known brand was launched in 2010 — that serves as the company’s flagship product and digital hub for the rest of the security-minded product line-up that includes occupancy sensors, smart light switches, smart cameras, and contact sensors. In general, ecobee comes across as one of the most polite and genuinely environmentally-conscious companies I have ever written an introduction for — their About page makes me want to hug them. With the recent release of the most recent version of its thermostat, ecobee introduced a new identity designed, I believe, in-house.
[We] reconnected with one of our core elements, the squircle. The circle and square hybrid is the shape of our primary products and has been a source of inspiration. We like that this shape is unique, ownable, and adaptable. The connection between the SmartThermostat and the letterforms within the wordmark is clear. This helps us create a consistent visual identity that’s easily recognizable. The new ecobee logo was designed to incorporate and highlight the squircle shape. It is comprised of the mark and wordmark with the logo at the core of the identity.
The old logo was technically fine but it wasn’t particularly good with a rather odd drawing of a bee and a generic-looking sans serif, all in an unappealing green color. (The name of the company was meant as an homage to honey bees’ ability to regulate their hives’ temperature, hence the bee icon.) The new logo sends the bee off into the distance and introduces a sleek, elegant, custom wordmark where each and every letter echoes the unique shape of their flagship thermostat. This is logo-product synergy at its best and most subtle. When I first saw the logo on its own — without reading about its origin or even being aware of their product — I was like “Meh, it’s fine” but its visual tie-in with the product is pretty fantastic. It also has a major upgrade in that it now looks more like a tech lifestyle brand better suited to either compete or complement other brands like Nest and Apple.
The proprietary typeface was designed with the award-winning design consultancy Pentagram. Each letterform is built from the squircle shape. It’s used for the logo, sub-brands, and product names.
The custom typeface is great and while it may be one too many squircle structures I think they pulled it off quite convincingly without looking cartoony. Its limited use in sub-brands, as opposed to every headline on the website, makes it feel more special and restrained.
Icons accompany value propositions and features as a useful tool to add clarity and inject brand personality. They are also used to represent our product lineup and are grounded in our foundational squircle shape.
I usually don’t comment on icon sets because for the most part there is not much to say, which is the case here except that what I’ll say is that these are very enjoyable in the continuation of the squircle at small scale.
ecobee focuses on high-resolution images of studio productions that utilize soft lighting and premium styling. Environments are tonal in our brand colors without being too “matchy”. The overall effect is images that are calm and aspirational. The squircle can be found in all of our productions, either in the products or the sets.
The product and lifestyle photography is bananas. I haven’t seen art direction and photo production of this depth in a long time. Every little detail, from the weird minerals in the product shots to the selection of plants in the lifestyle shots, has been so carefully considered. The lighting, the scenes, the materials… everything is so well thought out and so… different. It’s not just moody portraits of people or slick photos of products on white backgrounds. There is like a whole alternate universe throughout these images. The elongated floors and ceilings of the lifestyle photos remind me of those scenes in Stranger Things when the characters go into the always-wet black space, except this is happy.
Inspired by the elements of earth, air, fire, and water, each of the main colorways in the ecobee palette has an identity that we can use to tell our brand story. The color identities are rooted in the positive emotion and connection with nature that we want customers to associate with ecobee.
As if the photography wasn’t enough, they have also created some 3D environments that extend the visual language of colors and textures but with a surreal twist. Through these videos you can also get a sense of their sonic branding, which is quite delightful.
The grid allows us to build modular layouts in a flexible way that can be applied to almost anything. The consistency, order, and lack of ornamentation put a focus on the strength of the color palette, typography, and imagery, while providing a balanced, calm feel.
Not a whole lot going on in the layouts or applications. As slick and crisp as these are, I feel like I’m missing some of the lusciousness of the rest of the brand. Still, pretty good.
The packaging, while also undeniably nice, feels a little detached from all the stuff that preceded it and it also looks like a lot of the home-tech packaging out there, whereas the rest of the brand has a very differentiated approach. Still, this is a highly competent series of packaging, no doubt.
The video above captures the essence of the new branding quite nicely: it’s a little quirky, it’s polite and soft-spoken, and it has great deal of attention to detail. Overall, this is a superb redesign and repositioning that makes ecobee stand out in an unexpected way.
Thanks to Mabel Leban for the tip.
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