Branding & Identity design

A group of colleagues from an investment firm decided to strike out on their own. They had chosen a name, but were lost when it came to a logo.

The name itself—Vela—means “sails” in Latin, and today, refers to a particular constellation in the night sky.

Just stepping up to the plate, this name already has a story behind it—the combination of stars and sea, venturing out on one’s own, a voyage through unknown waters…

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Conceptual territory board & story

The first step for our design team was to pull images and work together to create territory boards, after which I crafted the stories.

The client’s chosen direction centered around “guidance,” and using their expertise to lead their own clients through the complicated world of investment.

Pulling from the word’s double meanings, I chose to focus on a sextant—a device sailors used to pinpoint themselves on the ocean by using objects from the sky.

Its shape was simplified and paired with a “non-committal Roman” typeface, as I referred to it. Its rounded nature allows it to evoke some of the casualness of sans-serif faces, without sacrificing the gravity a Roman face tends to bring with it. The E and A were modified to bring in a little more “sci-fi” and further push it away from anything that might make it feel “stuffy.”

Paired with a rich, night-sky blue, and sextant-inspired gold, the final mark has an almost romantic quality to it, creating a weighty, yet approachable identity that sidesteps the usual “generic corporate” feel of so many large financial service providers, while also not dropping to the “slick” level of newer, Millennial-focused services like Robinhood and Acorns.

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business system

For the collection of the business materials, the client really wanted to shine a light on the actual constellation itself. I decided to utilize it as a sort of watermark, giving them another tool in their belt they could use to tell their brand’s story.