The evolution of every brand is unique but it always comes down to a common goal – connecting with your audience. From naming and branding to graphic design and printed collateral, online presence and carefully curated content, everything lines up to tell your brand story.

But what happens when your brand identity no longer aligns with the story you’re trying to tell? Rebranding a company can be a bold move. But rebranding can also be extremely powerful–maybe even the most important long-term investment you make.

We recently found ourselves in this predicament. Over the years our services have expanded organically as we have undertaken new design challenges that have allowed us to expand beyond our roots in traditional print. Like many brands, over time our brand collateral looked less and less like who we are, and didn’t allow us to fully tell our own story. So, in mid-2022, we seized an opportunity to give the business a fresh and distinctive new look.

Our new logo — a symbol of moving forward and creative journeys — is the cornerstone of our new brand identity: a total rethink of how we present ourselves to the world. But more than that, it’s the end result of a year-long labour of love. And we feel pretty damn good about it.

But this isn’t just a “woo-hoo, we did it!” blog. This is a tale of how we got from Point A to Point B — a trail of breadcrumbs tracing our path, including lessons learned along the way and advice for other travellers.

It’s also about the keys to our success: a journey in its own right, to the core questions of who we are and what we stand for, and a commitment to forging our own path as we move forward.

Our rebranding process rolled out over several months in phases. You can expect the same steps in your own rebranding project:

Phase 1: “Brand Assessment.”

Understanding who you are and what your brand story is will serve as your north star and guiding light. From there, it’s a journey in seeking inspiration, self-discovery, making mistakes, learning, adapting and improving along the way.

When we started our rebranding process, we set out on a mission to find a memorable, easy to pronounce, easy to spell name that would help us to tell a story. Journey reflects the essence of our service offering and relationship to our clients in one word.

We love that our new brand identity captures our channel-agnostic approach and ‘creative journey’ mindset in a way that is simple and distinctive. It was clear from the beginning that bold visuals and a distinct voice were needed to make a branding impact.

Phase 2: “Brand Development.”

We got to work, developing a platform for the brand including core values, tone of voice and a brand narrative rooted in the direct notion of “Partnering our clients on their creative journeys”. With the brand established, we moved onto creating a customised icon, wordmark and brand identity system.

The primary icon is made up of a stylised ‘J’ made up of different ‘paths’ to represent the new name and communicate the idea of a creative journey. Unique colours and images can be used within the icon, reflecting the flexibility and adaptability of the agency, and the industry we work in. With a mission to drive brand recognition, it only made sense to use a bold, bright and optimistic colour palette to further stand out and captivate our audience.

Phase 3: “Create our Touchpoints”

With so much fresh thinking in the agency’s new logo and colour scheme, the team knew our web presence needed to keep up. Research on website design trends and user experiences led us to imagine a new way of showcasing our strong project imagery. Virtually all of our website text was re-written in order to be more concise and consistently on-message with our updated tone of voice.

The “Touchpoints” phase also produced templates for all Journey’s collateral, such as marketing presentations and proposal templates. New business cards, stationery and signage were designed and produced as well. Literally everything that had the Journey name on it was included in the team’s scope of work.

Phase 4: “Brand Management”

Our team planned the physical and digital aspects of an ambitious brand re-launch schedule, confidently rolling out the new look via social and web media. The rebranding work concluded with the publication of a comprehensive Journey brand guidelines so all the company’s messaging would be consistent and unified.

We’re excited to share our new brand identity with you – one that allows us to experiment with a wide visual range but still represents our core DNA of working hard to make our clients successful.

We hope that reading about our rebranding process has given you an understanding of the steps we took to get here and has helped you learn about the things to consider before embarking on a similar journey.

If you are thinking about your own rebrand, drop us a line and let’s have a chat. We can bring our wealth of experience to fuel your journey. From concept to launch, we can help you at every stage.

Building a successful brand is a journey… we’ll help you to Arrive Inspired.

We’re excited to announce that as of February 1st,
2023, we have a new name and brand identity:

Absolute are now called Journey

Absolute has undergone a big rebrand, giving a makeover to everything from our name and logo to our website and identity, and in turn refining the values, philosophy and positioning of our brand.

Having started life in 2003 as a printing company, over the years we have grown, changed and matured. We’ve become so much more than a print company – we’re a team that turn challenges into opportunities, inspire our clients to dream big and help them create outstanding things. Something we’re proud of.

So, we want to say a big, bold hello and re-introduce ourselves as Journey – your partner for your brand’s creative adventure.

Evolving a 20-year brand for the future

Absolute launched almost 20 years ago now and grew organically over the years as we built up our client base and expanded our service offering.

The industry is moving at a rapid pace and we reached a point where our brand story and image didn’t fully reflect the way the company had evolved and all the activities we have been engaged with. We’ve always tried to avoid being pigeonholed for a particular output and always remain open to explore new media and communication tools, which is a good philosophy for these changing times.

However, we were finding inconsistencies in the way different clients perceived us because our brand message and image hadn’t caught up and articulated our offering clearly enough. We discovered that people saw us in different ways: some clients still held the perception that we were purely a print studio, some saw us as a graphic design company, others as a web design agency.

It was at this point that we realised we needed to address the issue, and that the best way to do this was to completely rebrand Absolute, to reflect what the company is, and wants to be in the future.

Finding the brand message

The main aim of the rebrand was to clarify perceptions and unify messages about what Journey stands for, what we do and what our interests are, with the hopes that this will attract like-minded people that the agency wants to do business with.

Whilst we continue to pride ourselves on the craft element of our work, we came to the realisation that perhaps we have been underplaying the amount of strategic thinking that we put into our projects. We needed to fully acknowledge and express that what we do at Journey is a full-service approach that brings together every aspect of customers’ communications in a unified brand experience. From naming and branding to graphic design and printed collateral, online presence and carefully curated content, we are there for every step of the creative journey.

We have created a brand that, as Managing Director Eddie Byrne put it, “…reflects who we are as an agency: Strategic, organised, driven by top-notch design and great service, but also sincere and approachable. We are with our clients for the long-term and this change reflects the agency’s growth and evolved service offering.”

Managing Partner Dermot Malone added, “As we have expanded our offering to be what our clients need most, our visual identity has to mirror the shift. Over our 20-year history as a business, we have and will always continue to evolve to stay ahead of industry trends and market changes, to strategically support the needs of our clients and our people.”

Rebranding a company isn’t easy, some would call it a bold move. It turns out that being bold was the only way that we could have gotten to where we are now. And it was that same attitude that gave us the confidence to take that big, bold leap and start a new chapter for our company.

We couldn’t be more excited for what’s ahead!

The evolution of every brand is unique but it always comes down to a common goal – connecting with your audience. From naming and branding to graphic design and printed collateral, online presence and carefully curated content, everything lines up to tell your brand story.

But what happens when your brand identity no longer aligns with the story you’re trying to tell? Rebranding a company can be a bold move. But rebranding can also be extremely powerful–maybe even the most important long-term investment you make.

We recently found ourselves in this predicament. Over the years our services have expanded organically as we have undertaken new design challenges that have allowed us to expand beyond our roots in traditional print. Like many brands, over time our brand collateral looked less and less like who we are, and didn’t allow us to fully tell our own story. So, in mid-2022, we seized an opportunity to give the business a fresh and distinctive new look.

Our new logo — a symbol of moving forward and creative journeys — is the cornerstone of our new brand identity: a total rethink of how we present ourselves to the world. But more than that, it’s the end result of a year-long labour of love. And we feel pretty damn good about it.

But this isn’t just a “woo-hoo, we did it!” blog. This is a tale of how we got from Point A to Point B — a trail of breadcrumbs tracing our path, including lessons learned along the way and advice for other travellers.

It’s also about the keys to our success: a journey in its own right, to the core questions of who we are and what we stand for, and a commitment to forging our own path as we move forward.

Our rebranding process rolled out over several months in phases. You can expect the same steps in your own rebranding project:

Phase 1: “Brand Assessment.”

Understanding who you are and what your brand story is will serve as your north star and guiding light. From there, it’s a journey in seeking inspiration, self-discovery, making mistakes, learning, adapting and improving along the way.

When we started our rebranding process, we set out on a mission to find a memorable, easy to pronounce, easy to spell name that would help us to tell a story. Journey reflects the essence of our service offering and relationship to our clients in one word.

We love that our new brand identity captures our channel-agnostic approach and ‘creative journey’ mindset in a way that is simple and distinctive. It was clear from the beginning that bold visuals and a distinct voice were needed to make a branding impact.

Phase 2: “Brand Development.”

We got to work, developing a platform for the brand including core values, tone of voice and a brand narrative rooted in the direct notion of “Partnering our clients on their creative journeys”. With the brand established, we moved onto creating a customised icon, wordmark and brand identity system.

The primary icon is made up of a stylised ‘J’ made up of different ‘paths’ to represent the new name and communicate the idea of a creative journey. Unique colours and images can be used within the icon, reflecting the flexibility and adaptability of the agency, and the industry we work in. With a mission to drive brand recognition, it only made sense to use a bold, bright and optimistic colour palette to further stand out and captivate our audience.

Phase 3: “Create our Touchpoints”

With so much fresh thinking in the agency’s new logo and colour scheme, the team knew our web presence needed to keep up. Research on website design trends and user experiences led us to imagine a new way of showcasing our strong project imagery. Virtually all of our website text was re-written in order to be more concise and consistently on-message with our updated tone of voice.

The “Touchpoints” phase also produced templates for all Journey’s collateral, such as marketing presentations and proposal templates. New business cards, stationery and signage were designed and produced as well. Literally everything that had the Journey name on it was included in the team’s scope of work.

Phase 4: “Brand Management”

Our team planned the physical and digital aspects of an ambitious brand re-launch schedule, confidently rolling out the new look via social and web media. The rebranding work concluded with the publication of a comprehensive Journey brand guidelines so all the company’s messaging would be consistent and unified.

We’re excited to share our new brand identity with you – one that allows us to experiment with a wide visual range but still represents our core DNA of working hard to make our clients successful.

We hope that reading about our rebranding process has given you an understanding of the steps we took to get here and has helped you learn about the things to consider before embarking on a similar journey.

If you are thinking about your own rebrand, drop us a line and let’s have a chat. We can bring our wealth of experience to fuel your journey. From concept to launch, we can help you at every stage.

Building a successful brand is a journey… we’ll help you to Arrive Inspired.

We’re excited to announce that as of February 1st,
2023, we have a new name and brand identity:

Absolute are now called Journey

Absolute has undergone a big rebrand, giving a makeover to everything from our name and logo to our website and identity, and in turn refining the values, philosophy and positioning of our brand.

Having started life in 2003 as a printing company, over the years we have grown, changed and matured. We’ve become so much more than a print company – we’re a team that turn challenges into opportunities, inspire our clients to dream big and help them create outstanding things. Something we’re proud of.

So, we want to say a big, bold hello and re-introduce ourselves as Journey – your partner for your brand’s creative adventure.

Evolving a 20-year brand for the future

Absolute launched almost 20 years ago now and grew organically over the years as we built up our client base and expanded our service offering.

The industry is moving at a rapid pace and we reached a point where our brand story and image didn’t fully reflect the way the company had evolved and all the activities we have been engaged with. We’ve always tried to avoid being pigeonholed for a particular output and always remain open to explore new media and communication tools, which is a good philosophy for these changing times.

However, we were finding inconsistencies in the way different clients perceived us because our brand message and image hadn’t caught up and articulated our offering clearly enough. We discovered that people saw us in different ways: some clients still held the perception that we were purely a print studio, some saw us as a graphic design company, others as a web design agency.

It was at this point that we realised we needed to address the issue, and that the best way to do this was to completely rebrand Absolute, to reflect what the company is, and wants to be in the future.

Finding the brand message

The main aim of the rebrand was to clarify perceptions and unify messages about what Journey stands for, what we do and what our interests are, with the hopes that this will attract like-minded people that the agency wants to do business with.

Whilst we continue to pride ourselves on the craft element of our work, we came to the realisation that perhaps we have been underplaying the amount of strategic thinking that we put into our projects. We needed to fully acknowledge and express that what we do at Journey is a full-service approach that brings together every aspect of customers’ communications in a unified brand experience. From naming and branding to graphic design and printed collateral, online presence and carefully curated content, we are there for every step of the creative journey.

We have created a brand that, as Managing Director Eddie Byrne put it, “…reflects who we are as an agency: Strategic, organised, driven by top-notch design and great service, but also sincere and approachable. We are with our clients for the long-term and this change reflects the agency’s growth and evolved service offering.”

Managing Partner Dermot Malone added, “As we have expanded our offering to be what our clients need most, our visual identity has to mirror the shift. Over our 20-year history as a business, we have and will always continue to evolve to stay ahead of industry trends and market changes, to strategically support the needs of our clients and our people.”

Rebranding a company isn’t easy, some would call it a bold move. It turns out that being bold was the only way that we could have gotten to where we are now. And it was that same attitude that gave us the confidence to take that big, bold leap and start a new chapter for our company.

We couldn’t be more excited for what’s ahead!

The evolution of every brand is unique but it always comes down to a common goal – connecting with your audience. From naming and branding to graphic design and printed collateral, online presence and carefully curated content, everything lines up to tell your brand story.

But what happens when your brand identity no longer aligns with the story you’re trying to tell? Rebranding a company can be a bold move. But rebranding can also be extremely powerful–maybe even the most important long-term investment you make.

We recently found ourselves in this predicament. Over the years our services have expanded organically as we have undertaken new design challenges that have allowed us to expand beyond our roots in traditional print. Like many brands, over time our brand collateral looked less and less like who we are, and didn’t allow us to fully tell our own story. So, in mid-2022, we seized an opportunity to give the business a fresh and distinctive new look.

Our new logo — a symbol of moving forward and creative journeys — is the cornerstone of our new brand identity: a total rethink of how we present ourselves to the world. But more than that, it’s the end result of a year-long labour of love. And we feel pretty damn good about it.

But this isn’t just a “woo-hoo, we did it!” blog. This is a tale of how we got from Point A to Point B — a trail of breadcrumbs tracing our path, including lessons learned along the way and advice for other travellers.

It’s also about the keys to our success: a journey in its own right, to the core questions of who we are and what we stand for, and a commitment to forging our own path as we move forward.

Our rebranding process rolled out over several months in phases. You can expect the same steps in your own rebranding project:

Phase 1: “Brand Assessment.”

Understanding who you are and what your brand story is will serve as your north star and guiding light. From there, it’s a journey in seeking inspiration, self-discovery, making mistakes, learning, adapting and improving along the way.

When we started our rebranding process, we set out on a mission to find a memorable, easy to pronounce, easy to spell name that would help us to tell a story. Journey reflects the essence of our service offering and relationship to our clients in one word.

We love that our new brand identity captures our channel-agnostic approach and ‘creative journey’ mindset in a way that is simple and distinctive. It was clear from the beginning that bold visuals and a distinct voice were needed to make a branding impact.

Phase 2: “Brand Development.”

We got to work, developing a platform for the brand including core values, tone of voice and a brand narrative rooted in the direct notion of “Partnering our clients on their creative journeys”. With the brand established, we moved onto creating a customised icon, wordmark and brand identity system.

The primary icon is made up of a stylised ‘J’ made up of different ‘paths’ to represent the new name and communicate the idea of a creative journey. Unique colours and images can be used within the icon, reflecting the flexibility and adaptability of the agency, and the industry we work in. With a mission to drive brand recognition, it only made sense to use a bold, bright and optimistic colour palette to further stand out and captivate our audience.

Phase 3: “Create our Touchpoints”

With so much fresh thinking in the agency’s new logo and colour scheme, the team knew our web presence needed to keep up. Research on website design trends and user experiences led us to imagine a new way of showcasing our strong project imagery. Virtually all of our website text was re-written in order to be more concise and consistently on-message with our updated tone of voice.

The “Touchpoints” phase also produced templates for all Journey’s collateral, such as marketing presentations and proposal templates. New business cards, stationery and signage were designed and produced as well. Literally everything that had the Journey name on it was included in the team’s scope of work.

Phase 4: “Brand Management”

Our team planned the physical and digital aspects of an ambitious brand re-launch schedule, confidently rolling out the new look via social and web media. The rebranding work concluded with the publication of a comprehensive Journey brand guidelines so all the company’s messaging would be consistent and unified.

We’re excited to share our new brand identity with you – one that allows us to experiment with a wide visual range but still represents our core DNA of working hard to make our clients successful.

We hope that reading about our rebranding process has given you an understanding of the steps we took to get here and has helped you learn about the things to consider before embarking on a similar journey.

If you are thinking about your own rebrand, drop us a line and let’s have a chat. We can bring our wealth of experience to fuel your journey. From concept to launch, we can help you at every stage.

Building a successful brand is a journey… we’ll help you to Arrive Inspired.

We’re excited to announce that as of February 1st,
2023, we have a new name and brand identity:

Absolute are now called Journey

Absolute has undergone a big rebrand, giving a makeover to everything from our name and logo to our website and identity, and in turn refining the values, philosophy and positioning of our brand.

Having started life in 2003 as a printing company, over the years we have grown, changed and matured. We’ve become so much more than a print company – we’re a team that turn challenges into opportunities, inspire our clients to dream big and help them create outstanding things. Something we’re proud of.

So, we want to say a big, bold hello and re-introduce ourselves as Journey – your partner for your brand’s creative adventure.

Evolving a 20-year brand for the future

Absolute launched almost 20 years ago now and grew organically over the years as we built up our client base and expanded our service offering.

The industry is moving at a rapid pace and we reached a point where our brand story and image didn’t fully reflect the way the company had evolved and all the activities we have been engaged with. We’ve always tried to avoid being pigeonholed for a particular output and always remain open to explore new media and communication tools, which is a good philosophy for these changing times.

However, we were finding inconsistencies in the way different clients perceived us because our brand message and image hadn’t caught up and articulated our offering clearly enough. We discovered that people saw us in different ways: some clients still held the perception that we were purely a print studio, some saw us as a graphic design company, others as a web design agency.

It was at this point that we realised we needed to address the issue, and that the best way to do this was to completely rebrand Absolute, to reflect what the company is, and wants to be in the future.

Finding the brand message

The main aim of the rebrand was to clarify perceptions and unify messages about what Journey stands for, what we do and what our interests are, with the hopes that this will attract like-minded people that the agency wants to do business with.

Whilst we continue to pride ourselves on the craft element of our work, we came to the realisation that perhaps we have been underplaying the amount of strategic thinking that we put into our projects. We needed to fully acknowledge and express that what we do at Journey is a full-service approach that brings together every aspect of customers’ communications in a unified brand experience. From naming and branding to graphic design and printed collateral, online presence and carefully curated content, we are there for every step of the creative journey.

We have created a brand that, as Managing Director Eddie Byrne put it, “…reflects who we are as an agency: Strategic, organised, driven by top-notch design and great service, but also sincere and approachable. We are with our clients for the long-term and this change reflects the agency’s growth and evolved service offering.”

Managing Partner Dermot Malone added, “As we have expanded our offering to be what our clients need most, our visual identity has to mirror the shift. Over our 20-year history as a business, we have and will always continue to evolve to stay ahead of industry trends and market changes, to strategically support the needs of our clients and our people.”

Rebranding a company isn’t easy, some would call it a bold move. It turns out that being bold was the only way that we could have gotten to where we are now. And it was that same attitude that gave us the confidence to take that big, bold leap and start a new chapter for our company.

We couldn’t be more excited for what’s ahead!

The evolution of every brand is unique but it always comes down to a common goal – connecting with your audience. From naming and branding to graphic design and printed collateral, online presence and carefully curated content, everything lines up to tell your brand story.

But what happens when your brand identity no longer aligns with the story you’re trying to tell? Rebranding a company can be a bold move. But rebranding can also be extremely powerful–maybe even the most important long-term investment you make.

We recently found ourselves in this predicament. Over the years our services have expanded organically as we have undertaken new design challenges that have allowed us to expand beyond our roots in traditional print. Like many brands, over time our brand collateral looked less and less like who we are, and didn’t allow us to fully tell our own story. So, in mid-2022, we seized an opportunity to give the business a fresh and distinctive new look.

Our new logo — a symbol of moving forward and creative journeys — is the cornerstone of our new brand identity: a total rethink of how we present ourselves to the world. But more than that, it’s the end result of a year-long labour of love. And we feel pretty damn good about it.

But this isn’t just a “woo-hoo, we did it!” blog. This is a tale of how we got from Point A to Point B — a trail of breadcrumbs tracing our path, including lessons learned along the way and advice for other travellers.

It’s also about the keys to our success: a journey in its own right, to the core questions of who we are and what we stand for, and a commitment to forging our own path as we move forward.

Our rebranding process rolled out over several months in phases. You can expect the same steps in your own rebranding project:

Phase 1: “Brand Assessment.”

Understanding who you are and what your brand story is will serve as your north star and guiding light. From there, it’s a journey in seeking inspiration, self-discovery, making mistakes, learning, adapting and improving along the way.

When we started our rebranding process, we set out on a mission to find a memorable, easy to pronounce, easy to spell name that would help us to tell a story. Journey reflects the essence of our service offering and relationship to our clients in one word.

We love that our new brand identity captures our channel-agnostic approach and ‘creative journey’ mindset in a way that is simple and distinctive. It was clear from the beginning that bold visuals and a distinct voice were needed to make a branding impact.

Phase 2: “Brand Development.”

We got to work, developing a platform for the brand including core values, tone of voice and a brand narrative rooted in the direct notion of “Partnering our clients on their creative journeys”. With the brand established, we moved onto creating a customised icon, wordmark and brand identity system.

The primary icon is made up of a stylised ‘J’ made up of different ‘paths’ to represent the new name and communicate the idea of a creative journey. Unique colours and images can be used within the icon, reflecting the flexibility and adaptability of the agency, and the industry we work in. With a mission to drive brand recognition, it only made sense to use a bold, bright and optimistic colour palette to further stand out and captivate our audience.

Phase 3: “Create our Touchpoints”

With so much fresh thinking in the agency’s new logo and colour scheme, the team knew our web presence needed to keep up. Research on website design trends and user experiences led us to imagine a new way of showcasing our strong project imagery. Virtually all of our website text was re-written in order to be more concise and consistently on-message with our updated tone of voice.

The “Touchpoints” phase also produced templates for all Journey’s collateral, such as marketing presentations and proposal templates. New business cards, stationery and signage were designed and produced as well. Literally everything that had the Journey name on it was included in the team’s scope of work.

Phase 4: “Brand Management”

Our team planned the physical and digital aspects of an ambitious brand re-launch schedule, confidently rolling out the new look via social and web media. The rebranding work concluded with the publication of a comprehensive Journey brand guidelines so all the company’s messaging would be consistent and unified.

We’re excited to share our new brand identity with you – one that allows us to experiment with a wide visual range but still represents our core DNA of working hard to make our clients successful.

We hope that reading about our rebranding process has given you an understanding of the steps we took to get here and has helped you learn about the things to consider before embarking on a similar journey.

If you are thinking about your own rebrand, drop us a line and let’s have a chat. We can bring our wealth of experience to fuel your journey. From concept to launch, we can help you at every stage.

Building a successful brand is a journey… we’ll help you to Arrive Inspired.

We’re excited to announce that as of February 1st,
2023, we have a new name and brand identity:

Absolute are now called Journey

Absolute has undergone a big rebrand, giving a makeover to everything from our name and logo to our website and identity, and in turn refining the values, philosophy and positioning of our brand.

Having started life in 2003 as a printing company, over the years we have grown, changed and matured. We’ve become so much more than a print company – we’re a team that turn challenges into opportunities, inspire our clients to dream big and help them create outstanding things. Something we’re proud of.

So, we want to say a big, bold hello and re-introduce ourselves as Journey – your partner for your brand’s creative adventure.

Evolving a 20-year brand for the future

Absolute launched almost 20 years ago now and grew organically over the years as we built up our client base and expanded our service offering.

The industry is moving at a rapid pace and we reached a point where our brand story and image didn’t fully reflect the way the company had evolved and all the activities we have been engaged with. We’ve always tried to avoid being pigeonholed for a particular output and always remain open to explore new media and communication tools, which is a good philosophy for these changing times.

However, we were finding inconsistencies in the way different clients perceived us because our brand message and image hadn’t caught up and articulated our offering clearly enough. We discovered that people saw us in different ways: some clients still held the perception that we were purely a print studio, some saw us as a graphic design company, others as a web design agency.

It was at this point that we realised we needed to address the issue, and that the best way to do this was to completely rebrand Absolute, to reflect what the company is, and wants to be in the future.

Finding the brand message

The main aim of the rebrand was to clarify perceptions and unify messages about what Journey stands for, what we do and what our interests are, with the hopes that this will attract like-minded people that the agency wants to do business with.

Whilst we continue to pride ourselves on the craft element of our work, we came to the realisation that perhaps we have been underplaying the amount of strategic thinking that we put into our projects. We needed to fully acknowledge and express that what we do at Journey is a full-service approach that brings together every aspect of customers’ communications in a unified brand experience. From naming and branding to graphic design and printed collateral, online presence and carefully curated content, we are there for every step of the creative journey.

We have created a brand that, as Managing Director Eddie Byrne put it, “…reflects who we are as an agency: Strategic, organised, driven by top-notch design and great service, but also sincere and approachable. We are with our clients for the long-term and this change reflects the agency’s growth and evolved service offering.”

Managing Partner Dermot Malone added, “As we have expanded our offering to be what our clients need most, our visual identity has to mirror the shift. Over our 20-year history as a business, we have and will always continue to evolve to stay ahead of industry trends and market changes, to strategically support the needs of our clients and our people.”

Rebranding a company isn’t easy, some would call it a bold move. It turns out that being bold was the only way that we could have gotten to where we are now. And it was that same attitude that gave us the confidence to take that big, bold leap and start a new chapter for our company.

We couldn’t be more excited for what’s ahead!

The evolution of every brand is unique but it always comes down to a common goal – connecting with your audience. From naming and branding to graphic design and printed collateral, online presence and carefully curated content, everything lines up to tell your brand story.

But what happens when your brand identity no longer aligns with the story you’re trying to tell? Rebranding a company can be a bold move. But rebranding can also be extremely powerful–maybe even the most important long-term investment you make.

We recently found ourselves in this predicament. Over the years our services have expanded organically as we have undertaken new design challenges that have allowed us to expand beyond our roots in traditional print. Like many brands, over time our brand collateral looked less and less like who we are, and didn’t allow us to fully tell our own story. So, in mid-2022, we seized an opportunity to give the business a fresh and distinctive new look.

Our new logo — a symbol of moving forward and creative journeys — is the cornerstone of our new brand identity: a total rethink of how we present ourselves to the world. But more than that, it’s the end result of a year-long labour of love. And we feel pretty damn good about it.

But this isn’t just a “woo-hoo, we did it!” blog. This is a tale of how we got from Point A to Point B — a trail of breadcrumbs tracing our path, including lessons learned along the way and advice for other travellers.

It’s also about the keys to our success: a journey in its own right, to the core questions of who we are and what we stand for, and a commitment to forging our own path as we move forward.

Our rebranding process rolled out over several months in phases. You can expect the same steps in your own rebranding project:

Phase 1: “Brand Assessment.”

Understanding who you are and what your brand story is will serve as your north star and guiding light. From there, it’s a journey in seeking inspiration, self-discovery, making mistakes, learning, adapting and improving along the way.

When we started our rebranding process, we set out on a mission to find a memorable, easy to pronounce, easy to spell name that would help us to tell a story. Journey reflects the essence of our service offering and relationship to our clients in one word.

We love that our new brand identity captures our channel-agnostic approach and ‘creative journey’ mindset in a way that is simple and distinctive. It was clear from the beginning that bold visuals and a distinct voice were needed to make a branding impact.

Phase 2: “Brand Development.”

We got to work, developing a platform for the brand including core values, tone of voice and a brand narrative rooted in the direct notion of “Partnering our clients on their creative journeys”. With the brand established, we moved onto creating a customised icon, wordmark and brand identity system.

The primary icon is made up of a stylised ‘J’ made up of different ‘paths’ to represent the new name and communicate the idea of a creative journey. Unique colours and images can be used within the icon, reflecting the flexibility and adaptability of the agency, and the industry we work in. With a mission to drive brand recognition, it only made sense to use a bold, bright and optimistic colour palette to further stand out and captivate our audience.

Phase 3: “Create our Touchpoints”

With so much fresh thinking in the agency’s new logo and colour scheme, the team knew our web presence needed to keep up. Research on website design trends and user experiences led us to imagine a new way of showcasing our strong project imagery. Virtually all of our website text was re-written in order to be more concise and consistently on-message with our updated tone of voice.

The “Touchpoints” phase also produced templates for all Journey’s collateral, such as marketing presentations and proposal templates. New business cards, stationery and signage were designed and produced as well. Literally everything that had the Journey name on it was included in the team’s scope of work.

Phase 4: “Brand Management”

Our team planned the physical and digital aspects of an ambitious brand re-launch schedule, confidently rolling out the new look via social and web media. The rebranding work concluded with the publication of a comprehensive Journey brand guidelines so all the company’s messaging would be consistent and unified.

We’re excited to share our new brand identity with you – one that allows us to experiment with a wide visual range but still represents our core DNA of working hard to make our clients successful.

We hope that reading about our rebranding process has given you an understanding of the steps we took to get here and has helped you learn about the things to consider before embarking on a similar journey.

If you are thinking about your own rebrand, drop us a line and let’s have a chat. We can bring our wealth of experience to fuel your journey. From concept to launch, we can help you at every stage.

Building a successful brand is a journey… we’ll help you to Arrive Inspired.

We’re excited to announce that as of February 1st,
2023, we have a new name and brand identity:

Absolute are now called Journey

Absolute has undergone a big rebrand, giving a makeover to everything from our name and logo to our website and identity, and in turn refining the values, philosophy and positioning of our brand.

Having started life in 2003 as a printing company, over the years we have grown, changed and matured. We’ve become so much more than a print company – we’re a team that turn challenges into opportunities, inspire our clients to dream big and help them create outstanding things. Something we’re proud of.

So, we want to say a big, bold hello and re-introduce ourselves as Journey – your partner for your brand’s creative adventure.

Evolving a 20-year brand for the future

Absolute launched almost 20 years ago now and grew organically over the years as we built up our client base and expanded our service offering.

The industry is moving at a rapid pace and we reached a point where our brand story and image didn’t fully reflect the way the company had evolved and all the activities we have been engaged with. We’ve always tried to avoid being pigeonholed for a particular output and always remain open to explore new media and communication tools, which is a good philosophy for these changing times.

However, we were finding inconsistencies in the way different clients perceived us because our brand message and image hadn’t caught up and articulated our offering clearly enough. We discovered that people saw us in different ways: some clients still held the perception that we were purely a print studio, some saw us as a graphic design company, others as a web design agency.

It was at this point that we realised we needed to address the issue, and that the best way to do this was to completely rebrand Absolute, to reflect what the company is, and wants to be in the future.

Finding the brand message

The main aim of the rebrand was to clarify perceptions and unify messages about what Journey stands for, what we do and what our interests are, with the hopes that this will attract like-minded people that the agency wants to do business with.

Whilst we continue to pride ourselves on the craft element of our work, we came to the realisation that perhaps we have been underplaying the amount of strategic thinking that we put into our projects. We needed to fully acknowledge and express that what we do at Journey is a full-service approach that brings together every aspect of customers’ communications in a unified brand experience. From naming and branding to graphic design and printed collateral, online presence and carefully curated content, we are there for every step of the creative journey.

We have created a brand that, as Managing Director Eddie Byrne put it, “…reflects who we are as an agency: Strategic, organised, driven by top-notch design and great service, but also sincere and approachable. We are with our clients for the long-term and this change reflects the agency’s growth and evolved service offering.”

Managing Partner Dermot Malone added, “As we have expanded our offering to be what our clients need most, our visual identity has to mirror the shift. Over our 20-year history as a business, we have and will always continue to evolve to stay ahead of industry trends and market changes, to strategically support the needs of our clients and our people.”

Rebranding a company isn’t easy, some would call it a bold move. It turns out that being bold was the only way that we could have gotten to where we are now. And it was that same attitude that gave us the confidence to take that big, bold leap and start a new chapter for our company.

We couldn’t be more excited for what’s ahead!