A rebrand. Everyone loves them, right? 

OK, so mostly it’s the people behind them that love them, and that’s exactly why we’re writing this. But don’t go just yet because this is an interesting one. 

Why? Well, there are a few reasons. 

Firstly, we’re a startup. We’ve only been around since 2022 so you might wonder why we even need a rebrand. 

Secondly, we wanted to break away from the traditional sustainability space, i.e. a whole load of staid forest green and pictures of planet Earth. 

Finally, we’re a startup that puts brand front and centre. We understand the importance of branding. Of long-term thinking. Of the proven business value brand provides. Of differentiation and distinctiveness. Of laying the foundation before things get out of hand. It’s why we hired brand and content leads as some of the very first hires. You get the idea. 

Now, sticklers might argue that this is more of a brand refresh. And, well, they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. But it’s a funny old thing being a startup. At the very beginning, you’re still trying to figure out your customers, your positioning and your messaging. So whatever brand you’ve got going for you during that crazy period tends to be a bit all over the place. And it’s right there that things can go wrong; fail to lay the foundation early on and you’ll spend years trying to sop it all up later on. 

Laying the foundation

comundo was born way back in 2022. Back then we were Comundo. The name was born out of our values; community, mastery and doing good. It was an attempt at a portmanteau that didn’t quite work; Comando didn’t cut it, and anyway, even spell check autocorrects that to ‘Commando’. 

Our values came from the desire to build a company that not only had a second-to-none product but also would be a second-to-none workplace. We wanted comundo to be a workplace that was inclusive, transparent and honest. Somewhere you could come to and be yourself, be challenged and be fulfilled. Community, mastery and doing good. 

So we had a product. We had a name. We had values, a vision and a mission. Now we needed a look. 

Next, we did what most startups do and paid someone external to create a visual identity for us. 

We were happy. It looked nice. It was safe. It was green – for the environment, you know? 

But over time we started to realise that it didn’t really reflect who we were. We’re still green, but we don’t want to be that green. We wanted, and needed, to break away from the well-worn tropes of sustainability brands, and move into a space that still signalled sustainability, but in a distinctive and professional way that would stand out from the crowd.  

So we went back to the drawing board. 

Keeping it tight

We chose to keep the whole process internal. We had experienced brand and content leads in-house, so we didn’t see much benefit in bringing external teams in when we knew the brand so well and had such immediate access to the founders, the wider team and the product. 

The challenges we faced were clear. We needed to revisit our brand core and persona and put them down on paper (Notion); create a visual identity that communicated that personality; and ensure that visual identity stood out from the plethora of sustainability-driven startups out there. 

Keeping the process in-house also meant we could keep things streamlined. There were other restraints (hello, startup budget) which meant we didn’t have much choice other than keeping things as tight as possible. 

But, as any creative worth their salt with tell you, any failure or weakness can be turned into a strength or a source of inspiration. We were forced into a short timeframe, which in turn meant keeping any kind of meeting we held as focused as possible. No fluff – just honesty and fast decisions. 

We also knew that, being a startup, things can change. We were, and still are, convinced that our core brand personality won’t change, but we also know that as our customer base grows and our product develops, some brand assets might have to change to remain relevant and resonant, so we were happy to not spend weeks on a process that might very well have to be revisited in a year to accommodate updates. 

The process

We did workshops, we did talks, we did brainstorm sessions and branding workshops. We talked to the founders, we talked to the rest of the team, we talked to customers and researched competitors. 

Through all this research, together with some simple but proven methods, we identified the core brand traits of comundo and used them as the foundation blocks for the rest of the rebrand project. 

We identified a strong contrast story through the brand, a juxtaposition of professionalism and progressiveness in all that we do, from our simple yet meticulous product to our culture and the way we work.

It wasn’t difficult to build the comundo brand persona on top of these core traits, and once we had it all documented, two things were abundantly clear. 

First of all, even though we felt quite strongly about it before, we now had confirmation just how little our existing visual identity aligned with who we were, and secondly, we really were very different from similar companies in the industry. 

So how could we translate this strong brand into all the assets we’d need in order to stand out? 

Breaking the mould

Our customer and competitor research showed that there was a sustainability-space-startup template that, unfortunately, we – at that time – fit into perfectly. Not a bad thing, per se, but not who we are. 

The silver lining was that we now knew the gap we could – and should – fill. 

We didn’t want to play it safe and keep going down the well-trodden B2B brand path. We wanted to inject a little B2C into our brand. You don’t need to look far to find evidence that supports the blurring of lines between B2B and B2C branding and marketing. Luckily for us, the vast majority of our competitors were sticking to the B2B path.

We wanted to – if you’ll excuse us – go bold. Yes, we’d still use green, but a vibrant, fresh green that was markedly different from our original dark green. We kept our original yellow and chose a blue that was bright, eye-catching and full of optimism. 

We replaced our primary typeface with PP Right Serif, a beautiful serif typeface that conveys authority and professionalism while providing a contrast to our more energetic colours, thereby doubling down on the contrast story inherent in our brand identity. 

We also took the original scribble from our old visual identity and added a number of variations. They provide us with a way in which we can highlight accuracy and simplicity, while adding a handwritten contrast to our primary font, again, adding to our contrast story. 

The final visual identity is not only tightly aligned with our brand core and team, but it also differentiates us from our competitors. It’s progressive and energetic, while conveying professionalism and reliability needed in the B2B world. 

It is, to put it simply, us. 

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What’s next?

We know we might have to tweak our identity as we go, but that’s part of the startup journey. Our core brand persona won’t change; it’s why we were founded and reflects our mission, vision and values. Being a people-driven company, we’ll do everything we can to stay true to the founding values.

We know how unique and fortunate we are to have such a young company put brand front and centre from the very beginning. We believe it’s paving the way for us as a company, and with such a recognisable brand, we hope that we’ll be front and centre in people’s minds when they need a carbon accounting company. 

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The new VI in the wild

Curious to see how our new VI would look in action? We got you.