Comprehensive brand guideline design

Brand creation for Exir Opal’s tableware goods

COMMUNICATION CHALLENGE

Choosing a top marketing agency
The owner of the newly established homeware brand approached us to help create its brand identity. The brand aimed to position its glassware dining products as the leading brand in a relatively open market. Its marketing strategy is to provide locally made products that are superior to imports from China, but more affordable than premium imports from Europe. Our initial challenge would be to develop a brand identity that appealed to aspirational customers with European style preferences while keeping a hint of value. Aside from this challenge, we would also need to portray the essence of the brand internally and across its operations facilities.

Brand identity design that improves inbound marketing

For us, at Zigma8 these challenges were not only exciting but enormous. We would need to put our full-service branding skills to the test because Exir Opal needed it all. However, Exir Opal wasn’t Exir Opal until we’d passed one of the early stages of our complete brand creation — the brand naming. Following this, we’d need to create the brand slogan, visual ID, guidelines, templates, stationery, interior design, clothing and a lot more.

COMMUNICATION SOLUTION

Brand naming for the market

After establishing an understanding of the market differentiation and segmentation through market research, we came up with the name Exir Opal. The first part of this name, Exir, translates as ‘elixir’ — a medicinal potion sought by an alchemist to prolong life indefinitely. The second part of this name provides an exotic link to the category, providing familiarity with the audience due to its use in the market with brands such as Arcopal and Luminarc. These two words conjure an exotic and alluring feeling among the audience.

Creative slogan creation

We then created a slogan that played on the material used for the products the brand would make. Each Exir Opal product would find its artistic shape and color. This action would be, as we claimed in the slogan: “…morphing into art”.

Logo design

The slogan then became the main influence of the logo. We took three basic shapes: a circle, triangle, square, and illustrated the process of them morphing into one another. This display of motion represents what Exir Opal does in the process of making their products. Not only do the shapes morph into one another, but they do so continuously to represent longevity — linking back to the word ‘exir’. Our choice of color scheme also represents the process, with the use of calm home tones blending into one another.

Interior design with a difference

We implemented the brand identity across many touch-points but decided to take things further. We extended the branding to the interior design of the offices and factory. We did this by morphing the necessary printed shapes that appear internally to help staff understand which objects go where. For example, we outlined the shape of a fire hydrant, then extended shapes beyond it to make a square frame. By doing this, we were able to add a branded touch to a system known as 5S. The primary objective of 5S is to improve productivity by creating an organized workplace that is clean and in order. These branding touches brightened up the workplace, morphing ordinarily unattractive shapes into shapes that reflect the brand. Our choice of color scheme also represents the process, with the use of calm home tones blending into one another.

COMMUNICATION RESULT

World-class marketing solutions

Exir Opal is an exciting new brand that affords a local market with tasteful designs for their glassware dining products needs. The brand is making a fresh and bold start with one of the most comprehensive brand identities that we’ve made to date. In these early days, we have little to measure in way of success, but we can measure the confident feedback from our client, who have trusted us to help deliver a world-class brand that will help with the company’s ambitions to export to an international market.