Openfield rebrand
Off the back of delivering a high stakes event for the Ministry of Education NZ, redesigning the education system in New Zealand, Philippe Colloumb’s co-founder, Charles, made the hard decision to leave their business, wheretofromhere?. This left Phillipe at a critical point in his career, faced with the reality of what he was capable of and that he would have to redefine the business and go it alone. We started working with Phillipe through a process of discovery and uncovered many challenges and limitations he was facing as a result of the current brand and his own self beliefs.
Although we didn’t initially set out to change the name, through our process we established that the current brand and name wheretofromhere? created confusion, was very lengthy and not to mention when used in an acronym (like many consultants tend to do) was very close to WTF. We presented our findings to Phillipe in a brand audit and shed some light on things. In addition to the audit we engaged with Phillipe and his peers in a process of co-design to understand better the purpose, values and ambitions of the organisation so we could best design for what Philippe aspired to become.
Services:
Naming
Brand strategy
Visual identity
Co-design
Web design
Core purpose
We designed and facilitated a co-design workshop with key stakeholders to identify the core purpose and values of the organisation. Many valuable conversations were had and by the end of the day it was established that the organisation exists to “create space for new possibilities to emerge so that together we can solve problems bigger than ourselves”
Testimonial
“The WordPlay Studio team are generous, caring, and humble. They fearlessly embrace any challenge with relentless energy, pragmatic perfectionism, and a deep empathy.”
Philippe Colloumb, CEO – Openfield
A name with purpose
When we established the core purpose it became clear that the current brand did not fit the organisation as it stood. The MG Taylor Methodology Philippe uses is deep, philosophical and rich in symbolism and tools.
From the core purpose we had some key insights:
Space is physical and metaphysical
Emergence is an integral part of the method
From here we were able to develop a name that reflected the purpose, Openfield. A field being an open space for new possibilities to be created and also reference to the morphogenic field created in a co-design event.
Symbolism
In collaboration design the common shape for an event is the arch. The arch a place to converse, hold energy and focus on a facilitator or scribe at front of the room. The arch shape also represents the morphogenic field that surrounds a body or a planet energetically. This field expands and contracts to include all those in participation in an event or shared space.
Emergence is represented in the shape through the negative space. An arch can also be a sun rise on an open field. We distilled this shape down into it’s simplest form but are continuing to find meaning in it’s application.
Logomark
It was important to pair the geometric ‘field’ symbol with letterforms that were more humanist, yet still maintaining the simplicity of the overall logomark.
We experimented with dozens of humanist typefaces, pulling out specific characteristics that worked, before undergoing a fully custom type design process. We began sculpting each individual character and carefully refining as a whole until the wordmark was revealed.
Digital Design
Brand Collateral
