Creative TIM
Project Type
Year
Region
Brand Designer
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Rebranding
2018
Romania
Paul Vîrlan
About
As amusing the old TIM seems, as naive and static in communication it actually is. Even if the team behind Creative TIM smiles and appears laid-back, this is solely because of its expertise and creativity self-awareness.
The Creative TIM products have a crisp and clean design, they are easy to use and easy to customize and precisely these attributes should be conveyed in the brand communication.
Moreover, the limits of the old logo set out the limits of brand communication. The Creative TIM logo used to be just a logo, without any visual style or font of its own. The apparently easygoing look & feel of the logo failed to meet the needs of those behind Creative TIM who were evolving rapidly and were in need of a real set of communication tools for their products.
Though everyone loved him, TIM wasn’t able anymore to adapt to the new rhythm of life. The team ceased to use it in their product communication, so it became something you hung on a wall and then forget about it.
The first thing that drew my attention to the old logo was TIM’s face expression, that particular smile I wanted to keep at all costs. Well, that smile was about to embody all the brand information I have collected during a discussion with Alex, the Creative TIM founder. That smile would have had a dominant presence and a reassuring effect, unless covered in unnecessary details.
Keeping that smile in mind, I went back to the research stage and I looked up if math and computer science could ever seem fun. I ultimately understood that real intelligence without a sense of humor doesn’t exist.
Try & Investigate
I started by simplifying forms and expressions. I tried different concepts, different solutions to make a modular and engaging system.
Passing through dozens of ideas, I understood what works and what doesn’t and kept only a couple of them on which to build the graphic elements.
Many of them were just amusing, other ideas would have had a chance to be smart as well, but they eventually failed the originality test.
Then, finally, I had the solution! A robot! A “T” robot made with UI elements.
A modular system that conveys the main values of those behind Creative TIM: being engaged and being creative. This system now satisfies everybody's needs and also helps the brand to communicate in social media through a special language and a wide variety of emotions.
Now that I have a powerful story-driven logomark with a lot of visual potential it’s time to focus on the logotype as well.
I’ve bumped into Roboto Slab Typeface and I wasn’t able to move forward anymore. (Because of its name and the T Robot; I really wanted to make that Roboto joke). Unfortunately, Roboto Slab was similar to a monospaced font used in a programming console (and I really liked that), but the alliance between the logomark and its logotype was really bad and the “creative and fun” part could have easily became “boring and sad”.
I continued to search for something super clean and not too formal that could be easily integrated into my concept. Montserrat (created by Julieta Ulanovsky) satisfied my needs and it was love at first sight with the capital letters, the clean letter design and the wide array of characters. After some minimal interventions, it looked perfect. Moreover, I decided to keep this typeface as a brand font as well, because of its versatility in weights and sizes and its modern look that could be easily associated with the new TIM.
Logo
Dynamic Logo
Visual Identity
Brand Materials
Digital
The new TIM is still amusing, but no longer naive. TIM has now an emotional intelligence that conveys more inner life than any other human being.
