Here at Incstone, we're always glad to be able to help our clients in any way we can, and in some cases this even means going the extra mile.  Take for example the case of a small travel business looking for a new image.  What they got was quite a bit more, a service we were glad to provide.

In April of 2009, Catalina Travel Advisors came to us seeking help for the redesign of their image.  Though they'd initially wanted a theme based on the old romance of the South Seas, the sad reality was that their previous logo design only alluded to the romance of bad clip art.  Chock full of generic images including the stereotypical "globe" that was used in one too many travel agency logos and some rather unremarkable typography, this was less than a stellar design and possibly detrimental to the company.

After some discussions with Steven Hood, the owner of CTA, he had informed us that he wanted to keep the general theme of the South Seas, but to try something different: he was renaming the company PBY, after the military designation of the aircraft.  We advised him that this would work out for him, not only because of the break from the previous name, but also because of the simplicity and uniqueness of the name itself.  An additional benefit came from the description of how he wanted PBY to be different from CTA in that it would be focused more on meeting the customer experience rather than just merely offering a wide selection of destinations.  This in effect would allow the customer greater freedom to create his/her own vacation.  Based on that idea, and from company's name we helped him develop a new slogan: Powered By You.

Now that we had our theme and ideas to work with, we started on developing the visual identity for PBY.  Keeping the original theme of the PBY Catalina, we chose colors that would imply elegance and luxury, while adding highlights that allowed for a little bit of playfulness. We also extended this to the logotype, choosing a professional font, but coloring it in a way that accented the use of the individual letters as a means of allowing Steven to then bring up the company slogan in conversation. Needless to say, Steven was definitely pleased with our design and immediately adopted it, but at the same time he had a new challenge: how to leverage his newly-rechristened company to work in areas which the old CTA could not, and how to identify with them?

After some discussion, we agreed that the best option for him would be brand channelling.  Along with the master logo, PBY would use its slogan to the fullest, creating individual "sub-logos" for each of the company's main areas:

Upon completion of the project, here's what he had to say:

Differentiation is critical in any industry these days, but no more so than in the travel industry. Travel industry experts also told us that brand loyalty in the travel business was uncommon, and it is no longer enough to simply specialize in a destination or lifestyle to set oneself apart, as almost all sellers of travel services and convention managers do these days and trends change overnight. We needed a brand that customers would not just recognize, but associate with their travel experiences both past and present, no matter where their dreams took them. At the same time, we did not want to abandon our existing brand, both for our existing customers and for tradition’s sake. Mr. Barba looked at what we were trying to do as a company and suggested we consider using “brand channels” for reinforcement while updating our logo to something beautifully simple and simply beautiful. I have had customers who had never heard of us before book their next vacation with us simply because they looked at our business card and thought that our logo and our brand channels ‘look welcoming and exciting’. I do not think it is possible for this to have turned out better for our company or our clients.

At Incstone, we're always glad to be of help, and if we can work magic for clients like PBY, imagine what we can do for your business.