Wunderdogs unleashed: celebrating our 5th birthday with a rebrand

Our birthday month calls for some reflection — on how far we've come and where we're headed next.

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Five years ago, we were a small and scrappy team of creatives based in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco. Since those early days, we've been united by our passion for fast-moving early-stage startups and the groundbreaking technologies that they pioneer. This passion inspired our name — Wunderdogs — and the big idea behind it: helping underdogs become big dogs by doing wonders.

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We've come a long way since then. Here are the five long roads we've skipped along in these five short years:

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We've transformed our offering. When we started, we limited ourselves to brand design services. We soon realized, however, that the need was much larger. Over time, we grew to provide a full range of services to help teams build, launch and grow their brands at a pace of a scaling organization. Through the years, we've refined this process by helping over 50 companies scale and over 100 more to build and sustain their brands.
We've expanded our team. An exceptional range of services requires an equally exceptional team to deliver them. In five years, we went from a team of two to a global team of over 20, spanning three continents and bringing together varied expertise and outlooks. We're graphic and digital designers, copywriters, strategists, engineers, and fundraising experts — remote and diverse by design.
We've built partnerships. We've teamed up with 30+ global accelerators, VCs, and media organizations of our dreams. They now help us share everything we learned about building brands and communicating their value. We use this platform to support technology founders.
We made our mark. Through our hard work and dedication, we've gained recognition through 25+ international awards. We've been featured on FastCo, Forbes, Entrepreneur, and others. We're proud of our work and want to continue sharing it with the world to inspire everyone to build incredible brands.
We've finally grown into ourselves. 5 years old is 35 in dog years, so we've matured and fully processed who we are in the community we've built and what we add to the world. By drawing on the dual synergy of tech and creative, we help people solve big challenges by communicating them effectively to the world.

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Having gone through this journey through building brands and helping bridge the world of tech with the wider world, it became apparent that we needed to add one crucial missing piece: an update to our own brand.

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So we rebranded ourselves.

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Strategy

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Our brand strategy is an encapsulation of everything we know about ourselves, the world, and our clients and partners within it.

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We see ourselves as the guides at the crossroads between technology and creativity—the path beyond leads to an exciting journey through vibrant communities toward an exciting place in the spotlight. But for many of those standing at the crossroads, it's their first time making this journey. So we place ourselves right there to welcome people into the world of branding and set them up for success on the journey ahead.

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We also inspire people on their journey toward the crossroads and beyond. By nurturing partnerships across the board, we amplify our vision and spread ideas that become kernels of impactful brands.

Visuals

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As an agency, it's typical, even expected, for clients to be front and center. We, therefore, wanted our identity to be a container for multitudes: one that can seamlessly switch between being bold and all about our brand to one that is subtle and minimalist to highlight our clients' brands.

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The logo reimagines a flag: a representation of our global, multinational team and evocative of summiting a mountain, leaving a mark at the top. This reflects our dedication to unity in multitudes and to helping all those we work with truly unleash their wildest potential. As a bonus, the flag is subtly reminiscent of a W — a nod to our name.

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The colors are bold, bright, and high-contrast. The warm, glowing purple-to-yellow gradient is integral to our color palette. We call it our Blast Off Gradient as it propels everything forward, giving it momentum to reach new heights. It's also a visual bridge between the purple world of tech and the warm yellow world of creativity.

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Our key visuals are primarily composed of prominent geometric elements that we can use as containers for our clients' brands or combine with our bold colors to place ourselves in the spotlight.

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For typography, we wanted to focus on minimalism, subtlety, and accessibility. There is, however, a little Easter Egg in there, and we'll tell you about it since you've read this far! The W in "Wunderdogs" is slanted. It goes against the grid — but not because we're contrarian. It's because we value imperfection — it's where we find inspiration and the most unexpected solutions to the toughest challenges.

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So there you have it! Please welcome the new Wunderdogs identity, designed to represent everything we stand for, and continue growing with us. We'd love to hear what you think.

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FAQS

How do vision and mission statements impact a company's long-term direction?

Effective vision and mission statements should ideally constitute important tools in formulating a company’s strategy. They should largely remain unchanged through the years, though a significant pivot may bring about new vision and mission statements. Together, they work to define the focus of the business and how it impacts the world.

The vision statement is a representation of your company’s view of a better world. The mission statement reflects how it sets about to achieve this vision. They work together to create internal alignment and help with strategic decision making. When planning for the future, developing new products, or experimenting with new strategies, teams can perform a quick check against the vision and mission statements to ensure that these initiatives are aligned with the essence of the brand.

In short, the vision and mission statements are powerful tools which can and should impact decisions across the organizations, making them important factors in a company’s long-term direction.

How does brand strategy influence the overall success of a business?

Your brand strategy reflects how your brand sees the world and its role within it. It is the framework that, ideally, should guide all your communications (both external and internal) and audience touchpoints, i.e. each interaction an audience member has with your business.

Having standardized communication across all channels and touchpoints makes business processes smoother and positively influences your client relationships, ensuring you develop strong, long-term connections with your customers. It also simplifies strategic decision-making and aligns your team. All these factors are vital to the success of a business.

How do messaging frameworks help communicate your brand message effectively?

Messaging frameworks are structured guides that outline the core messages, value propositions, and differentiators of a brand. They ensure consistency across all communications, from marketing materials and social media posts to customer service interactions. By defining key messages that resonate with the brand's target audiences, messaging frameworks help ensure that a brand’s communications are clear and memorable.

They also help organizations stay aligned internally and ensure that each member, regardless of their role, understands what the brand’s key message is and how to communicate it effectively. This internal alignment is crucial for presenting a unified brand image to the outside world.

What specific elements contribute to a brand's verbal identity?

A brand’s verbal identity should align your team on how your brand communicates and how this communication changes depending on the situation. It defines a specific and recognizable language through which your brand can deliver its message to your audience or audiences.

Typically, a verbal identity includes some, or all, of the following elements:

Brand personality: This captures the human traits or characteristics that your brand embodies, such as being adventurous, sophisticated, or reliable, which help shape how your brand is perceived.

Brand voice: The brand voice reflects how your brand reflects its personality across all communication channels.

Brand tone: While the brand voice remains consistent, the brand tone can change depending on the context of the message and the audience being addressed, ranging from formal and professional to informal and friendly.

Messaging frameworks: These are strategic tools that outline the key messages your brand intends to communicate to its different target audiences, ensuring that all messaging is aligned with your brand's mission, vision, and value propositions.

Messaging examples: These provide specific examples of how your brand's messaging might be applied in various scenarios.

Style and grammar guidelines: These outline your preferred spelling, grammar, and style, ensuring that your communication is consistent across the board.

What are some key considerations when developing a tone of voice for a brand?

The first and most important consideration is the brand’s personality. While businesses are functional, they still communicate with people – and people primarily connect with stories and personas. Your brand’s personality will define a set of human characteristics which reflect how it sees itself in the world. By giving your brand these human attributes, you are making it both distinctive and easier to identify with. The tone of voice should reflect your brand’s personality.

It’s also important to consider your target market and your audience’s expectations. While having a distinctive tone of voice is important for memorability, there is such a thing as being too different. If all brands in your segment adopt a serious, professional tone, and you would like to be fun and playful, there is certainly space for that, but consider very carefully why you are doing it.

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Wunderdogs unleashed: celebrating our 5th birthday with a rebrand