Posted by Thomas Eorgan, SVP, Marketing
With the launch of our new brands, you’re bound to have questions regarding our motivations behind why we launched divisional brands, and what the brands mean. I’m hopeful this post will explain our new direction. And don’t worry, the familiar ‘arcs’ of the original n-tara logo are still around, but now they’ve been joined by two closely-linked children to round out the n-tara family.
So first, why: the re-branding initiative was begun to better position our offerings to our customers and future customers. n-tara has always been a unique company – rich in the dual heritages of design and technology, fortified with an underlying current of strategy and the discovery of critical insights. With that much capability, (from a marketing perspective) it was often difficult to ‘bucket’ our offerings in the most efficient manner.
We also analyzed what our brand means through the benefits and value we provide to our customers. This exercise included reviewing every project we’ve ever put out the door and a detailed analysis of our customer interactions and why our customers keep coming back to us. We found one common thread throughout every endeavor: our work creates connections. This became our theme. Our new mantra started with a simple statement:
n-tara connects buyers and brands.
This was fortified with other connective relationships:
-sales and customers
-marketing and prospects
-presenters and audiences
Out of our own applied discovery process, we had a clear roadmap of how to revise our brand platform, create our new marks, and position our offerings. Out of this effort came the logo designs you see here, the color palettes, the messaging, the imagery, and so on. Ethan Blumenstrauch, our world-class creative director, led the redefinition of our brand, which you can read about in this post. Joshua Hathaway, our talented lead designer, materialized the brand platform into the graphic elements that you can see on our websites. And our peerless team, whom we’ll introduce you to individually on the blogs in upcoming posts, programmed and developed the sites and blogs.
Some brand facts:
1. The original n-tara brand mark ‘arcs’ symbolized the synergy of three core technologies: animation, interactive, and digital video
2. The word ‘n-tara’ is a derivation of a Malaysian word meaning ‘between the curves, between time and space’. The word was chosen for its symbolic meaning…and because the five letter domain name was available back in 1999.
3. The n-tara company logo was reverted back to its original dark charcoal color from a brown/orange color used for the past 3 years
4. The icon in the new interactive and works marks is symbolic of human connection, and the potential for connection. Thus derived the ‘glue’ metaphor on ntarainteractive.com
5. The two marks are nearly identical in design to symbolize the close collaborative, cross-functional relationship of the divisions.
We hope you enjoy our ‘new look’ as much as we do. We’re always open for your feedback, to help us continue to grow our company and most importantly, to better serve you.