How we crafted the Sora Brand

BRAND DESIGN CASE STUDY

The Sora Union Brand Story

We were requested to develop a brand identity for a company offering a variety of services executed by hyper-creative, hyper-reliable, globally distributed knowledge workers; knowledge workers who all happen to be affected and possibly displaced by climate change or war.

The encompassing brand value and driving force that we wanted to capture in this brand was that people are valuable. Often, displaced individuals become a political problem, but what if there were a way to empower such individuals with a steady flow of income, not impacted by their geographical regions or current circumstances?

The task was to create a brand identity that unpacks how our brand tells our story.

Client

Sora Union

Deliverables

Brand Identity
Web Design
Web Developmentk

Year

2022

BRAND IDENTITY

The challenge was to craft a brand that would garner the trust of clients and talent

There were two important groups this brand had to speak to; the companies that would hire talent, and secondly the talent. The challenge was to craft a brand that would garner the trust of potential clients, but is visually compelling enough to attract creative talent and knowledge workers.

2 Questions lead our exploration:

What do we want people to feel when they encounter this brand
What is the narrative that encompasses the facts and feelings that our brand creates?

Our Approach

Naming: 2 rounds

For our first round, we created several high level territories + descriptions that felt true to the goals for this company.

Connection: Reciprocity, Relation, Communicate
Resourceful: Confident, Wise, Conscientious
Foundational: Necessary, Indispensable
Community: Utopia/New world, Refuge, New opportunities
Impact: Transformation, Energy, Power
Elite: Knowledge, Premium, Sought after
Creative: Innovative, Ingenious, Brave

During this process, our team members also sketched abstract logos to capture the concept for each naming direction going beyond words to think visually from the start.

Concept exploration

Upon sharing round one’s names with the stakeholders, the names they preferred fell into 4 larger brand concepts:

Sky
Meeting + Connection
Visitor
Welcoming strangers

We explored a range of new options resonating with these concepts, creating an extensive list of more than 900 names. We prioritized words that phonetically sounded lyrical, beautiful, and inherently inspirational. Each of these words, rooted in non-English languages, represented values we honored.

Shortlist

The stakeholders picked three options to move forward with:

Soraㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ‎meaning ‘sky’ in Japanese

Noomaㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤmeaning ‘wind or spirit’, a phonetic spelling of the Greek word πνευμα (pneuma)

Jünaㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤmeaning ‘mutual’ in Hausa; “clod of earth” and “source of life” in Saliba.

Visual Explorations

With the shortlist of 3 options, we did an in-depth visual study of how these options could come to live. The intent of this round was to help the stakeholders narrow down the final option.

Harmony between the name and visual identity were incredibly important to help us determine which name feels the best.

The winner: Sora

The stakeholders unanimously chose Sora to move forward with.

During our explorations, we looked at various words meaning “sky” in different languages. Yet, the word Sora was the one that stood out. It sounds like the word soaring, flying, or rising high in the air. It also felt regal, aspirational, and melodic to pronounce.

The impact of war and climate change can ultimately force people out of their “motherland,” those geographical regions they grew up in. Suppose you remove the mountain ranges, deserts, or valleys that were home to you. What will remain when you move to another region or country? The sky, the sunsets, and the stars.

Sky was the narrative that encompassed our brand.

We presented four brand identities to our stakeholders:

A dynamic globe eluding to connectedness and collaboration
Three birds in flight, representing a flock of migratory birds
A typographical option that flexed and adapted to different applications
An icon combining a sun/moon, sky, and bird wingspan

Evolving the chosen logo

The flock of birds, was the overwhelming favorite and resonated deeply with our values. Migrating birds captures the essence of Sora Union most aptly.

Individual birds are vulnerable to natural elements and various predators, and migratory flocks of birds are a potent metaphor for community, teamwork, and stealth. Scientists still don’t understand how birds flying in murmurations don’t collide with each other.

Refining the icon

We further refined the bird logo to live up to our keywords of “hyper-creative” and “hyper-reliable”. Even the smallest detail down to the roundedness of the beak mattered.

We laid out a range of the three bird compositions versions, with significant changes to the curves of the beak and wing shapes, to arrive at the right feeling. The final icon felt multifaceted, elegant and geometrically precise.

Typography research

Our attention to detail extended to the typeface. We tested hundreds of typeface weights and alignments to find the perfect combination with the logo.

Ultimately, we crafted each of the letters to create a bespoke wordmark. The font for word “Union” that stood out, came from a google font called - wait for it - Sora.

Dynamic 24-hour color system

What color is the sky?
A simple answer might be blue. Yet, as we explored different visual references, we were inspired to see as much variety in colors as in the cultures represented by Sora’s workforce.

We challenged ourself to come up with a brand color system that could capture the changing colors in the sky, down to the hour. The result was a 24-hour color system for our brand palette.

Color System Final Result

Our color palette expresses the ever-changing nature of the sky above our global team and clients.

The colors on the website are personalized to the visitor’s time zone but remain connected to all others through our 24-hour system. The background gradients transitioning every hour linking the current hour to the next one visually. If it's 5 pm, you will see the orange sunset color; if it's 11 am, you will see the clear blue sky.

A one-time visitor might not even notice the changing hues of our website’s color palette. We aim to engage deeply with our partners, and we hope repeat visitors will be inspired by Sora Union dynamism and bold color.

Final Result

The final result was a robust identity system that exudes premiumness, inspired with an innovating color system and a memorable website.

One of our leading questions in the beginning of this project, was:
“What do we want people to feel when they encounter this brand?”

We wanted Sora Union to make people feel inspired, uplifted and hopeful. On the other hand we wanted to communicate the values of a hyper creative, competent, globally distributed workforce. We believe that the combination of brand elements accomplish what we set out to do.

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