BLACKBX branding

BLACKBX branding

Timeline: 2 months - branding, 1 year overall with all the materials (2017)
Role: Graphic Designer
Tools: Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign, Sketch

BLACKBX is a SaaS software company providing customer insights and effective digital marketing automation tools through data collection from Wifi. The name came from the "black box" a data collection and public wifi device, that was offered alongside their software platform. BX was shortened from the word BOX as there was existing company named Black Box.

The brief:

  • Modern “sexy” black branding.

Inspirations:

A montage of various examples of modern corporate designs with a black 
    or dark palette.

Research:

I was researching something classy and “sexy” as my employer wanted. They were a brand new startup and wanted to stand out from their competition. They didn’t wanted to achieve cool and modern look. Most of the software companies tends to look very techy, they wanted to avoid looking like their software is hard to use and can be used by anyone.

The Idea:

I wanted to focus on the name, where it came from and what it symbolises. Since the company collects data from wifi, as a highlight I decided to use the color green, to show connectivity. Green also symbolises fresh growth, and wealth. In this project it could also mean being more eco-friendly as using the software eliminates a lot of print materials since a lot of your marketing campaigns can be sent digitally with the aid of the data collected.

The problem

It was too dark. The black background is problematic when used at larger scale. Pure black with white can cause discomfort for the eye when users read the text over an extended period of time, leading to eye strain. That said, black isn’t bad for all users; low vision users, who are sight impaired but not blind, tend to read text better in high contrast modes. Later on we decided to adjust this by adding white space to the print and text heavy digital informational materials to improve readability.

A BlackBX flyer designed to provide information on the BlackBX device.

We also decided highlighting users' devices didn’t have much character, and instead wanted to focus a bit more on people, and how they play very important part in collecting the data.

Final result

I was very satisfied with the final result. I had to work on a lot of illustrations, with a lot of focus on the details.

My favourite bit was designing the promotional cards. The idea was to laser cut the shape of the wifi signal symbol into the envelope. The inside of the envelopes were green, so when the business card was taken out, it showed wifi sign “getting online”.

A BlackBX advertising card in its custom laser cut sleeve. The BlackBX advertising card outside its sleeve with the sleeve now displaying a full wifi signal.
A BlackBX business card, showing detail of both faces. The BlackBX branding book. Branded packaging for the BlackBX black box device. An assortment of printed BlackBX marketing materials.

Additionally:

I was also responsible for product photography

Photograph of a customer landing page on a mobile phone. Photograph of a customer landing page on a mobile phone. Photograph of a customer landing page on a mobile phone. Photograph of a customer landing page on a mobile phone.