King Lighting Brand Refresh

A strong logo can tell the world who you are, but a strong brand identity will make that first impression last. Cue brand refresh!

Original Logo

King Lighting, Inc. has been a part of the Southwestern Ohio and Northern Kentucky Business Community for nearly 90 years. The have a strong presence in their community and a reputation for excellence. Their historical roots are quite deep but their previous brand didn’t quite tell that story.

In need of a refresh, Sepia Studio helped King Lighting with an impactful brand refresh that would help them reflect the innovation, adaptability, and experience they’ve shared with their customers since 1927.

The original logomark represented the company initials: KLI (King Lighting, Inc.), but that’s really not how their clientele or their community knew them. It was a key element in refreshing their identity to bring them back to being known as King Lighting without any superficial initials.

Logo Process Beginnings

brand identity research findings

Our approach to branding or refreshing is a research based approach – asking our clients to describe in their own words, who they are and what they do. We take that information, combine it with analysis from our own online searching, and head to the drawing board to categorize concept ideas. We believe it’s important to not only present logos, but rather identity concepts. For example, King Lighting is authentic; King Lighting has expertise; King Lighting is electric. The logo ideas we presented follow in line with these overall brand concepts.

Refining the Logo

Another element of this project was to consider creating a new tagline for the company that could sometimes accompany the logo or other marketing materials.

Simply, “evolving with the needs of the industry” is what King Lighting has done since 1927, and it accurately describes how they approach each new project and challenge.

logo refining

Creating Brand Guidelines

The open office area was quite the long stretch of space to fill, and the overall theme was to use Atlas project photography to show their work. We took it one step further and saw the abstract beauty in the raw beams and matrix configurations – combining and collaging portions from a handful of different projects into one supergraphic, clipping and combining where it made most sense, overlaying a thin, white geometric pattern to create visual breaks. The hallway leading up to this graphic has glass lined with a logo-inspired pattern for a small layer of privacy and a subtle layer of branding.

As a final step in the identity package, we designed business cards that would be a main reveal for new clients. We started with a few options and narrowed down to the final design.

Front Entrance Window Graphics

We’d argue heavily that a brand refresh can be just as important internally as it is externally. How your employees embody a brand and stand up for the brand is key. We proposed an option to dress up the front entrance for both visitors and employees with the new branding. Nothing quite like a window display to ooze King Lighting as you enter.

installed window graphics with branding and privacy frosting
In collaboration with the marketing manager at King Lighting, we refreshed their brand in a way that would directly connect them back with their industry, their community, and their authentic selves. What a difference an update can make.