SPARKLE is a company providing hotel-grade housekeeping services for homes and private residential units. Coming from Danish roots with European standards, and using high-end environmental friendly equipment, SPARKLE started in Egypt in late 2016 to set a new benchmark for home cleaning services in the Egyptian market.
Over more than six months working independently with this client, I created a brand identity for SPARKLE, as well as various print and digital designs.
Concept
SPARKLE believes that it provides more than just cleaning. It is rather about caring to make people's lives easier, more delightful, and helping them spend their time doing the things they actually want to do. Having care, love, and quality at heart; the visual identity was rather to reflect the core brand values than highlighting tangible benefits. This was made clearly visible through the heart-shaped logo and a remarkable burgundy–gray color scheme.
Logo
The initial logo idea started with just the cleaning glove element. However, much of the meaning would have been lost if only the cleaning part of the brand was highlighted. Eventually, the logomark has evolved into a streamlined version of the glove, stretched and tweaked to form a heart shape. Giving the heart shape more focus and visibility was intended to communicate SPARKLE’s main values. Eight four-point stars were then added by the fingertips to complement the glove and clarify its purpose. The stars also serve as a literal representation of the brand name “SPARKLE”.
Colors
While many rival brands would usually go for cool colors like shades of blue or green, SPARKLE took a totally different direction with a warm burgundy color combined with a neutral medium gray. The burgundy-gray color combination not only sets SPARKLE apart from its rivals, but it was carefully selected with an aim to reflect the core values of the brand.
The burgundy color is inspired by velvet fabric, representing quality, comfort and luxury. The gray color gives a hint of silver, adding a premium look to the visual identity. A medium gray shade was selected for better visibility on both light and dark backgrounds.
A secondary palette was set to help enriching the brand’s visual communications, as well as maintaining a consistent design language. A warm Yellow, a grass Green, and an aqua Blue were selected to balance the relatively dark brand colors, and to give the brand a fresher, vivid look.
Typography
SPARKLE communicates in both English and Arabic (Egyptian dialect), depending on the marketing strategy of each campaign and the market segment targeted with each communication material. Hence, there was a need to specify a primary typeface for headlines and another one for body text in each language.
For headings, the same sans-serif used in the logo was set for English, complemented by a modern Arabic typeface. For body text, a lighter variation of the same typeface used for English headlines was chosen, along with a matching font for Arabic. Typefaces were also selected so that both English and Arabic text would stand perfectly beside each other, at the same font size. They both have the same exact cap height—though in Arabic the letter structure is technically different and caps don't literally exist—and are both organically aligned together to the base line.
A typography style guide was also developed, allowing for more flexibility to use a variety of other fonts. Opening the door to using different typefaces than the main brand fonts was important to always keep the brand's communications fresh and eye-catching.
Applications
I designed a wide set of brand application for SPARKLE including business cards, staff ID cards, office signage, banners, flyers, vouchers, stickers, and door hangers.
DOOR HANGERS
Promising a hotel-like level of service, it made perfect sense to simulate an environment similar to that of luxurious hotels. Door hangers were designed for SPARKLE to be used as a seal of quality, and also as a promotional material in the same time. It is a simple way to remind existing customers of how SPARKLE makes their homes fresh and clean, and an indirect way to introduce the brand to new potential customers, e.g. neighbors.
The door hangers soon became a primary part of the brand communications. I created an adaptive design template for the hangers that can be modified to fit different needs and marketing messages.
BUSINESS CARDS
My idea for the business cards was to make them extremely simple, yet elegant. The backside of the card highlights SPARKLE's full logo with its variant on a burgundy background. The rounded zigzag—which was originally borrowed from the logo—is used as a separator like in other brand applications, adding a unique and consistent feature to the brand's visual identity. The cards were given rounded corners to make them softer and more friendly.
Online
While most of my work for SPARKLE was offline, I worked with them to develop various online materials as well. I created a series of 8 posts as part of an online campaign for SPARKLE, in addition to other miscellaneous online posts and Facebook ads.
As online communications require a wider variety of options in order to adapt to the rapidly changing trends, I also recommended three different visual styles for the social media posts to help the brand have a more consistent online presence in the future.
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