The Institute of Communication Agencies (ICA) has unveiled a new rebranding effort developed by member agency Sid Lee, whose design portfolio includes the Toronto Raptors, Sélections Chartier and Blue Goose.
The rebrand includes a stronger and more contemporary ICA word-mark and logo, as well as the new lockup “By ICA,” which is now attached to all the organization’s various initiatives and properties.
The organization’s new word-mark uses the Knockout font – developed by the New York type foundry Hoefler & Co. and inspired by 19th century typefaces – while the ICA has retained its colour scheme featuring Pantone 630, Pantone 268 and Pantone 2995.
“We really wanted to arrive at a logo that was a lot more powerful and modern,” said the ICAs’s director of digital marketing Gardenia Flores, noting that the ICA has also eliminated the italics from the previous logo. “We really wanted to go with something a lot stronger.”
She said the refresh was launched because it was increasingly apparent that ICA members were not always aware of the scope of the organization’s programs and properties – a group of about 15 assets that includes FFWD Advertising and Marketing Week, Future Flash, Client of the Year and StartUp & UP.
“We have a lot of different initiatives, and one of the things we realized is that often when we would go and meet with both members and potential new members, we would walk through everything the ICA does, and people would often say ‘I didn’t know you did that,’ or ‘I didn’t realize you were involved with this,’” said Flores. “The big impetus for us was to clearly position ICA as being very involved in the industry.”
Employing just nine fulltime staff, the ICA has traditionally relied on its agency members to provide the identity for its various initiatives, which Flores said has led to mishmash of different branding with no unifying theme. “There really wasn’t anything that held it all together and said ‘This is by the ICA,’” she said.
Sid Lee chief operating officer Vito Piazza said that the agency’s approach was not to break with the past, but build on it. The new design is intended to be a “simple, very effective” solution that works immediately, he said.
“The simplest solutions are often the best, and in their particular case they already had certain assets like an interesting colour palette,” said Piazza. “There was no point in disregarding that, it was just elevating everything they had already. That was the theme of the whole exercise.”
It is the ICA’s first major rebrand since Cossette oversaw a similar initiative in 2007, and comes during a period of change for the organization – which is welcoming a new president, Scott Knox, on Nov. 1. Flores said that Knox, previously managing director of the U.K.’s Marketing Agencies Association (MAA) brings an international perspective to the organization.
She said that the ICA is currently “well positioned,” with major programs like the Cassies awards attracting a record number of entries and membership holding steady. She said that its agency search function recently had one of its best successes in recent years, with 28 agencies submitting their credentials during a recent search for tax preparation service H&R Block.
