The Ultimate %%Rebrand%%

How it all began:

You know how it is, you decide to make a slight update of your existing website, and you end up with a completely new brand… You don’t? We didn’t either. That’s why we decided to tell you the story of our Ultimate Rebrand.

So why couldn’t we just update the web and save ourselves 6 months of hard work? “Simple.” The old brand you & we were used to had no solid grounds, no marketing strategy behind it and no brand manual. Although everything looked good at the first glance, the important information on our web was hidden under more generic information, burying the stuff that actually makes us different & unique. That’s why none of the studios we contacted wanted to do a touch up of our web, but recommended a complete rebrand. So, here we go.

Let’s talk strategy:

We teamed up with a local creative design studio detaility, and the process could begin. Our first intensive workshop was at the end of March. It took a full work day, tons of post-it notes, 12 cinnabons & undefined amounts of coffee and discussions to define our strategy [5 year roadmap, golden circle, top three values, target audience, brand personality and SWOT analysis]. What a day, we thought the hardest part was behind us. On the contrary, the process just began.

First thing that needed to be established after these discussions was our brand archetype and tone of voice. From our discussions and straight forward attitude it was quite clear to detaility, that our archetype would be the Outlaw, with the sub-archetype Reformer. But what does that mean? Well Outlaws/Reformers go against mainstream, they are passionate and deliberately want to change things & find ways to improve the existing system, but not destroy it completely. Couple months passed and the idea of the Labyrinth Labs brand was becoming more defined & complex with each meeting.

Visuals:

Now for the fun part, the new visuals. First impressions took our breath away. We had no idea what to say or think. All of the sudden we had a dark brand with neon colors. “Cool?” “Too much?” “Techy enough?” Our purple background with a blue logo & space theme was gone. Mixed feelings all over the place. However, it only took a couple of days getting used to and everyone was hooked. We said yes to the new logo, neon colors and custom made labyrinth illustrations. This is the new Labyrinth Labs.

Strategy into words:

Okay, we know exactly who we are, what we want to represent and share with the world. The new challenge is to put it into words, ideally as simple & short as possible. Choosing our company values was easy: Tech Excellence, Extra Mile, Determination & No Bullshit Culture.

Coming up with our slogan as well: Hassle free cloud journey. Catchy isn’t it? Oh, but the tagline gave us headaches… for weeks we played with words and involved the entire team, ending up with a new tagline: Straight to it.

Now for the most important stuff: mission, vision & promise. The idea was there, we knew what we wanted to say but everybody had a different way of saying it. In the end, this is what we came up with:

• Mission: Transforming businesses to become cloud native and future ready.
• Vision: A world where an optimal cloud infrastructure is a commodity.
• Promise: Partnering with Labyrinth Labs ensures a hassle free cloud journey.

Defining our solutions into simple phrases was also more difficult than previously imagined. You can check them out at our home page & solutions page.

Website:

Strategy is set, let’s make the web. First we needed to make interviews with our target audience, get to know them a bit more to know how they function and what works for them. Shortly after that our UX & UI designers got to work, creating wireframes for all our pages. Then it was our time to shine with copywriting and putting our solutions into words [after reading this blog I strongly recommend you scroll through all pages of our web, you won’t be disappointed lablabs.io]

Goodies:

Everyone’s favorite part, merchandise. Beginning with the essentials like pens, stickers, socks, hoodies and rollups. Event season is upon us and we’re ready to represent our brand in style!

Conclusion:

Going through the rebrand process was extremely fun and educational, but also quite stressful at times. If you ever went through it, you know. We’re happy to have a great new brand and hopefully won’t need to do another rebrand for at least five years! Hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

‍