“A brand is a promise… defined by an experience that results in a preference.” – The Infantree
Creating a business name and crafting a specific brand identity is a daunting task for any small business. A major goal in Evenkiehl’s brand discovery and logo design was to land on a finished product that was defined both by aesthetics and intentional significance. To accomplish these goals, I chose to work with The Infantree, LLC, a local design team, and I believe they delivered on both. There are several aspects to the Evenkiehl brand: the name, the logo icon and the typography.
Much of my reasoning behind choosing the name “Evenkiehl,” was shaped by the philosophy of author and speaker, Dr. Henry Cloud. Cloud uses the visual of a wake falling away from a boat as an analogy for measuring business success. Just as a wake has two distinct sides, a successful business is recognized by two distinct outcomes: the results it delivers and the relationships it cultivates. As the boat’s proverbial backbone, the keel provides both trustworthy direction and balance; measured by the symmetry of the wake it leaves behind. The name “Evenkiehl,” therefore, materialized from combining my last name with my desire to provide even-keeled financial planning that delivers both tangible results and meaningful relationships.
In addition to choosing the name “Evenkiehl,” I wanted to use the concept of a “wake” as a visual representation of balance in the logo design itself. The Infantree’s icon is an abstracted “E” made of waves with a wake flowing upward through it. The design conveys both balance and positive motion as displayed in the brief video below.
The typography, while also visually interesting, contains a lot of personal significance. In their discovery meetings with me, Infantree learned of my 14+ years spent in the watch industry. The type face they chose to work with is called Decimal. Designed by Jonathan Hoefler, Decimal is inspired from the distinct lettering found on virtually all vintage watch dials (faces). For the majority of the 20th Century, dial-making was a niche industry with three dial-making companies providing dials for the entire Swiss industry – allowing for distinctly similar lettering. One of those companies, Singer, produced dials for Rolex, and many dials with “Singer” stamped on the back crossed my desk over the years.
Thus, the Evenkiehl brand is one wrought with intentional significance in its name, iconography, and typography.
*For more information on the Decimal Font, the Netflix original series Abstract: The Art of Design, tells the design story in Season 2, Episode 6
