Climb Hire

Climb Hire’s exist­ing brand helped them achieve great things, but they rec­og­nized it was time for their next evo­lu­tion. The pri­ma­ry teal col­or strug­gled with acces­si­bil­i­ty on white back­grounds, and the visu­al iden­ti­ty felt lim­it­ing. After eval­u­at­ing their top com­peti­tors, we saw a huge oppor­tu­ni­ty for a warmer palette. Addi­tion­al­ly, the Climb Hire team land­ed on Moti­vat­ing, Empa­thet­ic, and Straight­for­ward as their brand attrib­ut­es. With those insights in mind, we rec­om­mend­ed mov­ing for­ward with bold, warm col­ors, a focus on indi­vid­u­als in pho­tog­ra­phy, and pow­er­ful CTAs.

We dis­tilled our ini­tial brand eval­u­a­tion work into a Sin­gle Most Impor­tant Thing (or SMIT): Your Future is Bright. This mantra would fre­quent­ly be ref­er­enced through­out the project to make sure it was being appro­pri­ate­ly communicated. 

The pri­ma­ry mark for Climb Hire builds on the idea of, well, build­ing. It’s an abstract rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the upward path the Climb Hire com­mu­ni­ty cre­ates in sup­port of its mem­bers. It’s also a tes­ta­ment to per­se­ver­ance. Despite the mark’s asym­me­try and each shape being askew, it ulti­mate­ly cre­ates a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts. 

The mark is paired with a semi-mono­space type­face, a style that is com­plete­ly absent from all com­peti­tors, whether in their logos or brand­ed typo­graph­ic systems.

The ​“H” in ​“Hire” has also been mod­i­fied to echo the tilts of the mark and visu­al­ly rep­re­sent upward growth.

Car­rie is a type­face that is full of his­to­ry. Designed by Tré Seals of Vocal Type, the type­face is named for notable suf­frage leader Car­rie Chap­man Catt and is based on protest sig­nage from the suf­fragette move­ment, bold­ly speak­ing to Climb Hire’s ded­i­ca­tion to lift­ing up oth­ers. We car­ried the hand­made protest sig­nage direc­tion fur­ther by also intro­duc­ing a rolled-ink tex­ture and dynam­ic typog­ra­phy to the visu­al system.

The cor­ner­stone of the Climb Hire visu­al iden­ti­ty is the out­spo­ken type treat­ment of bold, tilt­ed head­lines that bleed off the edge. What bet­ter way to rep­re­sent break­ing through and ris­ing up than lit­er­al­ly break­ing through and ris­ing up through com­po­si­tion? The imper­fect nature of this treat­ment illus­trates a pow­er­ful, hands-on feel that res­onates with our audi­ence of Climbers.

To com­ple­ment Car­rie, Diatype Semi-Mono cap­tures the same grass­roots feel­ings and pairs well with Carrie’s retro flair. Mono­space fonts exist for the express pur­pose of type­writ­ers and com­put­er sys­tems, so this choice nods to the tech land­scape many Climbers aspire to. For extra cohe­sion, Diatype is also used for the logotype.

The new Climb Hire brand is vibrant and full of ener­gy. We were lucky enough to help the Climb Hire team apply it to dozens of touch­points through our Brand Sup­port offer­ing. To pre­pare them for their launch, we cre­at­ed busi­ness cards, LinkedIn ban­ners, let­ter­heads, social graph­ics, and more. We can con­firm the brand is just as fun to imple­ment as it was to create.