Masuga

Masuga came to Odi with excep­tion­al clar­i­ty about who they were and want­ed to be. And they were just as clear about what was hold­ing them back. For near­ly two decades, they had been focused on tech­ni­cal imple­men­ta­tion, doing web­site builds from sup­plied direc­tion. Now, they want­ed to posi­tion them­selves as sup­port­ing whole projects and cham­pi­oning their clients. They sought to offer a more com­pre­hen­sive set of ser­vices and to be seen as engaged in high­er-val­ue efforts like prob­lem solv­ing, strat­e­gy, and sup­port. Hav­ing pri­mar­i­ly served mar­ket­ing agen­cies, they had a new tar­get of North Amer­i­can SMBs in the soft­ware, enter­tain­ment, and hos­pi­tal­i­ty indus­tries, along with star­tups and entre­pre­neurs who need online strate­gies, web design, and development. 

We worked with the Masuga team to set­tle on Empow­er­ing, Vibrant, and Relat­able for their brand attrib­ut­es, which led us to their Sin­gle Most Impor­tant Thing (aka SMIT): Empow­er­ment in Action. The SMIT acts as our North Star dur­ing the project, guid­ing our deci­sions and act­ing as a bench­mark to stay focused.

Posi­tion­ing

Masuga’s chang­ing focus called for updat­ed posi­tion­ing. We want­ed them to be per­ceived as solv­ing prob­lems spe­cif­ic to their ver­ti­cals; less about tools and imple­men­ta­tion and more about cre­at­ing tar­get­ed online strate­gies; and more than web-prob­lem fix­ers and day savers but atten­tive, col­lab­o­ra­tive experts and partners.

To achieve this, we ele­vat­ed Masuga’s cus­tomer-cen­tric dif­fer­en­tia­tor and explored ways of mak­ing it feel dif­fer­ent. How could we char­ac­ter­ize a work­ing rela­tion­ship with Masuga in a way that set them apart? 

We reframed Masuga’s posi­tion­ing to high­light its new ver­ti­cals and empha­size a rich cus­tomer expe­ri­ence: high-val­ue inputs and inter­ac­tions. Relata­bil­i­ty. And prob­lem solv­ing as an iter­a­tive jour­ney, not a sprint.

Sit­u­a­tion­al Messaging

To car­ry Masuga’s val­ue for­ward, we craft­ed a USP and val­ue propo­si­tion that cap­ture, in short form, how a Masuga engage­ment would be experienced.

With­in the USP, the key phrase became “[to] put peo­ple, not just prob­lem solv­ing, at the cen­ter of every project.” This reflects all three of Masuga’s brand attrib­ut­es — relata­bil­i­ty, vibran­cy, and empow­er­ment — and assures clients that while arriv­ing at tar­get­ed solu­tions togeth­er, Masuga ensures they feel seen, heard, and under­stood in the process.

The USP’s promise is unpacked in the val­ue propo­si­tion, which we treat­ed as a short para­graph ver­sus a sin­gle state­ment. In this case, we focused on empow­er­ment, but our voice telegraphs relata­bil­i­ty. The val­ue propo­si­tion speaks to both future clients and prospec­tive employ­ees, con­vey­ing the nature of Masuga’s work in lan­guage that feels excit­ing: ​“bold and cre­ative,” ​“cut through com­plex­i­ty,” and ​“talk like one human to another.”

We specif­i­cal­ly designed the Masuga logo­mark to feel spon­ta­neous and flex­i­ble. Despite seem­ing arbi­trary, with its ener­getic, oscil­lat­ing path, the mark comes togeth­er to form a sub­tle ​“M” for an added con­nec­tion to the brand name.

Due to the amount of ener­gy packed into the logo­mark, we took a more sub­tle approach to the logo­type. A strong, stur­dy, geo­met­ric sans serif anchors the logo and pro­vides a sense of con­trol that bal­ances the ran­dom nature of the mark. We made some slight opti­cal adjust­ments for greater leg­i­bil­i­ty and round­ed key cor­ners of var­i­ous let­ter­forms to cre­ate cohe­sion with the round­ed angles found in the mark.

If there was one thing from Masuga’s pre­vi­ous iden­ti­ty we felt could stick around, it was the lead­ing col­or. ​“Juice” is an evo­lu­tion of the lime green of old. We updat­ed it to be leg­i­ble on light and dark back­grounds and added a bit of yel­low for a more pecu­liar vibe. To bal­ance out the bold pri­ma­ry col­ors, we cre­at­ed a suite of sec­ondary col­ors to add depth and pro­vide more relatability. 

The lead­ing type­face for the Masuga iden­ti­ty, Fer­ro Grotesk, is a reflec­tion of the off­beat vibes cap­tured in the logo and col­or sys­tems. Semi-extend­ed, high­ly geo­met­ric, and just a bit weird.

The visu­al iden­ti­ty sys­tem is round­ed out with sev­er­al key graph­ic ele­ments that may be used sep­a­rate­ly or in a col­lage for­mat. A tape graph­ic ele­ment is extreme­ly ver­sa­tile, as it’s made to be bent and woven as need­ed, cre­at­ing inter­est and brand­ed moments in uncom­mon ways. A paper-cut style that feels as if it were hap­haz­ard­ly cut out with scis­sors can be used on pho­tog­ra­phy of peo­ple, things, or just as con­fet­ti-like adorn­ment. These graph­ic ele­ments, paired with tex­ture and doo­dles, hint to the craft behind Masuga’s work. The imper­fect, human-cen­tric lan­guage brings a vibe to an iden­ti­ty that is noth­ing short of a damn good time.