Local Bank, formerly Bank of Cherokee County, was in search of a rebrand. They wanted to ensure that people in the community knew that they were a Cherokee and woman owned community bank. When we met them, Local Bank was finishing up construction on a beautiful new bank and didn’t want to apply the existing branding to the new building or future locations without the look, feel and messaging being right. A large part of the objective was to lift the brand without confusing those that already knew who they were and what they were about.
Starting the brand development for Local Bank came with some parameters. We were asked to keep the basic typography, some semblance of the original green and the shape of the logo placard. We started by visiting their bank headquarters and then the Cherokee Museum to draw inspiration from their culture, colors, patterns and finishes. One of the most primary things that we took from our brand exploration was a pattern that they used in the bank called “Chief’s Daughter”. We pulled the Chief’s Daughter pattern into the brand development and utilized it as a connection point for the design. We were able to push the existing green to more of a secondary or accent color and chose a rich navy as the new primary color, giving the brand authority, stability and professionalism. The typography was cleaned up for better readability. On the heels of the finished rebrand, Local Bank came back to us to develop 2 sister brands for affiliates, all strategically living under the Local Bank umbrella. The brand development strategy for Local Insurance and Local Impact was to use the same typography, primary placard shape and some of the base brand colors to bind it to the Local Bank brand. We changed the primary colors for both sister brands and built different logo variations for both to slightly separate them from Local Bank while keeping all “familial” and unified. Same family, slightly different personalities.
