Founded in 1973, ClearFreight has stood for excellence and steady growth in the international freight forwarding industry for over four decades. Our constant emphasis on the value of our people, coupled with the most innovative procedures and technology in the industry, have made us one of the most tenured companies in the world.
With mobile devices and computers ushering in a new era of digital/social marketing and communications, we decided to undergo a comprehensive re-branding. While we knew we wanted to preserve our time-tested vision and rich heritage, we also needed to embrace the ever-evolving demands of today's corporate marketplace and the high tech world surrounding it. A brand creates a crucial dynamic between a company and its clients (new and existing), in addition to a company and its workforce, so we knew we were up to something big.
Effective branding is all about managing the lowest common denominator - meaning that the branding needs to extend throughout all communications with a consistent look and feel. That meant a total transformation of all of our communications elements, including digital (website, presentations, socials), print (brochures, one-sheets, business cards, letter-head, promotional, etc.) and motion (view ClearFreight's new "Who We Are" video here).
1. Positioning.
Before transforming our brand's visuals, we had to declare where we stood in the sea of our competitors. For ClearFreight, it was the unique synergy between our outstanding people and their decades of knowledge, expertise and relationships, coupled with our best-in-class systems, processes and technologies that set us apart. This key dynamic between our people and our service offering has created a "frictionless" experience for our clients year after year, where our goal is to over-deliver on each and every project.
Bottom line, ClearFreight's international team leverages unrivaled experience to execute its time-tested service offering - timely delivering our clients' freight-forwarding needs with efficiency and ease.
2. Tone.
Building off of our positioning, we wanted the personality of our brand to reflect the voice of the people on our team - friendly, supportive and approachable, while symbolizing the solid foundation of our unrivaled service and technology.
3. Color Palette.
For us, blue represents a variety of key take-aways for our brand: technology, familiarity, and approachability; in addition the ocean and sky, where so much of our operations take place. We also felt that grey created a sense of strength and reliability, both being cornerstones of ClearFreight's ethos.
4. Logo and Typography.
When we sat with our branding agency to review the first round of creative concepts, we knew we were on to something. They had transformed the "C" and "F" from ClearFreight into a series of geometric shapes, creating a universal feel - something that could be understood and identified across the globe. With the elements of the "C" and "F" creating what feels like a set of universal symbols, it conveyed the visual energy of a flag, tying in with our international footprint.
Our agency recommended Typold for our corporate font, which conveys symmetry and strength, while maintaining a fresh, approachable personality. The consistent use of our new typography creates an aura of trust and reliability, both inside and outside of the company.
5. Tagline.
What short line could sum up everything that we represented? After a couple of copywriting rounds with our agency, the line "Customer forward" emerged as the perfect expression of the ClearFreight experience - always focusing on the needs of our clients and moving boldly ahead in all facets of what we do.
6. Iconography.
With so many distractions in today's digital landscape, users are always looking to identify and process information quickly. A well-coordinated collection of icons can do just that - convey a wide array of concepts in a small space, without the use of text. We've found that our new ClearFreight icon set helps deliver our message quickly and effectively across all of our communications.
We're thrilled with ClearFreight's new brand and we hope you are too.
Thanks for diving in with us!
The ClearFreight Family