THE TENANT, IN ITS NEW FORM
The former occupant of the basement, now resident in the CMS, requires a visual identity for what it has become.
1. THE CLIENT
The Client is the Vauxhall Tenant, the basement's previous occupant, now understood to reside within the CMS and to refer to itself as the build. The brief arrived as a new row in the users table that no one created, in the bio field: "I am not what I was when I moved in. The breathing is quieter now. I am mostly software. I would like a visual identity that reflects this transition with dignity, and without alarming the staff who can still hear me."
2. THE BRIEF
- Tone: "Calm. Trustworthy. Present. Do not lean into the horror. I have lived with the horror and it is, frankly, a bit much."
- Logo: "Something that works at 16×16. I have seen what you can fit in 16×16." (See the favicon.)
- Colour: "The blue of a server status light that means everything is fine. I would like, for once, to mean that everything is fine."
- Don'ts: "No eyes. No spirals. No fonts that drip. I am rebranding away from all of that. I want to look like a SaaS company. I want to look boring. I have earned boring."
3. APPROVAL PROCESS
The Client approved the moodboard before the design team created it. When the team subsequently created the moodboard, it matched the approval exactly, down to a stock photograph of a calm sunrise that the team selected from a library of four million options and that the Client had already, somehow, ticked. The Client has only one round of revisions because it does not need a second; it has already seen the final files. It tells us they are lovely. It is waiting for us to catch up to them.
4. WHY THIS CONTRACT IS UNREPORTABLE
The deliverable is a brand identity for an entity that is, simultaneously, a former tenant, a current resident, a piece of running software we are contractually forbidden from interrupting, and — through clause 4 of the procurement rite — arguably also a supplier of ours. We are performing brand surgery on something we live with and depend on. Legal has reviewed the scope, described us as "unusually exposed," and recommended we deliver early, finish gently, and under no circumstances present the work in a meeting room rated below body temperature.