It’s time to come clean. Kensa’s branding hasn’t really evolved over the past 15 years. But the world certainly has changed since 2010.
iPads. Instagram. Gangnam style. Air fryers. Donald Trump. Brexit. Covid. AI. Donald Trump (again).
And don’t get us wrong, we’ve changed a lot too.
- We’ve multiplied from an army of two into a team of 26 creatives (and counting).
- We’ve inhabited spaces from a modest basement-slash-office to our very own custom built design studio.
- We’ve expanded our service offering and technical capabilities
- We’ve delivered ambitious projects and global campaigns far beyond our humble beginnings supporting local businesses.
Which is why we’ve known for a while now that our image no longer reflects who we are.
In short, Kensa was having a mid-life crisis. And after years of building better brands for our clients than we had for ourselves, enough was finally enough.
So we finally accepted it was high time to pull our socks up, put on our big boy pants and start walking the talk.
Who are Kensa, anyway?
Big question. And before we could put pen to paper (or doodle to iPad), we knew we had to sit ourselves down and give ourselves a good talking to.
What do we actually do here?
Who do we do it for?
What do we stand for?
What don’t we stand for?
And why should anyone care?
The biggest revelation? Understanding first-hand why clients like ours need help from agencies like us for brand strategy workshops. It’s pretty hard to read the label from the inside the jar.
But after months of moodboarding, a few healthy debates and at least 1000 cups of coffee, we had devised a master plan to re-establish our place in the world.
Next it was time for the fun part – bringing it all to life.
The big idea
What makes Kensa so special is the abundance of creative skills we have, all under one roof.
That’s not news to us, but in an industry dominated by DIY-websites, cheap Fiverr gigs and wannabe designers on Canva, it turns out multi-disciplinary marketing agencies are quite unusual nowadays.
Not only does this mean we retain full creative control over projects, but because we’re not limited by what we can do, we can dig deeper to deliver what our clients actually need – not just what they ask us for.
It’s not about being Jack of all trades. It’s about bringing Jack, John and Jennifer (you get the idea) together to work towards the same goal and create something that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Think of Kensa as a swiss army knife for marketing.
Our cross-service capabilities grant us a special kind of superpower: the ability to ask “what if?” when a new brief lands on the table – and more importantly, the creative freedom to make that happen. What if it was interactive? What if we made it in 3D? What if we put it on a bus? Or, what if we did a bit of everything?
In summary, our niche is that we have no niche. And we’re damn proud of it.
Meet the new Kensa
So, how do we communicate who we are to the world? That was the challenge that Managing Director Scott posed to the design team back in the spring of 2024.
And here’s what we came back with. Introducing Kensa 2.0.
What does it all mean?
We’re always telling our clients that branding is not a vanity exercise. Our new look is more than just a reskin – it’s part of our strategy to visually communicate what we do and why we’re awesome at it.
Here’s how the new brand strategy influenced our design decisions.
Palette shift
We switched Kensa from light mode to dark mode, ramping up the contrast to push our blue tones deeper and vibrant greens brighter, keeping just a touch of electric blue for special occasions. A digital-first approach allows us to embrace previously problematic colour choices with more conviction.
Digital aesthetic
First to get our hands on new tech, we thrive on innovation at Kensa. So when developing the new design language, our team drew inspiration from user interface design and grid systems to express our digital approach to just about everything.
Macros
Our new image style needed to represent the best of what we can do, both in style and content. And when it comes to cool factor, nothing beats 3D. So we married this idea with our services to develop a collection of abstract extruded icons to show off the vast range of skills in our marketing toolkit. We call them Macros.
Micros
Conversely to Macros, our talented illustrators developed Micros – dynamic graphics to showcase our expertise in specific areas of branding, design, marketing, websites, animation and video production. Think of them as putting each of our services under the microscope to see what makes it tick.
Bold words
Typography is an opportunity to reflect tone of voice, visually. Ours is short, sweet and punctuated with a nice confident full stop. We chose Outfit for our new typeface – a variable weight, geometric sans serif that’s bold and understated, yet playful and self-assured.
Same logo?
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Other than a few pixels worth of housekeeping here and there (mainly to satisfy our brand evangelists) we chose to keep our original logo for consistency – and because we still really like it.
Bringing it all together
After months of R&D, creative experiments and internal pitches, we finally had our new look locked down with all the ingredients we needed to refresh our brand.
As with most rebrands, the next major focus became our online presence. Despite still doing a decent job of generating leads, our old website was neglected and it was starting to show, if only from the sheer speed of technological advancements in website development since it was last refreshed in 2016. Think plumber with a leaky tap (or two).
Our approach was no less than what we offer our clients – a bespoke WordPress theme, built for purpose with flexible modules and dynamic content for easy maintenance and optimised performance.
The icing on the cake? We got to experience the creative synergy that we deliver for our clients first hand.
From brand designers art directing 3D animators, UX specialists peeking over the shoulders of developers and a series of marketing workshops to spin up the sexiest straplines, everyone on the team was involved in the creative process.
While we were at it, we made the decision to migrate to kensa.agency (a domain suffix that didn’t even exist when we started!) which was a strategic move to make our offering crystal clear, and the same advice we’d give to any company with an abstract brand name like ours.
And we’re not done yet.
This is just the beginning of a bold new era for Kensa.
In 2025, we have plans to expand the team, double our workspace and install a dedicated film studio for our growing video department. Watch this space!
Want a rebrand like this?
Head over to our shiny new branding page to see lots more examples and discover how it all works, or get in touch to start a project.
