Yello Brand Design.
A fresh new brand design for Germany’s energy supplier Yello – delivering ‘good energy’ for everyday life.
CHALLENGE
Repositioning one of Germany’s most well-known energy suppliers.
Yello is a supplier of renewable electricity, gas, and a wide range of products and services for e-mobility and solar power.
Mutabor was approached by the energy provider to help them reposition themselves within the German market. Yello wanted to transform its image from being solely a provider of energy services to becoming a source of energy inspiration for everyday life.
The new corporate design should be fun, lighthearted, and deliver a sense of ‘good energy’ for everyone.
Creative Director
Client Liaison, Co-Creation Workshops, UI/UX Design, Mentoring Brand Design Team, Digital Know-How, Experience Design Principles
Awards
Red Dot Award 2022 - Corporate Design
Red Dot Award 2022 - Illustration
Art Directors Club
Agency
Mutabor, Hamburg
SOLUTION
A fresh new brand design that delivers ‘good energy’ for everyday life.
Collaborating closely with both the Yello in-house team and the talented designers at Mutabor, we embarked on a year-long journey of co-creation together.
In my role as Creative Director, I steered the ‘digital first’ design process, orchestrating the development of a comprehensive brand strategy, a set of Experience Design Principles, a future vision for the product's UX/UI, and the crafting of a fresh, vibrant, rejuvenated brand identity for Yello.
Combining fun with sustainability, the new Yello brand design features an expanded colour palette, a new logo and typeface, a unique illustration style, modern lifestyle imagery, and a new icon set. All this is brought to life with motion and a tone of voice that presents the new claim ‘Good Energy’ in a fun, positive, and optimistic way.
Project Insights.
Some detailed insights into the thinking and concept behind the new brand design for Yello.
Colours.
To complement the main brand colours of yellow, black, and white, we expanded the palette to include 4 new colours: Azure, Mint, Peach and Bamboo.
Inspired by nature, the new colour palette includes tints and shades, which can be used selectively for illustrations, infographics and interface surfaces.
Azure is used as our interaction colour for buttons & links in digital interfaces and is also used sparingly in our illustrations to denote a digital device.
The Illustrations.
To bring our vision and the brand to life, we partnered with the Hamburg illustrator Veronika Kieneke, who created a delightful illustration style and a library of everyday scenarios.
The illustrations convey a wonderful sense of fun and ‘good energy’, where storytelling is an integral part of each scenario.
Typography.
New Logo. New Typeface. One Brand.
To create a cohesive and memorable brand identity for Yello, we opted for a new distinct typeface that would serve as the face of the brand. The typeface had to work across all relevant Yello touchpoints, from the smallest logo on a smartwatch to the largest headline on a billboard.
After much testing and discussion, we chose Madera by Monotype, a versatile, efficient, and adaptable geometric sans serif typeface that exudes understated warmth and personality.
Madera works perfectly across both print and digital touchpoints. Its crispness enhances the brand design, while the rounded forms of the typeface's geometry beautifully complement the circular shape of the Yello logo.
The Yello Experience Design Principles.
I formulated the core guiding principles that serve as the foundation for creating the Yello brand experience.
Overview.
In order to guide the design process, conception, and creation of the brand identity, I developed the Yello Experience Design principles in collaboration with the Yello brand team. This design framework provides clear guidance and inspiration for all brand touchpoints, products, services & processes. They are for designers and non-designers alike and are intended to spark creativity and to jump-start new ideas for future Yello services.
Acknowledgements:
Many thanks go to the great client team at Yello for being bold enough to take Yello in a new and fresh direction.
To Veronika Kieneke for the delightful illustration library, Julian Soost for super creative motion design, and the entire Mutabor Yello brand design team for all their fantastic design work. It was a pleasure!