Little Tokyo Two is now Brisbane’s largest network of co-working spaces. The brand has a lot of personality and appeals to a diverse audience of freelancers, startups and larger businesses looking for remote offices. Ahead of the opening of its fourth space in The Capital in the CBD, the team approached us to develop a stronger brand identity and framework.
Since Little Tokyo Two was launched in 2014, the brand has matured significantly, becoming deeply embedded within Brisbane’s business community. Problematically for Little Tokyo Two, more than 13 variations of its visual identity had been developed in its first two years, which resulted in the brand being applied inconsistently across core marketing materials and channels.
Realising this provided the team with an opportunity to review its brand strategy and develop a cohesive set of brand standards ahead of the next stage of growth.
“We’ve gone from a community of people hanging out, to a co-working space, to an incubator, to an accelerator, to a funding group and then to a curator of innovative outcomes. Once we gained credibility and the eye of large corporates, our brand needed to reflect what we were achieving.” – Jock Fairweather, founder Little Tokyo Two
The Little Tokyo Two brand refresh process
Little Tokyo Two may have grown up, but it still needed to retain its fun and playful nature that makes work exciting. The brand refresh process was an opportunity for us to develop a more sophisticated identity that would reflect Little Tokyo Two’s evolution and provide a foundation for future growth. We didn’t want to dilute the personality and equity of the brand, but we also wanted to refine the identity to ensure it reflected Little Tokyo Two’s growth.
First, we refreshed the logo. This involved balancing the design and updating the typography. The refined design was then used to develop a new set of brand guidelines that were applied to all customer touchpoints including the website, collateral and all brand stationery.
This process has now given the brand consistency and a platform to use when launching new spaces, designing and writing new brand materials, or pursuing other business initiatives.
Following on from the refresh, we are now working with Little Tokyo Two to develop a series of brochures, the first of which is for its modern new space at The Capital.
Having input into content strategy as well as design, we have created a document that really defines who Little Tokyo Two is, what the business does and the influence it has within the brisbane marketing companies. Until now, Little Tokyo Two had struggled to define its position in the market, but this brochure can now be used as a platform for everything else the brand develops moving forward.
“We look more slick and modern now, but we’ve been able to maintain our heritage and culture. Viabrand’s refresh has given us the opportunity to scale our product offerings beyond just space.” – Jock Fairweather
What’s next for your brand? See more of our projects for inspiration.