Our branding journey

I am so happy to announce that our website is now live! Complete with our new brand 🥳

Evolution of the brand

On Court has been the name in my head for this app almost since it’s inception. We are talking years. I’ve liked how it sounds like encore (they’re always good at a gig, right?). I like how it describes that we’re all about the players - the people On the Court. I just like it.

Branding v1

But building the visual representation of those words - and the company I want On Court to be - is a trickier thing. I have no problem telling you that I wanted to kick-start the visual aspect of the company myself, with some incredibly rudimentary efforts. You can see my initial attempts below 👇

So this clearly has a couple of issues. First, despite my efforts (and I promise I’ve put in loads) it’s quite, basic. Clearly derivative. Secondly, it’s quite flat. It doesn’t feel very alive.

Branding v2

After giving it a bit of space (always a good idea) and a little more thought, I went back to the drawing board and came back with some ideas. Version 2 is right here 👇

Lots more here - and a lot of progress too. I liked using the “O” and “C” shapes, and played around with the the racket shape, and even tried to introduce the idea of some motion - making the app and logo feel more dynamic was going to be key. Lines and colours were clearer with better contrast and sharper edges, and removing all but two colours made the app icon feel more professional. It was all closer, but it still lacked something.

I always knew I’d be working with someone else to evolve the brand. After asking around, I chose Inka Creative Studio to help develop it, and I’m very happy I did. We’ve worked very well together - they understood the brief and got to work promptly, always working with me for any feedback I have.

A bit of digression & exploration

Connah and Becky at Inka did a great job of getting the brand vision for On Court out of me. Together we explored some of the other ideas that came up during the creative process, and they drafted an initial board of ideas for me to look at:

Perhaps I was biased, given the similarities to the my earlier drafts, but I was drawn to the 2nd page. I didn’t feel like the colours worked, but the but the shapes and typefaces were on point.

So after a little more discussion, they came back with a reworked version 👇

There is so much to like here - from the choice of colours to the Strength of the font. And I especially like how well the branding works across both light and dark modes.

However, I am nothing if not a perfectionist - I want this brand to last for years after the initial launch. So to make sure I was happy I did a little further exploration.

First with the app icon - another digression into completely new territory:

The point of this was to focus on the “On” part of the name, whilst also symbolising the a ball being played across a court.

And second, with the fonts:

Whilst In liked the font Inka chose for the final draft, I couldn’t get it to work well in the app theming. In the end, it came down to a choice between Georama and Archivo. Both gave On Court a fresh feel, but also came as Variable fonts that allow them to fit into a bunch of different contexts - which is handy when you’re trying to build a theme for a UI.

I decied to go with Archivo and the rest - as they say - is history. The visual style for the company and the app has been settled (for now at least).

But before I move on, I wanted to givbe one more shout out to the Becky and Connah at Inka. They’ve helped me so much to really flesh out this branding, but also given me a fantastic steer for the other resources going forward. For instance, this site is being hosted by the fabulous Krystal Hosting - a green and sustainable web hosting company.