“Belief Beyond Limits” became the central theme — or Single Most Important Thing (SMIT) — that Comulate and Focus Lab identified to drive the brand’s future. The theme emerged after a thorough evaluation of both Comulate’s goals and the company’s competitors.

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As the brand work kicked off, the project team identified the need to craft a brand that went beyond its current limits, demystified revenue automation, and that would empower finance teams to be the heroes in their organizations. It was a challenging task to say the least, and one complicated by a competitor set featuring brands that had very cohesive visual identities. Still, we were able to identify areas where Comulate could distinguish itself.

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For example, all competitors employed sans serif typefaces. And while some competitors used two colors and others used more, they by and large played it safe with their schemes.

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Given Comulate’s desire to modernize the insurance finance and accounting ecosystem, we led the company through a brand attributes exercise that highlighted three key characteristics that would further shape the brand: Modern, Focused, and Sophisticated.

Automation. Agility. Focus. These inspirations are found within Comulate’s mark, which took cues from a spoke-like design and transformed into something iconic, with bolder, weightier strokes — and the essence of forces coming together to make something wholly new.

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Complementing that synergistic force is a custom logotype, built using Oatmeal Pro and balancing a simple, clean aesthetic with a sophisticated, upbeat personality. Of note, our design team made unique modifications to both the “a” and “t” in “Comulate,” to create an ownable, all-lowercase logotype with even more distinction.

Comulate’s brand is anchored in a primary color palette that pairs a light and dark green — and a light and dark sand — with a gradient exudes energy and depth. A secondary palette of yellow and light blue establishes hierarchy throughout the brand, and the tertiary palette borrows from highlighter and pen hues to create eye-catching accents.

On the note of highlighters and pens, one of the most distinctive elements of visual language is markup graphic language. Drawing inspiration from the hand-penned checks, X’s, and other pen marks an accountant might use to mark up a sheet, the effect creates a human, empathetic touch that at once connects with Comulate’s target audience and communicates experience and trust.