Halden Bank

A regional bank with eleven versions of its logo and no rule for choosing one. We wrote the rule, then the system, then rolled it across forty-one branches.

Client
Halden Bank
Sector
Banking
Year
2019
Scope
Identity, guidelines, branch rollout
Duration
18 weeks
Halden 1
Fig. 01

Halden Bank had grown by acquisition, and every acquired branch had kept a little of its old identity. Eleven marks were in use. The brief was one mark, one rule, and a rollout the bank's own facilities team could finish without us.

What we did. An audit of every branch, sign and form. A new mark built from two interlocking squares, drawn on the same twelve-column grid as the stationery, the cards and the signage. A type scale of five sizes, a color set of black, white, two grays and one cobalt, and guidelines written for the people who order signs.

What it changed. Forty-one branches re-signed in fourteen months, all by the bank's own contractors from the drawings. Two years on, the in-house team has produced over three hundred pieces and none of them read as a departure.

Halden 2
Fig. 02 Card, passbook and leaflet, set flush left to the grid
Halden 3
Fig. 03 The branch entrance panel, the first of forty-one
Halden 4
Fig. 04 The guidelines open at the construction page and the color set