Each year, CastleBranch experiences higher call volumes and increased traffic to their platforms from March to September. This busy time is referred to as the "Wave" season. It's important to encourage internal team members to continue to work hard during this time. To help boost company morale, the communications team takes on the initiative to set the annual theme. We create an internal marketing campaign that includes branded merch, signage, event materials, and much more that is produced by external vendors and distributed to team members.
Inside The Wave
As part of Wave season, the comms team brainstormed the idea to develop the first company podcast. We interviewed various team members to get an inside look into how they began their journey at CastleBranch and how they progress during Wave.
I created branding and podcast artwork to support the visual component of the campaign. I chose to create a play on words through the typographic treatment of the podcast title. I used a clean, san–serif, on–brand typeface and experimented with different font weights and scale. This led to layering the text and working with negative space to increase legibility.
I decided to incorporate a background texture for the podcast artwork to contrast the typography. I created the shape of a wave by using geometric shapes and the brand logo mark in varying opacities. I positioned the background wave to frame the established branding when used in different formats.
Concepts: The "Inside the Wave" branding started out with experimenting text layering to find a unique way to portray the title. I was able to come up with a solution that maintains legibility and uses the negative space within the word "Wave" to be able to place "Inside the" within it. Once the type treatment was set, I worked on developing the color palette and creating the background wave graphic. Along with varying opacities and scale, I chose to incorporate blue tones and gradients to symbolize the idea of water.
Ride Strong Ride Together T-Shirt Campaign
The 2022 Wave season marked the 25th anniversary of CastleBranch. Since 25 years is a tremendous milestone, I made sure I created a tag for "25 years" within the CB logo mark. This lockup is presented on the front pocket design of the t–shirt as well as at the bottom of the main graphic on the back. The campaign slogan for 2022 was "Ride Strong Ride Together" to help convey the importance of team unity when overcoming challenges.
The detailed line work and sheer size of the iconic Great Wave Off Kanazawa woodblock print created by Japanese artist, Hokusai inspired the style of the wave graphic on the back of the t-shirt. The placement of the typography within the barrel of the wave conveys that even at the most challenging point, the CastleBranch team can do anything by working together.
Concepts: The comms team considered alternative slogans before settling on the final one for the 2022 Wave season. Above are design concepts of t–shirt graphics that use wave elements in varying ways to try and match the tone of the slogan. The designs contain contrasting typography and color palettes to establish hierarchy and tone.
