This was the beginning of a rebrand for the Toronto interactive/digital creative agency, The Secret Location. Working with Man Wai Wong, we developed two logo directions at the first phase of the project, meant to kick start a direction for the brand. Unfortunately neither was chosen, but helped to inform the Secret Location’s current rebrand.

The first direction stemmed from the idea of The Secret Location as being a mysterious location, somewhat like an Area 51, but more designerdy than sinister. As a digital agency The Secret Location is by practice rooted in ideas relating to mathematics and design. Therefore, the brand was to be loosely based on the fibonacci sequence, which is a mathematical principle that informs aesthetically pleasing design. The logo then, became the product of the subdivision of a polygon to create a mysterious “map” of the mystery location. To create variation, the subdivision could occur in any polygon, whether drawn or not. For example, the logo might exist in different polygons, but the back of the letterhead may just be the rectangle of the paper subdivided. This concept also lent itself well to a brand generated by code, which would have been interesting to further explore with The Secret Location. Driven by an algorithm, the plan was to allow variables to be inputted into a program that would then generate the appropriate “map” graphic for that situation. Therefore the brand would be dynamic, but still visually cohesive, as all graphics are generated by the program would be limited by the visual rules of the brand. This informed decision making, or the idea of creativity within boundaries, we thought, truly paralleled the company’s creative process.

The second wordmark was another visual representation of the same characteristics. The custom typography was created by Man Wai to reflect the digital nature of the agency. Each letterform had small quirks, bit and bytes of pixels colliding together to form the wordmark. These letterforms were also an interpretation “location” as they resembled the buildings of a city viewed from above. Each form is wonky, and the wide tracking also makes the wordmark read as a “whisper” which creates a sense of mystery about the brand.