Armed with these new strategic insights, it became clear we needed to rethink the hierarchy and interrelation of Stacker’s business operations across content creation, newswire services, and storytelling development with brands. We engaged a dedicated brand architecture exploration, to guide the Stacker team to align internally on its organizational structure, and identify how this updated architecture would inform the communication and design approach of additional brand materials.

Having already launched their content site with a logo and color palette, Stacker sought a design partner willing to build off that foundation to extend the visual language of the brand. Playing on the bars of Stacker’s existing logo design, we developed subsidiary lockups for each of Stacker’s business units — a direct reflection of the architectural work that came right before. We further explored the brand’s visual presence through gradient, multimedia imagery, animation, iconography, and story headline images. Putting it all together, we developed a comprehensive set of brand guidelines.