Calgary Economic Development (CED) has adapted over the past couple of years to better serve Calgary’s business, government, and community partners to position Calgary as the location of choice for trade and business development.
CED updated its brand in 2013. Since then, an expansion in CED’s portfolio and evolution in Calgary’s brand spurred the need for a rebrand.
PROJECT ROLE
Project Manager
Art Director
EMPLOYER
CATEGORY
Branding
Project Management
Over the past couple of years, CED has marketed Calgary abroad through its Be Part of the Energy (BPOTE) brand. BPOTE has become synonymous with Calgary’s identity and popular campaigns such as CED’s Amazon HQ2 campaign. However, BPOTE’s bold and clean brand varied greatly from CED’s brand at the time. A brand audit concluded that CED needed to modify certain areas of its brand better match its subsequent brands like BPOTE. These areas included colors, typography, iconography, and imagery.
As the project manager, I presented the audit’s findings and its recommendations to key stakeholders. Upon approval, I worked with a graphic designer and communications manager in developing a brand standards guide that reflected the audit’s recommendations. Furthermore, I provided art direction and identified communication products that needed an update based on the new brand standards.
Beyond the initial recommendations, I expanded the standards guide to include the brand’s implementation on digital assets, such as video, social media, and website, and an entirely new section dedicated to brand voice.
Once key stakeholders approved the rebrand, it was introduced at a virtual company all-staff. In Fall 2020, Marketing distributed the final standards guide within the organization. I implemented the brand by working with staff to let them know what specific materials needed to be updated and tentative deadlines based on the marketing team’s workload
