Wahl Realty Corporate Branding & Website

About This Project

The Brief

This was a freelance project I did for a local real estate company in Chicago. The goal was to create a corporate identity and website that positioned Wahl Realty as a hip, modern player in the competitive Chicago real estate market. Although a small company, Wahl was named by Crain’s as one of the top real estate groups in Chicago and their expert knowledge of the Chicago market is what sets them apart. They wanted a logo was captured the essence of Chicago and a website that stood out from the dry, templated look of the major competitors.

The Solution

Wahl requested that their corporate identity merge the concepts of real estate and Chicago into one unique and quickly identifiable logotype. They also liked the idea that the logo have a bug that could be used on it’s own without the company name and the concept could still come through to the viewer. I wanted to play up the idea of big city living so I introduced the idea of the 3 vertical lines to mimic the look of skyscrapers. I purposely kept the shapes simple — with a flat color design to give it a clean, modern look. I slanted the tops to reinforce the notion that these are buildings. The three lines were also designed to emulate the shape of an abstract “W” to play off the name Wahl which the client thought was a nice touch. I decided upon a Steel Blue color to stand out from the sea of overused dark blues and reds from the major competitors and give it a hip, youthful tone. I was also hired for location photography to capture some of the popular neighborhoods of the city. The client was adamant that they did not want to only highlight the downtown area, but capture some of the neighborhoods that that they serviced to highlight their own unique culture.

Role

Art Director, Designer, Photographer, Developer

Target Audience

Existing and potential real estate clients in Chicago, IL

Date

April 01, 2014