Many Albertans marvel at the night sky and get giddy watching Aurora Borealis (the Northern Lights) dance and glow across our horizon, but starting this summer they will be aglow with the new “democratic” orange.
We live in an age where technology keeps astounding us—we have driverless cars, and space travel to Mars can even go on regular citizens’ bucket lists, so when we were approached to do a re-branding project for the Northern Lights my team and I were very excited. This is the kind of project we live to do.
As an Edmonton homegrown branding, creative design and website development company that has worked on nearly 5,000 projects over the last 22 years, we were delighted to be awarded the re-branding assignment for the Northern Lights. It's especially poignant after all the publicity from the license plate debate back in 2014 when designs were being considered from a non-Canadian company. We're pleased that the powers-that-be have decided to go with local talent.
Graphos' website developer Dr. Casey has his doctorate in molecular biology from Princeton University and was able to consider the physical makeup of the Northern Lights in determining how they could be hooked up to the Internet. Our highly technical configuration uses a webserver connected to a giant electromagnet (nicknamed "Scooby Doo") to manipulate the Van Allen belts over Alberta in a real-time response to millions of lines of code.
As this was a fairly complex problem to solve, it was decided that one colour would be used in the initial deployment, and “democratic” orange was the obvious choice. Our brand strategy will allow for the new Northern Lights to be responsive and if at some point another party is elected, similarly to the instant adaptability of responsive websites, the Northern Lights will automatically respond to red, blue, green, or whatever colour corresponds to the branding of the new party in power.
Interested in tackling a strategic re-branding project? Book your free individual Pro Branding Boot Camp by clicking the bright orange button below!
Laurier Mandin is the president and lead consultant at Graphos, the world-class Downtown Edmonton web design, branding and inbound marketing agency he founded in 1993.
Laurier Mandin is president of Graphos, the Edmonton web design company, branding consultancy and digital marketing agency he founded in 1993.
