KYLE DeMERS | Art Direction | Design | Illustration
© Kyle DeMers 2023

Agency Rebrand & Website

Reinvigoration for a reposition

- ROLE

Art Director, Copywriter, Web Designer


- FOR

McGuffin Creative Group


- URL

mcguffincg.com


McGuffin decided to refocus, reposition and rebrand after nearly 15 years in business — what was the message that we wanted clients, new and old, to take away from us? Positioning ourselves as thought leaders in marketing for professional services seemed an obvious choice, but illustrating that was a new challenge. For this, I developed a stark, bold black & white, editorial look that let client work take center stage. This also meant truncating and simplifying our messaging into a simple and human way.

The overall brand relies heavily on black and white, punctuated with bursts of colors (primarily orange). Branding elements remained clean and smart with "curiosities" dropped throughout — patterns built from intersecting iconography, photographs emerging from the darkness, and branded collateral that focused on those curiosities. When it was time to make McGuffin shine, it shone brightly.

Brand Overview

Website

Stationery & Collateral

Branded Folder and Collateral

Branded Folders

Creative Briefs, Estimates and Matchboxes

Business Cards

Iconography

The homepage rotates between three different provocative images, intriguing the user to follow the arrows through the site utilizing a unique full-screen locked scroll approach.

Homepage

To keep the same authoritative but human approach, I art directed Chicago photographer Frank Ishman in taking multiple shots of each member of the agency. Clicking on their photos blows out into a small profile and a provocative line — one that may not make the most sense, but combines multiple aspects of that member's personality into a single sentence. After all — simple and human.

Culture Page [1/2]

Culture Page [2/2]

Case studies each received a unique cover image based on the respective client. Selective color is used to make the client work pop out from the rest of the site, as though the site serves as a canvas for their best aspects to shine.

Case studies also needed to get straight to the point without a lot of marketing jargon — why did the client need our help? What did we do to help them? Every case study was broken down into The Ask and The Answer to tell the user up-front why we were approached, then they delve into the greater creative brief and results, along with pull quotes, analytical statistics, and photography.

Case Study Header

Case Study: The Ask and The Answer

In rebranding the agency, sub-brands received a look that was connected to the greater McGuffin umbrella but were able to stand on their own. This included developing new logos for both the McGuffin Grant (a grant of $25,000 worth of creative services given to a non-profit on an annual basis) and McGuffin Mornings (a quarterly thought leadership series of speakers across different marketing media over a breakfast).

While both sub-brands pull from the overall palette, each has a unique flavor — the Grant is friendly, warm, and much less rigid than the umbrella brand; while McGuffin Mornings combined the editorial look of the brand with the packaging for fresh coffee beans.

McGuffin Grant Page

McGuffin Mornings Page