RBC Global Asset Management

PROJECT

Brand Standards

RBC GAM, Truly a Global Asset Management Firm.

DESCRIPTION

Overdrive was commissioned in 2015 to update the RBC GAM visual identity, to better reflect GAM’s global stature in the investment arena. The project consisted of a full revision of RBC GAM’s printed and screen materials, revisiting the palette, typography, photography, layout of print materials, charts, tables, and other miscellaneous items. It was an enormous undertaking. Our challenge was to create a comprehensive brand standards manual that could be used internally at RBC GAM as well as by their contractors that would speak to GAM’s design wish-list.

The GAM in-house team was looking for a very contemporary, open and visually engaging solution, but knew they needed to keep the RBC brand primary palette central to the application. We were able to resolve these needs through a refreshed blue and gold palette, bigger and bolder typefaces to reinforce the sense of leadership, beautiful open images that feature a more editorial and conceptual approach, and more white space in layouts.

DELIVERABLES

Brand Standards, Guidelines for logo, Colour, Typography, Layout, Photography, Charts, Tables, miscellaneous

CREDITS

Overdrive Design Limited—Creative and Art Direction

Palette

While the primary colours were inherited from the previous brand standards, the secondary and tertiary palettes were revisited to better match the primary colours. As the standards were developed, the secondary palette became more important as it set the tone for photography, background, and iconography in charts.

Typography

Meta LF and Utopia Std typographic families were selected as primary and secondary typefaces respectively.

Meta is used in a large and bold way in headlines, titles and subtitles, which allows documents to feel much more editorial. Utopia is mostly used for body copy as needed or special cases.

Grid

A flexible grid was created to allow multiple combinations of column widths within a document or even within a single page.

Photography

Images in the new pieces are meant to be used large, and usually contain at least 35–50% white space to allow for text. These images will be open, full of natural light and optimistic; they will also have heavy blue and gold/beige overall look, as long as they appear fresh, authentic and natural.