Waltz into our new brand
Schipper Design is now Waltz Creative
By Waltz StaffChanging your company’s name and brand identity takes courage and a little hand-holding. Name changes can signal a new direction and should reflect the soul of the organization, but they also require great care to transfer brand equity and bring brand champions along the way.
For Schipper Design, the decision to change the name and rebrand was purposeful and well-planned.
Whose idea was it, anyway?!
When Kathy Schipper founded the agency in 2004, using her name was an easy choice. Proprietor brands make trademarking and name recognition easy for a start-up agency. Times have changed though, and it's important for a company’s name to reflect the services and unique qualities it offers. Recognizing this led Kathy to lobby for potential new names and snagging URLs just in case. Then one day after shelter-in-place orders began in the Spring of 2020 she shared a new name - Waltz – excitement began to build… soon it was time to dance.
But what does it mean and why did we decide it was the perfect name for our rebrand?
Why Waltz?
This name captures a few things about our brand. Waltz is a great metaphor for our approach to design.
First, the idea of partnering for a beautiful dance fits us. So much of our success lies in how we partner with our clients. We go toe-to-toe and, with practice, pull off some amazing performances. It also has a nice ring to it that’s short, memorable, and trademarkable. Check, check and check!
We changed ‘Design’ to ‘Creative’ to reinforce our full-agency capabilities in strategy, marketing, video, web and digital, in addition to graphic design.
We’ve spent years perfecting what we do, and that’s why it flows so well, after all... no one wants to be embarrassed on the dance floor.
Redefining ourselves and our Brand Promise
As part of this rebranding journey, we did some navel-gazing. We evaluated our strengths and weaknesses (SWOT) and worked on aligning our brand strategy through our core purpose, vision, values, and big hairy audacious goal (BHAG). We looked at how we could better focus and market our business of design. We developed a Brand Roadmap to help communicate this new vision back to our internal team along with messaging for you, our external audience. Our new Brand Promise “Rally, Revive + Resonate” is our shorthand for how we approach design differently.
We help you gather and align your stakeholders to unite and rally around a strategic vision.
Our team of creatives bring new life and energy to revive your brand.
We craft meaningful messages through touch points that reach and resonate with your audience.
Waltz Creative will continue partnering with B2B and B2C businesses in the agriculture/food, MedTech, healthcare, technology, education, and nonprofit sectors because we have a wealth of experience in these industries.
We worked on articulating our values: We are driven to delight our clients and their customers with every interaction, solution, and outcome. Together we work, using design to solve problems and deliver solutions focused on outcomes over output. We never stop improving, always looking for new ways of communicating with our clients and their audiences. We believe every decision matters – from sourcing eco-friendly paper to selecting images that are inclusive and show diversity. Plus Ultra is what we consider the cherry on top – delivering something that is expected, plus something you couldn’t imagine.
Get into the Groove
Once we had a solid vision and brand roadmap for where we wanted to go, we had to explore, design, test, iterate and repeat. Designing for clients is something we have down-pat, but for ourselves, where everyone is a critic and a perfectionist? Well... let's just say it took a little more time. And with each new touchpoint: building sign, stickers, Google Templates, website – a new challenge presented itself. How would the Neon Yellow translate to 4-color printing, or enamel pins? We had to adapt and adjust elements based on the production.
The Debut
After months of rolling out the brand to every touchpoint we use, we were ready for the Premier. Brand Launches are an exciting opportunity internally, to excite and unite your team, as well as externally, to re-engage with valued clients, trusted partners and reach new prospects. We hosted a series of sneak peek presentations so existing partners wouldn't be surprised. It also allowed us the opportunity to explain the What, How, and Why of the rebrand. Check out the video we produced to help announce the change.
Check out our portfolio page to see our new brand in more detail.