Kevin Browne Architecture creates timeless architecture inspired by the past, designed for the future. Since its founding the 2008, the firm has grown from a one-person operation to a full-service design firm of careful listeners, open communicators, respectful collaborators, and responsive partners.
As KBA has grown, they needed to evolve their brand identity in line with their evolution as a firm. We began where we always do with a brand workshop to define core attributes and target audiences. From there, we developed a tagline that speaks to the timeless, sustainable, and collaborative nature of KBA’s process and architecture itself. With these attributes at the forefront of our inspiration, we redesigned the logo to be more modern, transparent, and abstract, while retaining an element of approachability, which is core to who the firm is. A fully responsive logo system utilizes the symbol, wordmark, and tagline in a complete suite of variations for a variety of uses. An updated color palette draws on blues and greens, much like the landscapes of the homes KBA designs, with warm gold highlights and a neutral gray to keep things balanced. The new color palette is used strategically in the new logo where the symbol uses two shades for the resulting overlapping effect. We designed a set of brand patterns inspired by the shapes and angles seen in the new logo symbol, creating visual continuation and cohesion from the logo to the pattern. At the end of the brand redesign, we delivered a complete brand guide documenting the visual identity as well as the values of the KBA team.
Following the rebrand process we started on a full website redesign, paying special attention to improving information hierarchy to better communicate KBA’s expertise, diverse portfolio of projects, and their process. The new site was designed to showcase large images of the firm’s work with a seamless incorporation of updated branding, visually and through updated content. Working closely with KBA, our team created new website content that articulated the firm’s unique story and brand voice. Project pages now utilize a large masonry grid layout that showcases the images at a large scale for an immersive experience, while the Process page walks users through KBA’s detailed approach to projects. The About page communicates the down-to-earth, friendly vibe of the entire KBA team.
Overall, the resulting site is dynamic, modern, immersive, and better communicates all aspects of KBA. The site was designed to be mobile forward to ensure that all imagery, content, and functionality works well and looks good on all screen sizes (especially mobile). The new site accomplishes all of the goals that were set at the beginning of the project and results in a new, modern, comprehensive view into who KBA is and what type of work they do.
