BRAND

PROJECT

Building a Brand: Strengthening ATS’s Visual Identity

ROLE

Creative Strategist & Project Lead

OBJECTIVE

Transform ATS’s partial rebrand into a fully realized, scalable brand system that provides clear guidelines for marketing and creative teams while maintaining flexibility for 17 remote offices. The goal was to eliminate inconsistencies, streamline creative workflows, and ensure brand cohesion across all platforms.

Background

ATS had recently undergone a partial rebranding, introducing a new logo, color palette, font, and tagline. While this established a foundation for the brand’s new direction, there were no comprehensive guidelines to ensure consistency across marketing and communications.

With 17 regional offices nationwide, ATS lacked a centralized system to manage the brand effectively. As a result, teams had to interpret the brand identity on their own, leading to inconsistencies in design, messaging, and campaign execution.

The Challenge

Without a formalized brand guide, ATS faced several challenges:

  • Lack of consistency – Each office applied the brand differently, leading to mixed messaging and visual discrepancies.

  • Inefficient workflows – The marketing and creative teams constantly recreated assets from scratch, slowing down production.

  • Decentralized brand management – With remote offices operating independently, ensuring brand alignment across teams was nearly impossible.

Strategy & Approach

To solve these challenges, we partnered with Studio DBC to enhance the ATS brand and establish a clear, scalable system that could be used organization-wide.

Laying the Foundation
Rather than starting over, we focused on expanding and refining the existing rebrand. This approach preserved brand equity while filling in the missing pieces to create a cohesive, easy-to-use identity.

Developing a Comprehensive Brand System
Studio DBC helped us create:

  • A brand messaging framework to unify ATS’s voice across all communications.

  • A visual identity guide covering logo usage, typography, color applications, and graphic styles.

  • A writing style guide providing structure for tone, voice, and messaging hierarchy.

Scalability & Implementation
With offices nationwide, the brand system needed to be flexible and easy to adopt. The new guidelines empowered teams to maintain consistency without constant oversight, ensuring ATS’s identity remained strong across all marketing channels.

Results & Impact

With the new brand system in place, ATS saw an immediate transformation in how marketing and creative teams operated. For the first time, the organization had a centralized set of brand guidelines, eliminating inconsistencies. The creative team no longer had to guess how to apply the brand—every element, from typography to messaging, was clearly defined, ensuring a cohesive identity across all marketing efforts.

The creative process became significantly more efficient, as marketing and design teams could now rely on standardized assets instead of recreating materials from scratch. This not only reduced production time but also allowed teams to focus on higher-level strategic initiatives rather than getting caught up in repetitive design tasks.

By creating a scalable brand foundation, ATS positioned itself for long-term success. As the organization continues to grow, the brand system provides a flexible yet structured framework that can adapt to new campaigns, digital initiatives, and evolving marketing strategies. With a unified brand voice and clear visual identity, ATS can now present itself more consistently and effectively to supporters, donors, and partners across all channels.

Final Thoughts

This brand enhancement transformed ATS’s fragmented rebrand into a fully realized, cohesive identity, providing clarity and structure for teams across the organization. With a strong brand system in place, ATS is now positioned to scale effectively while maintaining a unified presence.

CREDITS

Marketing agency: Studio DBC