TBWA Launches “Handmade, Imperfect, but Very Expressive” Rebrand from DXD

The yellow’s there, the black’s there. The backslash. But there’s a new warmth. Elegant serifs. A soft new peachy parchment shade - called ‘Analog’. Splatters and scribbles where before there was uncompromising blockiness. Hand-hewn travel stamps and piratical illustrations. Spontaneous photography. Imprints of tiles and local architecture motifs. TBWA has just launched a complete design overhaul, and it’s covered in the smudgy fingerprints of the human touch.

Having trained its much-vaunted knack for disruption on itself, there’s no mistaking TBWA’s intention. This is a design world that’s all about making a statement about human creativity as a differentiator in an age when AI and big data give everyone access to the same tools.

The design was created by Design by Disruption (DXD), TBWA’s global design centre of excellence. It marries the TBWA legacy with what the agency is becoming. It’s modular rather than rigid, and peppered with delicious little details, like the “handmade, imperfect, but very expressive” pirate doodles that point to the belief shared by TBWA legend Lee Clow and Apple founder Steve Jobs that it’s better to be a pirate than to join the navy.

​Bruno Regalo, global chief design officer at TBWA and DXD, explains that the design is radically analogue. “All of the decisions were inspired by this human-centric point of view, this new TBWA. Everything needs to be analogue: the photography, the assets. It's not a perfect brand guideline, but it's a flexible one, and every single decision honours, first of all, the connection with the heritage of our brand. But [it also] creates a space for all the offices to bring their own point of view, honour the past, and create a future point of view about things. [It’s] more than just a classic and perfect [set of] brand guidelines. It creates something meaningful and very human, imperfect… in a world full of AI, the human, for us, is a strategic advantage.”

For Bruno, the new design is a statement of intent. “It's not a rebrand, it's literally a new commitment to represent this moment,” he says, explaining that as TBWA absorbed the culture and creativity of agency brands like LOLA, MullenLowe and DDB, it was a crucial to build a new visual identity that reflected this change, while reaffirming its disruption company ethos.

But that’s not the only statement that the new design is making, TBWA’s global CCO Chaka Sobhani explains. “Of course, this is the launch of our brand, but I hope it... demonstrates TBWA's commitment to design as a craft, and as a principle, and in all of its different machinations,” she says.

Design, explains Chaka, is “pivotal” at TBWA. Therefore, DXD doesn’t sit as a siloed entity, removed from the other flavours of creativity. “I think the investment in that and how we show up, one as ourselves, but also in our work, it's of paramount, paramount importance, and design is incredibly important to us. It's not a service, it's not something that sits over there."

Bruno Regalo believes that the DXD offering is unique at a global level and that this integration within the wider TBWA band of brigands brings something new to the market. "I think the market is very fragmented in terms of the usage of design. Consultants are creating the scenarios, design studios are cracking all the technical parts, and agencies and in-house [are doing creativity and delivery] ... part of our methodology is to create just one touchpoint for all of this."

That strong positioning on design is driven by a deep belief in the strategic and disruptive power of the discipline. With years of working with design-forward clients, the collective has witnessed the reality of this up close - though Bruno says they are also informed by the reams of scientific literature that shows the extent to which consumers rely on visual heuristics to make snap decisions. “People spend less than 100 milliseconds to decide if they like something. So before any kind of strategy, stunt, idea, platform, they need to fall in love and feel something, that's the power of the visuals and design," he says.

That means great design needs to create a shortcut to our emotional centres. That’s why at DXD they talk about brand design in almost sentimental terms. For example, you won’t find anything as dry as ‘guidelines’ here. A brand’s design is built around what Bruno calls the ‘Visual Brand Soul’.

“We are super obsessed about the strategy, data, craft, and cultural impact, because we really believe that people don't fall in love with brand guidelines, right? People fall in love with great design, something that they can see, but they can feel. We always choose to be in consumers' minds and hearts versus just [delivering] great brand guidelines,” explains Bruno.

“Ultimately we're in the business of human psychology and building relationships, and how you feel is pivotal to that,” agrees Chaka.

The pair points to work for the likes of the GRAMMY, Gatorade and the Ciclope Festival as examples of how that human connection can show up differently for each brand. While DXD very much draws from TBWA’s proprietary Disruption methodology, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.

“Every brand is unique, and has its own needs depending on where it is in its - I hate the word - ‘journey’, and how strongly its brand turns up in the world,” explains Chaka of the importance of meeting clients where they are and tailoring the design process to their needs. “There's not a specific blueprint [to follow] every time that you come in. I think you have to go in with the importance of how you show up in the world, and how you build relationships.”

What does all of this mean for the work DXD has done on TBWA’s brand specifically? For one thing, DXD is a community spread across the world and for any project they’ll draw from talent from all over. And in the case of the new TBWA visual identity, that cross-border collaboration really came into its own, presenting a richer, more rounded perspective on what that ‘Visual Brand Soul’ really was.

"This is part of our DNA. So we have people in multiple time zones, different kinds of disciplines, different cultures,” explains Bruno. “For us, it is super important to not just have one point of view about world design."

That decentralised approach really made it apparent that different parts of TBWA had their own needs, and local offices wanted to have some say over how they show up on the ground. Erin Riley, TBWA’s CEO often describes them as a collective rather than a network, and so the design had to be suitably flexible. Instead of a rigid template, there’s a palette, and every office has its own distinctive postmark. It allows them to stamp their own identity while also lending the full design a romantic worldliness.

“For people to be able to interpret that connective tissue in their own way is a creative freedom, and that's absolutely paramount to us as a collective. But also it has to be identifiable, there should be pride in that identity as well,” explains Chaka. Indeed, in the launch film, we see various TBWA leaders create their own, personalised hand-drawn version of the Backslash as an example what that mix of belonging and individuality really means.

The new brand world identity was also a chance for DXD to flex its ability to sprint. The design and execution phase took a month and a half, though prior to the design work, the team spent time setting up the right brief, conducting research, and gathering input and perspectives from leaders and teams across the collective.

One of the most gratifying parts of the project is how it has contributed to internal culture-building. While the primary function of brand design is how it shapes a brand’s relationship with the world, this has also been a chance to create a new sense of belonging, particularly from teams that have joined TBWA post-IPG acquisition. Bruno refers to the Lee Clow quote about creating brands that are “so cool that you want to wear their T-shirt”, and DXD’s intention has been to build something that has this effect on the TBWA community.

“We believe in this. We have multiple people with different kinds of cultures – creative cultures specifically – like DDB's great DNA, LOLA, our MullenLowe. But how are we going to set up all of them under the same vision of disruption? That's why the system is more important than just a visual convention… how do you create something that people really believe and [want to be] be part of, and be proud to use? Or represent our creative obsession about being disruptive, breaking the conventions?”

Bruno explains that this visual system has had to work incredibly hard, representing “the best version of ourselves” as well as being part of daily agency life and, most importantly, creating an identity to be proud of. “I think that's the first mission of the system, for sure.”

Chaka and Bruno's new headshots demonstrate the spontaneity and warmth of the new visual identity

That sense of belonging and ownership also meant that there wasn’t just one client to please, but a whole community of clients. “We have, I don't know, thousands of CMOs, because every single office has their own creative leaders and they need to be well represented. And the standard for these people is really, really high,” recalls Bruno.

“Poor Bruno!” laughs Chaka. “I think it's tough, man, I think it's really, really tough… I think you have to be tougher on yourself than you are on any client, because you have to make sure you don't get lost in the sauce.”

There was no danger of that with what Chaka describes as TBWA’s deep “bench strength” of creative leaders keeping tabs on the design. That included the likes of Andreas Dahlqvist at NORD, Tomás Ostiglia at LOLA Madrid, Sergio Gordilho at Brazil’s Africa, Darre van Dijk at TBWA\Neboko and more.

“You want to go objectively: ‘these are our clothes, this is our family… so, does this feel good? Are these the clothes that you want to wear? Does this feel representative of your agency? Does this feel representative of us as a collective?’” She explains, “It can't be done in isolation, absolute arrogance if it was done in that way, so we've really pulled together a crew of people to make sure that everyone keeps us honest, and that everyone is feeling really good about it. And my god, there's the expertise to be able to tell us!”

The final output is also a demonstration of Bruno’s philosophy about what craft really means in the context of design. He reflects that the word ‘craft’ has “become a little generic over the years”, as everyone is using it. While some people see craft as the final execution, for Bruno craft and ideas are inseparable. In the case of TBWA, this design has been created to make a statement about the humanity of the collective, and therefore the imperfection of many of the details is baked into the concept.

For the right brand and culture and the right concept it may well be that AI and tech-driven techniques are more appropriate, but as Chaka and Bruno are at pains to stress, each client has its own needs and own nuanced relationship with the world. And ultimately, no matter the execution, it is human understanding, empathy, creativity and judgement that will make the difference between a design that resonates and connects and one that’s merely nice to look at.

“We believe that we need to be more human than ever, because in a world where everybody has the same tools, your eyes and your years of study, your human side of the business will be most important,” says Bruno. “So that's why I really believe the design is going to be bigger and bigger in the coming years.”