We are sharing a complete history of our logo and branding changes. This is because we believe stories are so important. Sharing with others our “why,” or bringing them along in the journey helps them understand our mission. We wish more companies did this, instead of leaving it to speculation. Thus we’ll take the initiative.
Our first logo in May 2023 was a downtown cityscape view of Vancouver. The color gray symbolized timelessness and elegance. The name Carview originated from this. The “view” stems from the cityscape view of Vancouver.
Our second logo in July 2023 aimed to have our name in the logo, be simple, and “green” as a nod to electric cars. This attracted the flashy type of renters. You’ll see later on that this does not align with our current value.
After the summer in 2023, when business slowed down, we decided to lowercase our branding, to “carview” to appear more casual and fast. In fact, everything was lowercase! Even our listing descriptions looked like how flair airlines does things. Needless to say, we stopped typing in all lowercase font. This is what our logo looked like back then. Our motto at this time was “cars bring people together.”
However, around this time, we started to question the name “carview.” We actually changed it to “carventure” for a period of about a week. Cars and adventure. Sounds great… right? But then, it’s better to show, not tell. Plus, not everyone is going to be going on an adventure with our car. Some are here for specific purposes, such as attending a business conference, or spending time with their family. So we changed it back pretty quickly. Here’s what “carventure” looked like briefly.
Then, in November 2023, we changed “carview” back to “Carview” to emphasize more of an experience, instead of just renting a quick car. Also, we made the color of the logo brown because we wanted to make our brand more “grounded” and confident in our approach. The irony is that we deal with cars with futuristic technology, but that our branding looks down-to-earth, and old school. It is not flashy because we believe that most luxury car rental shops are already doing the flashy type of marketing—which doesn’t necessarily attract the right type of renters, or set a safe driving type of tone… so we want to veer away from that style.
Then, in December, the logo of Carview was slightly adjusted to make the “V” a capital letter, as Carview evolved into a more professional and mature brand now. The “View” is more mission-oriented, due to the emphasis on the experience that we provide.
Then, in February, 2024, we made a drastic change. We added a : colon to our logo. This colon symbolizes an outward exploration from a renter’s perspective—such as visiting places and exploring cities. It represents ultimate freedom, and it takes inspiration from our time in Thailand. The colon in the logo is followed by empty space, because the world is so big, there’s so much to explore… the world is your oyster.
Carview includes the : for the locations that we operate in. For example, in East Vancouver, it will say Carview: East Vancouver. This gives attention to the beautiful nature of the cities that we operate in, and it just feels even more mission-oriented (like Mission: Impossible, or Batman: Arkham).
Last but not least, we made the “C” in Carview a lowercase letter. A lowercase “c” is slightly more inviting and approachable, design-wise. It also ties into our mission of convenience and speedy service. The more convenient a service is and seems, the more “badass” it is. Thus, our latest iteration.
March 2024, we changed the colon from a square looking colon, to a more rounded, oval shape. This reduces the rough-edge look of our branding and makes it looked more friendly. The oval symbolizes a more long-term outlook. We were deciding between having a circle colon vs an oval one, but ultimately we wanted to portray the oval shape because it emphasizes the "view" in Carview more. It looks kind of like an eye shape, or a car headlight shape, whichever angle you look at it from. The circle shape was too much of like "get from Point A to Point B" type of branding. Sure, that is one of our goals, as we are a transportation company, but because we deal with premium cars, it doesn't make too much sense for that to be our primary branding objective. Clients would look for Ubers, taxis, or other car rental alternatives if they just wanted to get from Point A to Point B. Also, the circular colon leaves too much to the interpretation of the client. We don't want our renters to think too much about the future, or other things when driving. We want them to be present in the moment—which is why the oval shape—which kind of resembles eyes, are more "present." Also, oval looks like Rivian’s headlights. Which, looks as if a car could say “we come in peace.”
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April 2024, we changed the color of our colon to a yellow that matches the color of the streak above the carView name. We also slightly nudged the colon left, to be a bit closer to the body of the text. We actually, coincidentally realized during the last logo iteration, that the logo was starting to look like a car itself... so it would make sense to make the colon look more like car headlights.
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June 2024, we made the streak in the logo bolder, to reflect our increased confidence. Also, the streak is of a color that is common on the roads: traffic lights, the yellow line on the roads, and street signs. It signals how much we love driving and the stars that are subtle in the logo are a token of the beauty of the cities that we live in. We also made the headlights of the logo more yellow, to give off friendly vibes and an optimistic outlook.
Now a new rendition to shorten the streak to make the design more subtle like the Mona Lisa. A little more "normal" as well, less flashy, and more of a part of the logo, rather than a separate part of it.
More about the car than the view. More about getting from Point A to Point B in a car that fits people's needs. Also, this is balancing the boldness of our logo from 3 images above--as we had a lot of success with that logo.
Lengthened streak, and nudged it once to the right. This was a gut feeling.
We nudged the streak more to the left. Looks more approachable, relaxed, and grounded. It looks less "untouchable," or less out of touch. The reason why that's important, is because we don't want our renters to rent a car only for the novel experience, because they won't be returning customers. We don't want the logo to feel like an untouchable luxury item. We don't want them to feel like it's their last time renting a nice car. We want our renters to feel like this car is not out of their reach.
We made a mistake in the color of the font, it was supposed to be slightly more dark brown. Like this (very nuanced, but makes a difference). Also, we made the streak darker, to align more closely with our mission of making car rentals more badass. Driving is inherently dangerous, with bad guys, traffic lights, stops, etc. We want to be realistic in our depiction of this, which is better than painting a fairy tale version of driving. On the contrary, the cities that we operate are so beautiful, that we still have to highlight it, with the stars. That is the irony. Like in Cyberpunk, the world is often dystopian-utopian in a weird way, and you must be aware of the dangers that lurk.
September 12, 2024 update *made the streak a little darker.* More mission-focused and driving focused. Subtle and luxury. Also, it shows that we care more as we also saturated the streak with more color.
Made the streak even more darker and more serious, catering to business professionals and accounting towards a vision of luxury car rentals.
