Moncton graphic designer up for national award
PropertyGuys.com rebranding earns nod from Canadian Franchise Association
You may have noticed PropertyGuys.com's new look on signs blooming across Metro Moncton over the past few weeks.
The new signs are part of a six-month project to completely rebrand the 10-year-old company and though the new brand is just starting to go public, the work is already up for a national award.
To find the brains behind the new look, one need look no further than the Fundy Group's Ryan Maxwell, the project's graphic designer/art director.
He says getting to work on the $1-million project was a dream job.
"Most companies don't have the budget to do everything at once," he says. "To take a company that is established and they tell you tear the page off the pad and do it how you want, to be able to do something like that is a once-in-a-career type of thing. Award aside, when I got told of the project in the summer, I kind of frothed at the mouth to get a chance to do it. To get nominated for a national award was the icing on the cake."
Maxwell is only 24, but has been in the business for about five years, after completing a two-year diploma at Holland College.
PropertyGuys.com just found out its in-house consultation kit -- the folder it presents to potential new clients -- is up for a Frankie Award in the Brochures (Consumer/Retail) category. The Frankies are marketing awards distributed by the Canadian Franchise Association to franchised businesses.
"It encompasses everything that we did as a brand," Maxwell says of the kit. "It was the one we were really hoping to get a sniff at... It was the biggest piece of marketing material."
Maxwell says the rebranding was a definite team effort. Roy Williams of Wizard Academy in Austin, Texas came up with the idea of using round signs rather than the standard rectangular real estate signs, while Ontario-based advertising guru Steve Rae helped developed the new slogan, "Sell your house, pay yourself," and worked out the copy for the promotional materials.
Maxwell then took the concepts and text and created the visuals -- designing the logo and the signs and other materials.
He says he was a little surprised when the company was named a finalist for a Frankie.
He says it's hard to judge one's own work, so it was difficult for him to determine if what he had done was good or not.
"But I knew the pieces from everyone else were world class," he says. "It was pretty neat to hear that it was already getting recognition. We got this (nomination) even before we put up our first sign. We didn't know what the public reaction was going to be, we didn't know how it would be received, so to get that outside approval before we even launched the brand was good."
PropertyGuys.com was started 10 years ago by Atlantic Baptist University students Ken LeBlanc and Jeremy Demont with about $100.
From such humble beginnings, the company has now grown to include 100 franchise locations.
"It's pretty neat when the companies that submit for these awards are McDonald's and companies like that," Maxwell says. "We're going up against big companies in big cities. For a company set up by a couple of guys from Moncton for $100 and a designer who is 24 years old, even to be recognized on that stage is pretty cool."
Maxwell says the rebranding project was an important step for the company.
"(The company) was a great idea, to help people who are going to sell their homes by themselves... to market on their own," he says. "It is a neat idea. The problem with the old PropertyGuys brand was we looked and felt like every other real estate company. Our old signs looked like Century 21 or Remax or everyone else, so it was hard for people to understand how we were different. We wanted people to understand we were a private sale company, not a real estate company."
Maxwell says that is why they chose an unusual colour combination, lime green and blue, and redesigned everything around the idea of a circle.
"With the old brand, because it was such a new idea and they were trying to be accepted, they thought if (the signs) look like other real estate companies, people will feel they can get the job done just as well, but because it has been so successful, we don't have to look the same anymore to fit in, so we thought let's do our own thing now that we're established enough," he says.
Maxwell says its really neat to drive around Calgary, for example, and see the signs he designed all over the city.
The Frankies will be handed out at an awards ceremony in Toronto on May 5.
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