Hansom Taxis, a start-up cab service established in Leicester City Centre before the Uber-boom, wanted to offer a fresh alternative travel experience compared to the traditional black cab model with a contrasting approach.
The brief was simple: to create a brand that stood out. Something that was a fresh to users who were so used to hiring a black cab. It needed to communicate taxi transportation but also the ethos of 'service with a smile'.
Hansom Taxi
2018
Hansom Taxi’s required a bold and quirky brand to represent it’s values and stand out amongst the crowd at the Leicester City Railway station and online.
Initial kick off discussions commenced to understand the vision, the brand and the challenges of how to make the design stand out.
Initial experimentation of concepts, moodboarding, sketching and then more polished and refined concepts of logo designs revealed to be a super simple style which encompassed many elements such as vehicles, vehicles elements, moods, transport symbols, faces and more. These were then refined and iterated on to be made cleaner and simpler to emphasise that iconic look.
To help stand out amongst the crowd the brand colour palette lead with a vibrant orange, which was paired and offset with the traditional black as the foundation. This allowed it to be bold, fresh without being too over the top (compared with yellow and black) and also contrasted with the black to link back to the black cabs. The brand logo was designed to be responsive across different layouts and touch-points for both digital and print.
To coincide and support with the brand launch a slick yet simple one-page website was designed and built with the objectives of introducing the company, showcasing what makes them so unique and driving users to ‘hail a hansom’ either by phone, online booking or via the app.
