Guest Blog by Christopher Graham, CEO of The Marketing Department: This is the new Premier Labels

It’s always such an honour when a client asks me to write a guest blog for them, but it’s especially nice after a rebrand process such as the one that The Marketing Department recently undertook for Premier Labels.

First, I have to say what a pleasure this whole project has been. Garry Kerr, Managing Director of Premier Labels, and his entire team have been a joy to work with. They are excellent creative partners and if you are reading this as a prospective client looking for a supplier of labels for your business, then Premier Labels is the way to go. In fact, during the rebrand I engaged them to make window stickers for another client of ours, who were delighted with the outcome. 

Our business is helping other organisations with their marketing, design, branding and events. We’ve worked across multiple industries since our founding a few years ago, but Premier Labels is the first label company to ask us for our assistance. I’m sure the Premier Labels team will agree that we have given them an education on the importance of branding theory and application, but as I reflect on the whole project, I think the TMD team received an even bigger education on the labelling industry!

As these things often start, the conversation initially was around a new website for Premier Labels. My team and I had agreed that a rebrand would be beneficial to the business weeks before the first meeting happened. I had prepared a number of different ways to say this, so it was with some relief when Gary asked, “And what do you think of our logo and our colours? Are they ok to use on a new website?”

From 1999 until today, the main Premier Labels brandmark was:

Rebranding an established business always presents challenges. Some of these are technical (I am still having nightmares about Sage Report Designer) and some of these are about perception. We humans are a very visual species and when change on such a dramatic and shocking change is proposed from what we’re used to, the first reaction is usually one of skepticism. But with the business already in a period of change - significant investment was being made into new hardware - it didn’t take long for us all to agree that:

This rebrand made us look at what makes Premier Labels so unique. Whilst this is a company with a diverse range of products for multiple applications, the one thing that really stuck out was their unparalleled skills and ability in creating labels with foil.

This sparked something in our imaginations and we embarked on a journey to create a brandmark that lifts Premier Labels and also makes it clear their strength is foil. The new brandmark is colourful, aspirational and can be used across digital and print, and even on tiny displays such as the Apple Watch:

The new brand mark is filled with meanings and conveys the ethos of Premier Labels:

It is vital that every brand we create endures for as long as possible, and that it is useable across multiple platforms. With this in mind, we have built the new Premier Labels visual brand as one that can be used everywhere:

Working on this has been a real privilege and an enjoyable creative process. Premier Labels is an exceptionally skilled team, dedicated to the best customer service, and it was a delight to create a brand for them that really fits with that ethos and their approach. The next phase of our work with the team focuses on their social media strategy, so with that in mind, follow them on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.