Coach Flame Branding + Identity

Coach Flame is the only professionally certified coach in Nebraska who specializes in helping mid-career professionals find and sustain personal fulfillment. With 15 years of professional experience, global recognition from the International Coaching Federation, and a corporate clientele boasting Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 ratings, Coach Flame is an acclaimed industry expert. 

However, Flame’s branding was lacking the necessary presence of an accomplished professional and any inkling of personality. At best, her logo blended into the landscape of other coaches – lost in a sea of indistinguishable sans serif typefaces. With a name so unique, a lifeless logotype didn’t make sense for Flame, and likewise not using a mark seemed like a missed opportunity.

It all starts with a conversation.

Because professional life coaching is ill-defined and typically met with skepticism, the paramount challenge was clarifying the definitions – What is life coaching, what does it do, and why hire Coach Flame? We distilled her mission and impact to one sentence: A conversation with Coach Flame can change your life. Flame is deft in extracting clarity from confusion for her clients, in even the messiest situations, by asking pointed questions and offering pragmatic solutions. But it all starts with a conversation, specifying the brand essence down to two robust words to guide us: Conversation + Flame.

Balance: equal and opposite.

From this concept, we derived two equal and opposite applications: the combination of the conversation bubble and the flame as the logomark, and the split conversation bubble and flame as graphic elements. Both articulate the essence of coaching. From that jumping off point, the rationale for the autumnal color palette, flame-like type treatment, and graphic elements naturally became evident.