Home-sharing platform Airsorted has been rebranded by Ragged Edge as Houst, a combination of the words “house” and “host.” The renaming was a huge step for his client, says Ragged Edge co-founder Max Ottignon, but a necessary one that would allow the company to stand out as the leading lister of properties across accommodation booking-platforms like Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and HomeAway.
From the Ragged Edge website: “All professional hosting services looked the same, had similarly descriptive names, and pushed the same ‘hassle-free’ message. We rebranded Airsorted so it could stand apart, and stand on its own away from Airbnb.”
The bold, punchy name prompted the use of bold color, a very solid logo design, and chunky shapes. The shapes were inspired by floor plans and are meant to represent “spaces for opportunity.” They are used frequently as containers in the brand messaging.
https://raggededge.com/work/houst/
• The design firm Ragged Edge, whose work is described in the article above, recently recreated its own brand identity. The process was prompted by a client email sent to co-founder Max Ottignon, informing him that his firm had lost out on a project to another design company that the client felt was almost identical to Ragged Edge. Ottignon knew something had to change.
Ironically, the loss of that project has led to the turning away of other projects, as the Ragged Edge team came to know itself and its capabilities better. From a recent Creative Boom article: “It's changed who we work with. When an enquiry comes in, there's now a strong chance we'll have to turn it down or refer it to someone else. That's scary, mainly when there's a significant budget attached.
“The first few times it happened, we wondered if we'd made a terrible mistake. But that selectiveness means the people we end up working with really buy into what we're doing. They have shared values, and they believe in our approach. They understand what we do differently, and that's why they've chosen us, not because of our past but because of their future.
“And by changing ourselves internally—who we work with and how we work with them—the output changed too. In the next few months, as our latest work starts to make its way into the world, I'm confident the change will be clear.”