Innovative Financial Management
Innovative Financial Management AG in Zurich-Kloten finances mid-sized companies beyond the bank, with mezzanine capital and, if they like, all the way to the capital market. We gave it a sail as its mark and turned an unwieldy product into a picture. In 2015 the whole presence got lighter, from the logo to the website.
- Services
- Logo and 2015 redesign
- Corporate design
- Folding brochure and information graphic
- Presentation folder with special finishes
- Stationery
- Website, German and English
- Year
- 2012–2015
Since Basel II and III, banks have been stricter, and some mid-sized companies no longer get a loan. Mezzanine capital steps in, as a hybrid of equity and debt: no collateral, and no voting rights for investors.
A good product, just one that needs explaining first. So IFM AG needed two things: a presence people would trust with their money, and materials that explain mezzanine in minutes.
People looking for capital want to move forward. So the logo shows no building and no safe, but a sail in the wind. Its canvas holds a curve like the ones you know from charts. The good ones.
- 01 / 04Sail and name, one height. The sail runs exactly from the top to the bottom edge of the name panel. So the brand stands as one block, calm as a letterhead and still under way.
- 02 / 04The canvas charts a course. The notch in the sail is a price chart: it rises, dips briefly, then climbs on more steeply. Exactly the curve every company looking for capital hopes for.
- 03 / 04The panel makes room for the sail. Its left edge follows the curve of the sail. Symbol and name stay apart, yet look as if caught by the same wind.
- 04 / 04Ranged right, like a balance sheet. Four lines end at the same edge, always the same distance apart. The order you expect from a financial partner is already there in the name.
Types of financing are abstract, and the differences between them even more so. The brochure doesn’t list them, it lays them out in a semicircle. Mezzanine gets the middle.
See the graphic once and you’ll be explaining mezzanine capital at your next dinner party. Whether the rest of the table likes it or not.
- 01 / 04On the left, the bank’s money. Loans and bonds are familiar, but they require collateral. Which is often missing precisely when a company wants to grow.
- 02 / 04On the right, the owners’ money. Equity needs no collateral, but it costs you a say. Give away shares and you share every important decision from then on.
- 03 / 04In between, the widest arc. Mezzanine capital takes the best of both: no collateral, no voting rights for investors. The graphic gives it more than twice the space of any other form. The eye lands there by itself.
- 04 / 04A spotlight for the answer. Above the middle a bright fan opens out, carrying the product’s name. Open the brochure and within seconds you know what IFM AG stands for.
Issuing participation rights sounds like legalese. The folding brochure turns it into four steps, one sentence each. The road to the capital market becomes a staircase you’re happy to climb.
- 01 / 04Understand first, then finance. It starts with an analysis of the company, its opportunities and risks. The pointer under each step leads the eye onwards, the way the advisers lead their clients.
- 02 / 04An exposé investors actually read. The analysis becomes an investment exposé on the participation rights. Each step gets lighter: the path visibly climbs from the depths into the light.
- 03 / 04The investors shape the sales plan. First it becomes clear which investors are active in the sector, then how to reach them. The last step before the market.
- 04 / 04In the end, the capital flows. The investors subscribe, the capital flows to the company. The last line has no pointer. Arrived.
You can’t hold a financial product in your hand, but you can hold its paperwork. On the folder, the financial instruments shine so discreetly that you only read them in full when you tilt it.
On the folding brochure, the logo only shows when the light catches it. In a business that lives on discretion, that isn’t an effect. It’s the promise.
The first logo was built for paper. In 2015 it also had to fit on a phone, and everyone still had to recognise IFM AG at first sight.
So we kept what carries and dropped what weighs it down. The sail gets a circle, the name its freedom, and a new colour points to what matters everywhere, right down to the button on the website.
- 01 / 04Before: lots of panel, little air. The first logo put sail and name into a solid four-line block. Strong on a brochure cover, heavy on screen and at small sizes.
- 02 / 04After: the sail in a circle. Sail, notch and wave stayed, so the brand is still recognisable. The circle gathers them into a mark that can stand on its own, even without the name.
- 03 / 04The name steps out into the open. Two lines instead of four, no panel. At the same height the type grows by a third and the whole thing feels noticeably lighter.
- 04 / 04Clear when small. As a loading icon and in the website footer, the circle stands alone. Where the old logo falls apart into lines, the new one stays a mark.
On the home page a yacht ploughs through the spray. Below it, three figures answer what every business owner wants to know first: from how much capital, how long, and how much of their own company they keep.
The answer to the last one: all of it.
Planning something similar? info@vertikahl.com