Year

2019 - ongoing

Client

Type

Art Direction
Brand Strategy
Branding
Creative Direction
Digital
Identity Development

Credits

Joey van Dongen

Story-led housing

Due to the current economic progress and the huge explosion on the housing market, the public opinion is that real estate agencies earn their money too easy and the added value of the profession is underexposed. Baljon & Mora Makelaars is a household name in the real estate industry of South Holland since 1972, operating in chique residential areas of Rotterdam such as Kralingen and Hillegersberg. Despite various updates on their brand identity and a year on year growth in transactions, Baljon & Mora approached us to rethink their brand and branch in which they operate to be able to be future proof. The Dutch estate industry is one of many cliches and dictated by a lot of noise, bombastic language and unnecessary information. In case of Baljon & Mora, the service, experience and knowledge of the people working at the agency is so great, but people often had wrong expectations and experienced a high-threshold.

New Luxury

We saw a lot of opportunities to create position in the premium segment with a loose but forward looking approach. Like trade in your LVMH suitcase for a Rimowa. This opened up a whole new language —both textual and visual— and made the agency more accessible to younger audience and even more exclusive to the top-end of the market.

The Smart Casual Expert

The Smart Casual Expert became our internal mantra in resetting the brand’s dna and a few interesting decisions were made afterwards. First of all we focused on a more story-led approach that suddenly offered ways to talk and write more about added value instead of value and homes instead of houses. To underline this we created a few different brand statements which are used in communication but also as internal compass.

Visual Representation

Secondly we renamed the agency into Baljon. Short and better recognizable with more brand qualities attached to it. With this brand name we were able to create a new visual representation by deleting all unnecessary information. The result is a timeless, minimalistic and yet bold identity that gives space to the context to breathe.