Freely (the making of)

An inside look at the creation of a travel insurance rebrand: my thoughts, drafts and scrappiness.

When Freely appointed me as an in-house Creative Lead (no more pj's all day), I hadn't intended on a complete rebrand. But just three years young, I needed to recreate their identity from scratch. Why? They needed to evolve their brand to improve accessibility, be more inclusive, mature the identity for their expansion, and build a robust and efficient creative framework.

This case study is going to be different. It's not going to be polished. The reality is, creativity is messy. And everyone is unique in their approach. I often find it difficult to explain what mine is (and what I'm capable of), especially when rebranding from within. So, I'm going to include all the thinking and unpredictable bits to give you a true sense of the Freely brand I envisioned from the very beginning.

I'll bring you along my journey from day one and every process behind the result. I'll present how we arrived at each of the key reasons to rebrand. Showcase the talented external creative team I sourced and collaborated with. And everything it took to make Freely 2.0 – a new brand the team can get behind.

"The new brand looks like the teenager has grown up." - Miksu, General Manager at Freely.

Let's start from the beginning.

  • Brand Strategy
  • Visual Identity
  • Verbal Identity
  • Brand Guidelines
  • Logo design
  • Art Direction
  • Digital Design
  • Illustration
  • Advertising

My first task was to rethink their social ads. I spent some time understanding the ads they had in-market, what worked and what didn't.

Here's a snapshot of three ads I selected to present my findings.

https://cdn.sanity.io/images/waab55ra/production/68258c301a66dfc48f320b08a103045c1b1e4d7f-3346x1680.png

I realised there was no clear art direction in any of them. And every ad was focused on travel insurance. The first image on the left features a guy headed to work, smiling at his mobile phone. Highly unlikely a travel insurance app is getting anyone this excited. The image on the right looks like a denim fashion photoshoot. I didn't understand the image choice. The ad in the middle was the only one that, yeah sure, felt... alright. At least the subject was looking at the copy. And the spacing of all the elements was more considered, I thought. But what does COVID have anything to do with the ocean?

The creative doers

Creative direction & design: Sarah Louise

Font: Wayne Thompson

Illustrations: Colin Kersley

Animations: Stephen Ong

Song: Joshua Bredow

Team up with me

Get the ideas and energy of a solo creative. The skills and network of a global agency. A strategic wingwoman to push and challenge you. And an extra team member you can always rely on – no bullshit, no hand-holding, and absolutely no dramas.

Currently at Freely and Zurich Cover-More. Open to really exciting side projects.

Sydney, Australia

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