Project Overview
OmniStar, an Australian-born, industry-leading end-to-end grants, research and ethics management SaaS solution company, came to Hulsbosch with the challenge of elevating its brand identity to match its market position and drive increased customer acquisition.
Having refreshed their visual identity not long in the past, but finding it not fit-for-purpose, Hulsbosch worked closely with the project team and digital team to evolve the brand toolkit in a thoughtful way to create a striking, differentiated, and usable visual style that would drive greater equity.
An identity that gave Omnistar a look distinct from its parent company, F1 Solutions, with a clear and understandable proposition and the ability to present a unified design approach for the company and its powerful products within, while retaining confidence in the ongoing security and reliability of the brand and its products.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Hans Hulsbosch, Executive Creative Director
Marcel Wijnen, Creative Director
Helen Ferguson, Senior Designer
Ian Boniface, Snr Finished Artist
Jaid Hulsbosch, Managing Director
Carolyn Pitt, Client Strategy Director
Project Brief
With 20 years in the market, Omnistar was a well-regarded SaaS solution provider with proven platforms in the grants, research and ethics management spaces.
But its brand was not capturing the power that its solutions provided to its customers, and business growth was not reaching its potential.
Like much of the industry, Omnistar didn’t stand out or have a strong sense of brand, using typical stock imagery of ‘customers’, and swaying between the industry tropes of a soft ‘giving’ tone, and a highly technical, and often stark, look.
Omnistar had undergone a refresh of their visual identity not long in the past, but found it not fit-for-purpose – while the logo graphic and colours were to remain, the toolkit needed to evolve to become a sophisticated and compelling visual identity.
Additionally, the existing brand architecture gave each of the verticals – Grants, Ethics and Research – colour-coded logos that added complexity. It diluted equity from the core Omnistar brand, and from the core red colour that provided a connection to the parent company F1 Solutions, and was restrictive from a design perspective.
Project Innovation/Need
Drawing on OmniStar’s commitment to power progress through Grants, Ethics and Research, Hulsbosch focused on developing a modern, vibrant identity that balances the technical strengths of OmniStar’s offering with the human element essential to its success.
The core idea of ‘Complex infinities, simplified’ leads to a striking graphic system featuring intricate, dynamic forms constructed with elegant simplicity.
This bold graphic approach set the scene for the remaining toolkit elements such as colour use, typography and layout, which were refined to establish a system that not only reflects OmniStar’s heritage of excellence, but also positions the brand for future growth and integration of new product offerings.
Design Challenge
As part of the brand transformation, we evolved the masterbrand logo and developed a connected sub-brand logos system that ensured the brand had maximum impact, with minimum complexity.
Working closely with the client team, the new identity has been implemented across all of OmniStar’s touchpoints, including on-platform, website and process and ecosystem schematics, and social media, brochures, and sales templates, ensuring a consistent look and feel throughout.
Effectiveness
The evolved identity had immediate resonance with the Omnistar team, including the development teams tasked with applying the identity to the SaaS platforms and redeveloped website.
And the results speak for themselves.
Already, in the first 6 months since the launch of their refreshed brand identity in September 2024, OmniStar has recorded a 98% increase in new customer conversion, website engagement is up 32% and the number of calls, enquiries, demos and form submissions has risen by more than 180%.
Tags
Graphic Design - Identity and Branding - Corporate
This award celebrates creative and innovative design in the traditional or digital visual representation of ideas and messages. Consideration given to clarity of communication and the matching information style to audience.
More Details