Sosai is moving from a service design studio to a software product, an AI briefing tool that other studios license and use with their own clients. The rebrand has to catch the identity up to that shift, keeping Saya as the recognisable voice while proving the brand can carry a real product, not just a marketing site.
Overview & Goals
- Retire the old service studio positioning across site and pricing, replacing it with language and structure built for a licensed software product.
- Extend the identity so it works as a product interface, not only a marketing page.
- Keep Saya's voice and presence intact as the most memorable part of the brand.
- Give the brand a system that serves both studios who license the tool and clients who fill in a briefing, without splitting into two identities.
Budget & Timeline
The new identity needs to be agreed by the end of October, giving enough runway to rebuild the site and pricing around it before the relaunch in January. That gap between approval and launch is where the product interface work happens, so the system has to be locked early enough to test inside the application, not just on the marketing page.
Brand Story & Voice
Sosai carries over from a service studio built on restrained, editorial writing and a personality, Saya, that people describe by name to other people. The rebrand keeps that quiet confidence but repositions it around a product: less about selling brand packages, more about a calm, capable assistant that studios trust to run inside their own work.
Target Audience
Two audiences now sit inside one product: design studios who license Sosai as a tool, and their clients who use it to answer a briefing. The identity has to read clearly to both without becoming two brands.
Brand programme
- Situation
- Rebrand
- Why now
- New positioning
- Carry over
- The name Sosai. Saya as the name of the assistant and the way she speaks, which people remember. The restrained, editorial tone of the writing. The serif in the headlines is the one thing we would defend after that.
- Logo
- Refresh the existing logo
- Logo direction
- Wordmark
- Deliverables
- Logo & marks, Type system, Color system, Brand guidelines, Social templates
- Naming
- Name exists
- Voice
- Confident, Elegant
Logo & Style
Chosen logo direction
Wordmark logo_type_wordmark_01
Colour
Measured on the material you sent
References & Moodboard
1 source captured. Click any of them to see it full size.
In the client's own words
The site we have describes a design studio with an AI assistant that helps clients brief us. What we actually built since then is the tool itself, and other studios want to use it. That is a different company, and the brand has not caught up: the site still sells brand packages, the pricing page is for a service business, and Saya is presented as our assistant rather than as something a client of any studio talks to. We are not throwing everything away. Saya stays, the name stays, the calm tone stays.
Scope & Deliverables
- Logo and marks
- Type system
- Color system
- Brand guidelines
- Social templates
Do's & Don'ts
Do
- Keep Saya recognisable, she is the part people describe to other people
- Design for a product interface as well as a marketing page, the identity now has to survive inside an application
- Protect the restrained, editorial tone of the writing and the headline serif
Don't
- Do not make it look like every other AI product, that is exactly the market Sosai is trying not to be confused with
- Do not lose the quiet, the calm is the argument
- Do not split the identity into two brands to serve studios and clients separately