In 2023, AOR partnered with Ulysses Development Group to design and develop a new website. The final product needed to reflect their specialization in affordable housing communities that still offer high-quality design solutions. This year, we expanded our partnership to help the home builder create visual brands for their newly developed or redeveloped properties.
These properties often had names but lacked any sort of visual identity — a necessary component for any successful real estate development project. Using our deep experience in the real estate space, we were able to get creative and tailor our process to exactly what an affordable community needs.
Before we even got into property-level specifics, our team took a step back to develop a plan. How do we evolve our process and tailor our deliverables to give our client exactly what their affordable property needs and nothing that it doesn’t? Through research and drawing on past experiences, we knew there was one key efficiency we could leverage: while the properties needed to be distinct and appealing in the market, they didn’t need quite the same level of marketing material buildout.
This insight allowed us to focus on the essentials: eye-catching logomarks, typography, and color palette. A package containing all the things the brand needed to stand out, but nothing superfluous that wouldn’t get used.
To finalize the new process, we created a document full of questions and spec choices that the Ulysses team could quickly and easily fill out for us. This ‘brief’ gave us the information we needed for our designers to get to work.
After seeing an initial round with 3 options featuring suggested color palettes, typography, and logos, the Ulysses team was given time to choose their favorite, as well as 2 rounds of revisions to fine-tune their selection.
The new process was a big success with our partners at Ulysess Development Group and was a great way for AOR to push ourselves to adapt processes to meet our client needs. We’ve now developed several brands for Ulysses’ affordable communities that establish a strong identity, build recognition, and support long-term leasing efforts.
– Maleah Schmidt, Ulysses Communications & Community Engagement Coordinator