Olson is a Minneapolis agency that was recently acquired by ICF, a global digital marketing and communications firm. With the change, and also a new name, Olson (ICF Next) wanted to rebrand with a fresh image.

I’ve contracted with Olson in years past on a variety of accounts (Belize, Country Inns, US Bank, Sharp, Cameron’s, PF Chang’s—among many others) so I was excited about coming onboard and being a part of working toward their new image.

With most of the rebrand created internally, they needed an ownable design style for iconography to accompany their new simple and bold mark and vibrant color palette. The icons are something that would be used on anything from their website, to internal communications, to client presentations.

I started with designing three different styles using just a couple of icons. This was a good way to explore how they wanted their personality to communicate through simple snippets of design.

Each style communicates a clear message, but are designed differently to fit alongside the new brand identity. The three directions each have their own personality, while all clean, modern and innovative.

To differentiate each concept, I outlined the distinguishing characteristics between each one, to better be able to decide on a concept that is the right fit for the new brand.

We settled in on something that was simple and bold, based on geometric shapes, monoline and just one-color, to be able to fit well with the use of their established vibrant color palette—all encompassing a style that is unique and own able.

We built a set of about 60 icons as tools they can use for their brand. From symbols, to process expressions, to transportation or tech representations, there were a variety of subjects created in the set.

Some of my favorites were the brain, mountains, girl, airplane, shopping cart, and thumbs up.