MarComm News: Trollbäck+Company Designs Strategy and Visual Identity for Audio Start-Up IRIS

New York branding and design studio Trollbäck+Company has created a substantive, industry-disrupting brand identity for IRIS, a next-gen audio technology start-up promising to revolutionize the way we see, live, and experience sound.

In advance of its July 28th IRIS Flow Headphones launch, Trollbäck+Company delivered a compelling brand foundation, logo and visual identity to position IRIS’ patented audio technology as a new era of “Active Listening” — helping the UK-based audio brand stand out in a sea of corporate 360° audio and 3D sound technologies.

Alex Moulton, Chief Creative Officer, Trollbäck+Company says: “By leaning into the science, technology, and sustainable philosophy at the heart of IRIS, we’ve given IRIS the tools to tell a brand story that goes beyond product and shows people how better sound can shape a better world.”

Jacobi Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe, Founder & CEO at IRIS says: “Brand was an essential tool for us in securing funding and investment to bring IRIS to market, and the work by Trollbäck+Company empowered us to tell our story and enact mission for investors and audiences alike.”

IRIS, which promises to add a live, immersive quality to any recorded audio was founded by a three-person team of entrepreneurs and audio engineers in 2018. After doing a deep dive into the science and technology of 3D audio, Trollbäck+Company kickstarted the initial branding process last year by developing an initial strategy, vision, and tone of voice for the IRIS brand. 

Elliott Chaffer, Executive Creative Director, Trollbäck+Company says: “Our work successfully positions IRIS as a bold, experimental, and human-first alternative to the current chaos of the emerging, immersive audio industry.”

By communicating all of the ways IRIS is working to ignite a movement to Listen Well –– from drastically improving sound quality and dynamics to its unique parallels with the future of wellness, science, and sustainability –– Trollbäck+Company helped take the IRIS brand from concept to market, using compassionate storytelling to attract funding and interest in its initial investment and planning phases.

IRIS’ logo, color palette, and eye-catching visual identity similarly work together to paint a picture of a modern and connected world of living sound.

In the logo and lettermark, two interlocking pieces of the IRIS ’S’ represent the formation of a living system; the internal and external; the intersection of immersive technology and progressive biology. An accompanying visual identity, brought to life a Fibonacci-inspired design system of layouts, textures, and colors helped further define that vision as the brand generated early excitement. 

The logo is now featured across a vast array of IRIS-designed products, from app buttons to internal speaker design to custom Red Bull Racing headsets created for the brand’s official audio partnership with Aston Martin. 

Today, IRIS launches its state-of-the art wireless headphones with built-in IRIS technology to the public, bearing the lettermark designed by Trollbäck+Company.

IRIS will launch the headphones with a campaign called ‘Find Your Flow’, exploring the way in which flow state and immersive audio play a crucial role in human performance and mental wellbeing. The campaign will feature Max Verstappen and Alex Albon, drivers for Formula 1 team Aston Martin Red Bull Racing, who are a partner of IRIS, alongside a variety of voices from different walks of life; all connected through stories of how they find their flow.

For IRIS, brand has played an integral role in defining the company from its nascence. Using design and strategy, the work by Trollbäck+Company positions the brand as a compassionate, human-led product while simultaneously highlighting the impressive, state-of the art design and technology that drives the brand’s appeal. When brought together, these elements ultimately serve to define IRIS as an audio brand on a mission to reshape the audio industry — and encourage us all to “Listen Well.”

Full post here.