Bazillion
Job:12-84823 Title:RP-Graphic Design That Works (LDW)
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Client
Bazillion is a telecommunications company providing
high-speed voice and data delivery service that com-
bines telephone, cable, and the Internet.
ART DIRECTOR
Ray Ueno
DESIGNER
Katrin Beeck
FIRM
The Leonhardt Group
Process
When Nutel approached the Seattle-based Leonhardt Group, the telecommunica-
tions company was seeking a new name and visual identity for its high-speed voice
and data delivery service. “The company was moving forward into broader markets
and bigger ponds and felt limited by the name Nutel: It didn’t stand out from the
crowd, plus it sounded like ‘noodle,’” says TLG creative director Ray Ueno. To pin-
point what kind of image the company wanted to project, the TLG team began by
presenting the client with a variety of names. “We spanned the spectrum from big,
scary, corporate-sounding names like ‘Octacom,’ which sounds like something out of
the movie Terminator 2, to friendlier, more feisty names like ‘Bazillion,’ which has a
young, dotcom-ish kind of feel,” says Ueno. After the client chose Bazillion—and the
message of friendliness and fun it implied—the design team turned its attention to
logos. Early explorations ranged from abstract shapes to human figures to type
treatments featuring computer icons in place of the A in the company’s name. None
of them, however, was distinctive enough and all were soon abandoned, says Ueno.
Inspiration for a new direction hit when Ueno was driving to work one morning and
spotted a flock of sparrows in the sky. Noticing how the individual birds moved
together as a group, swarming from one point to another, Ueno thought of
Bazillion’s delivery system: information is chopped up into bits, bundled into little
packets, shot through a cable, then reassembled on the other end so that a receiver
hears a voice or sees data on his or her computer screen. Once at the office, Ueno
mentioned the swarm concept to his team and they began experimenting with dif-
ferent ways to visually represent the idea. The result was a mass of small bs, dense
in the center and growing increasingly sparse at the edges, with a larger b, for
Bazillion, reversed-out in the center. Deeming it a strong direction, the team further
refined the design by creating a running figure out of the swarm to add a playful
touch. Lastly, a logotype, based on Univers, was added. Orange was chosen as a
color to differentiate the company from the blues and reds that dominate the
telecommunications category.
What Works
The logo, a running figure composed out of a swarm of lowercase bs, visually con-
veys the movement of millions of bits of data speeding from one place to another.
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