Branding, Design: Zing Tours

I was approached by James to help brand his tour company, Zing Tours. Firstly, what an interesting commission. Zing organizes and implements tours across the UK but also in our hometown of Liverpool. I sometimes find that a company can approach me for branding work and sometimes bring with them a lackluster company name or a shyness to make an exciting brand. Well, "Zing" didn't bring that particular challenge to me and instead brought a name that is snappy and reminiscent of the Jazz Age. An age where we also get exclamations like "cool" – I love all this I do!

Developing the logo

When a word is this succinct, beautiful, and indeed iconic, it raises its own challenges. It really can't be too stereotypically zingy or pop, but it can't avoid the axiomatic connotations either. What the company needs to convey is: we are exciting but totally reliable, considered, and prepared. This is what a good luxury tour guide should be.

Zing Tours logo design

After four or five different style explorations, it became clear that the bold, flashing serif forms presented were in the lead in terms of conveying the message and tone correctly. The hand-drawn elements and careful consideration of positive and negative forms made a word landscape of its own. Its own 'lost world', ready to be discovered. Of course, different colorways were also explored, with deep blues and burnt oranges and brighter greens, but we opted for an adventure-evoking color palette, reminiscent of great exploring modernists from the past. Think of getting in your brushed-silver, prop-driven plane and finding a new culture in a strange and wonderful place.

"Zing: Discover new places, people, and things" was developed as a working strap-line and ethos.

The Zing Tours monogram

A banner for Zing Tours designed on a quick turnaround!

https://www.zingtours.co.uk Give them a visit!