We live in a constantly changing world. Just as we evolve on a personal level every day, our businesses, and our brands too, evolve and are shaped over time.
After a few years at the heart of our company, we felt the need to revive our brand in a version 2.0.
Today, after having received many compliments on our rebranding and many requests from you on our inspirations behind this direction, we are pleased to reveal to you some secrets behind our current brand.
A Stronger Identity
We wanted to create a much stronger, more defined, and deeper identity. No longer the same entrepreneurs as a few years ago, it was important for us to transcribe this maturity. Being an international business, we thought of an almost universal identity resonating with strong values for Juvan as for me (Melanie) such as courage, benevolence, and authenticity.
Our M&J brand is the meeting of two worlds, that of marketing/branding with that of finance/sales. Beyond these two worlds, we also have this balance of feminine energies and masculine energies. We have worked and developed with finesse a balanced, innovative identity allowing everyone to find their way around M&J and take the important elements that they may miss at certain times in their business.
A few weeks ago, we discovered a very interesting Korean drama about start-ups. In this drama, a business was inspired by a story of a little girl learning to swing. When this child first fell off that swing, she asked her father to put sand under the swing for her. Thanks to her father’s presence next to her and the sand below, she was no longer afraid and dared to continue learning to swing. When she fell again, the fall was no longer so brutal, it was a sweet invitation to start again, to persevere to reach new heights.
This is also M&J, at the heart of our identity, the M&J world is there to help, support, and grow modern entrepreneurs and businesses. From a world where you are offered an almost omnipresent duality, between the feminine or the masculine, we have dreamed and created a world where the two live and coexist together in harmony.
The Brand Aesthetics
For the aesthetics of our M&J brand, once again it was beaten around our history as founders, our audience, and our positioning in the market. Having grown up dreaming of perfume, magic, luxury brands and having worked for a few years in these universes, I also wanted to create an aesthetic allowing everyone to dream, to grow with, and also to have this WoW effect. This effect of greatness. Juvan, for his part having an ambitious and avant-garde vision, wanted to add a little power, masculinity, and modernity.
As I mentioned to you before, it’s all about the balance, finding that balance, and that right note. So we gave life to a logo representing this world with a circle, the M and the J not side by side, they are together, one is born into the other very gently. The typeface is modern and at the same time unique, the buckle of the J has been particularly worked to bring a touch of originality while making it more rounded, softer. The M is more corporate to bring this modernity to our brand.
As for our color palette, it is mainly articulated around three colors.
– black brings rigor and simplicity to our brand. It also gives it a sophisticated side while suggesting refinement and luxury.
– white suggests perfection, purity. This color is there to enhance other colors and play with contrasts. On a more personal note, it reminds me of the color of ice since I have been figure skating for many years. It was also during this period that I dreamed of being in the world of fashion and perfumes. So this color is a starting color and was very important to me.
– gold is immediately synonymous with prestige and luxury. However, if we stop at the colors reminiscent of wealth and luxury, then we could have chosen the color silver. For Juvan even more particularly, the gold coming from the yellow gives a solar side and joie de vivre. We also wanted to warm the hearts and minds of our customers. The color gold reminds us of the sun shining most of the year here in Cape Town, South Africa. This color is therefore part of Juvan’s heritage and dresses our brand so well.
For the choice of our images, our videos, our filming locations, our clothes, our speech, we also wanted to transcribe this brand personality and vision. I won’t reveal all of our secrets to you today….. but don’t worry I will share more with you next time.