Logo and Branding: Altime Associates

Altime Associates is an independent, French based, consulting and management firm established in 1994 with international offices in Tunisia and Marocco. It aims to deliver strategy, governance and operational performance to its clients through a multicultural and multidisciplinary network of partners and employees. The company’s new identity, created by design agency Figtree, conveys a sense of personal responsibility, trust, consistency and pride through a simple, single weight, geometric monogram and a tall, rounded, sans serif typeface.

“In Europe, there are more than 550,000 consultants in more than 50,000 consulting firms. Our objective for Altime Charles Riley was to help them stand out. After a comprehensive audit of the market place, we conducted workshops to immerse ourselves within the culture of Altime Charles Riley. This allowed us to identify and express what makes them unique; a brilliant combination of human intelligence and systems.”

“To express this new positioning, we changed the name of Altime Charles Riley to Altime Associates. We then developed a new graphic identity to reflect this name change. The identity consists of a strong and singular monogram, which has a dynamic energy that speaks of progress and positive change. We wanted the marque to be seen as a seal of quality, being embossed or engraved onto documents, suggesting the the personal service that Altime Associates provide. The use of diagonal lines is a simple yet striking visual language that creates a sense of movement and transition, coupled with typography that is unified and systematic. The muted colour palette and rounded typeface bring a softer touch, creating an overall identity that feels intelligent and logical, yet human and personal.”

- Taken from the Figtree website

There have been a few single line-weight monograms emerging recently but for good reason, the contemporary execution of a personal seal fuses traditional business ideals with a modern understanding of people, technology and management processes. The double A has been really well executed with a solid amount of internal space while the extended bar, forming a straightforward ligature, is perfectly set through the centreline introducing a sense of integrated service practices and in conjunction with its consistent weight, reliability. The distancing of the A’s from the outline is perhaps unnecessarily equal when considering the difference in proportions of the apex and its wide base but this does give it an almost mathematical resolution that compliments its geometric construction (pragmatism) and lack of superfluous detail. The accompanying logo-type appropriately mirrors the weight and rounded terminals of the monogram while its unusually tall letterforms deliver a unexpected quality, one that mixes technology with stature to visualise and convey knowledge and authority but with an accessible edge. The cream offsets the starkness of the monogram and the technology of the type, warming it with a more classic sensibility and resolving the accumulated human experience of the company.

Visit the BP&O Logo Gallery for a chronological guide to all the identities reviewed on BP&O.

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Richard Baird Richard is a British freelance designer and writer who specialises in the development of logos, branding and packaging. He has written for Brand New and Design Week, is an editor for The Dieline, has featured in Computer Arts magazine and also runs the resource Design Survival. Follow:     |     Twitter     |     Facebook     |     Portfolio     |     Contact